VPP: An Open-Source Blockchain-based System for Verifiable Research-Participation Credit Management

Managing research-participation credits is a common administrative task in psychology departments. Existing solutions rely on centralized, identity-linked databases that store students’ personal data and require operator trust for record integrity. We present Verifiable research Participation credit (VPP), an open-source system that records participation credits as tamper-resistant, pseudonymous transactions on the blockchain. VPP requires no prior exposure to blockchain technology by individual staff or students. Wallets are created upon first use in the browser and all transaction fees are covered by the institution. Credits are tied to cryptographic wallet addresses rather than to identities, which implements data minimization by design. We describe the architecture and provide a structured feature comparison with existing tools along data sovereignty, verifiability, privacy, cost, and openness. Technical validation comprised a smart-contract test suite, a transaction-cost analysis (approximately 2 euros per thousand claims plus a low one-off setup), and a structured threat-model analysis. An initial usability assessment with N = 45 students using the System Usability Scale yielded a mean of M = 65.89 (SD = 15.84), close to the canonical SUS baseline of 68. Both the technical and the usability evaluation show that the wallet-based interaction model is viable for psychology students at first encounter and during subsequent use. All source code, documentation, and deployment guides are available under an MIT license. VPP is intended as a complement or alternative to existing platforms for departments that prioritize data minimization and independent record verifiability.