In development. Alpha on the Polygon Amoy testnet
OpenMaieuticaOpen practice is asked for everywhere and effectively rewarded almost nowhere.
incentivises it with Merit Tokens and NFT Open Badges, and turns it into an immutable record on a public blockchain: deposited, timestamped, certified, and checkable by anyone.
An Aristotelian view of the cosmos. Hover over the spheres to explore the sublunary and the celestial worlds; the orbits stop while you do. The blockchain is the unmoved mover.
Why Maieutica
Socrates called his method maieutics. Through dialogue and patient questioning he accompanied his interlocutor until the knowledge already possessed could come out into the open.
does the same for research. It builds the conditions in which a rigorous, reproducible and verifiable truth can emerge on its own. The framework achieves this through an incentive to openness that rewards it and recognises it, using the tools of Web3, such as blockchain, tokens and NFTs.
The logo represents exactly this: a spiral rises out of a block of the blockchain, where research takes on immutability, transparency and verifiability. It winds outward and leaves through the open O of Open Science, where it can reach everyone.
The basics
rests on a few ideas of cryptography and blockchain. Here they are in plain words, and then the three technologies the whole framework stands on.
Six ideas
A short code computed from the content of a file: change one character and it changes completely, while the same content always gives the same code. Here it is SHA-256. A fingerprint is both the name of a file and a proof that it has not been altered.
A fingerprint written on a public ledger together with its date says that a file existed in that exact form at that moment. The ledger holds only fingerprints and dates, never files, names or personal data, and a timestamp cannot be removed once it is written.
A program published on the blockchain that applies fixed rules whenever it is called, with no intermediary. In the contracts keep the registry of timestamps, issue the badges and mint the tokens.
The tool a person uses to sign operations on the blockchain and to hold what they receive. Its address is a pseudonym, not an identity: it says who signed, not who they are.
A token held by a wallet; non-fungible means that each one is unique. An NFT Open Badge is a certificate issued after a verification: it belongs to the researcher’s wallet and points to the files it certifies. Badges are soulbound: they cannot be transferred or sold.
A unit of reputation with no economic value, given for each certified open practice and not transferable. Together they form a Merit Score, an indicator of openness meant to sit beside citation counts, not to replace them.
Three foundations that were already there
Aristotle placed at the edge of the cosmos a mover that is itself unmoved: it changes nothing about itself, and everything else turns because of it. IPFS, Polygon and The Graph preexist the framework and act as its fundamental engine: the unmoved movers of .
Decentralised repository
Where the materials live
The InterPlanetary File System stores files across a network of computers and finds them by what they contain, not by where they are kept. A file's address, the CID, is computed from its content, conceptually similar to fingerprints: change one byte and the address changes. That makes a certified package impossible to swap, and lets a reader years from now confirm they hold the same materials the authors used.
Rewards and timestamping
Where the record is written
A blockchain is a ledger shared by many independent computers, with entries collected in blocks chained by cryptographic codes: changing a past block would mean rewriting every block after it, and this is computationally impossible or economically disadvantageous. It has no central authority, everyone can read it, and what is written cannot be edited or deleted. Polygon carries the timestamps, the badges and the tokens; the alpha runs on the Amoy testnet.
The subgraph for queries
How the record is read back
A blockchain is quick to write to and slow to read from. A public subgraph indexes every badge as it is issued, so a researcher's portfolio comes back with a single query instead of a scan of the chain. Anyone can run the same query and get the same answer.
The framework
's applications work together toward a verifiable, reproducible and rigorous science. , and already run on the Polygon Amoy testnet and the IPFS network. and are still in design: they will complete the pipeline and turn the framework into a scientific community.
Running in local alpha, open beta testing coming soon
Alpha
Deposit and timestamp
The researcher's console, with four slots: pre-registration, dataset, code and readme. It deposits them on IPFS and anchors their fingerprints on-chain with one signature. The pre-registration is stamped first, so the order of the stamps is part of the record.
Alpha
Verify and certify
The reviewer's and editor's console. It retrieves the package, confirms the pre-registration was anchored first, and rewards authors with Merit Tokens and NFT Open Badges, minted for every open practice confirmed. They are soulbound: they cannot be transferred or sold.
Alpha
Read the public record
The public view of studies, badges and the Merit Score, with the issuer and the recipient of every badge on screen. It walks each package live to report what is still reachable on IPFS.
In design
In design
Incentivise and open up review
Reports anchored to the exact materials they judge, so a review travels with the study. Reviewers are rewarded for their fundamental contribution to science, with tokens and a unique open badge, certified and verifiable.
In design
The beating heart of science
The square where the community stops being an audience: a decentralised social network for research. Replications are incentivised and registered against the original package, and discussions are attached to materials.
How it works
Order is evidence. A pre-registration only means something if the chain can show it was there before the data; a review can only be done when the resources are retrievable; and an open badge is only trusted when it can be checked, since it is attached to materials it certifies. The four moves run in two cycles, one for the pre-registration and one for the data and the code, and each end feeds a new beginning: the certified pre-registration opens the way to the data, and what is explored afterwards inspires new open research, a scientific ouroboros.
01
Pre-registrations, datasets and code are collected into a package on IPFS. Every file gets its IPFS identifier and its SHA-256, and a check says whether the same file is already on the chain.
02
Root, folders and files are stamped in a single transaction, each file also by its SHA-256. Pre-registrations cannot be amended; datasets and code can be added later as an addendum.
03
A reviewer downloads the package, opens it, writes a report, and mints soulbound badges and tokens. The report itself is deposited and anchored alongside the badges.
04
Anyone with the author's wallet or the fingerprint of a file can re-run the whole check: who stamped what and when, who certified it, and whether the files can still be fetched.
Two cycles, one record
Cycle 1The pre-registration
Cycle 2The data and the code
Record
Reviewer
What the record must establish
Researchers are asked to self-declare their openness: pre-registration, data and code. As a consequence, today's open badges mean that someone, at some point, shared something, but that is neither verifiable nor easily retrievable. records the same claim immutably, timestamping the bytes of the resources themselves, so that it can be re-checked at any point in time.
A timestamp on a content hash, written to a public chain. A simple but powerful way to make openness verifiable: anyone can check when each file existed, in which form, and in what order.
The identifier depends on the content: change anything and it changes. The SHA-256 of every file is registered too, so anyone can check that the files they hold are the ones that were certified.
Not merely that it exists, but that the chain records it earlier. This makes HARKing visible: anyone can check the order of the timestamps.
A badge records history; a reader wants a download. Open badges attached directly to the resources make them easy to find, through blockchain explorers and IPFS, and make it evident if a package can no longer be reached.
Try it, check it
Two ways to see the framework at work without taking our word for it: run the whole process on your own computer, or look up, from the browser, what the public chain recorded for a study.
Coming soon
The working prototype
It runs on your computer, with its own IPFS node, and walks through both cycles on a synthetic study. Installers, screenshots and a short tutorial will be gathered on their own page.
Preview
Verify a record, in the browser
A page to check, without installing anything, what the public chain recorded for a study: when each set of files was stamped, in what order, and who certified it. It does not need the Workbench.
OpenMaieutica
