Addressing discoverability, trust and data quality in peer-to-peer distributed databases for citizen science

Peer-to-peer distributed databases show promise for lowering the barrier to entry for citizen science projects. These databases, which do not require a centralised server to store and exchange data, instead use participants’ devices (phones or computers) to store and transfer data directly between project participants. This offers concrete advantages in terms of avoiding usually very costly and time-consuming server maintenance for the research team, as well as improving data access and sovereignty for the participating communities.

However, several technical challenges remain to the routine use of distributed databases in citizen science projects. In particular, indexing data and discovering peers who hold data of interest or from the same project; managing safety, trust and permissions; and ensuring data quality all without relying on a central server to perform these functions requires a rethinking of the standard paradigms of database and user account management.

This presentation will give a brief overview of the Constellation software for distributed scientific databases before presenting several novel approaches (concentric recursive data search, user network-centric trust, and multiple data quality verification layers) it has adopted to respond to the above-mentioned challenges. Examples of concrete applications of Constellation for data sharing in the fields of hydrology and agronomy will be included.