Connecting to a Cloud Database

ReVISit is inherently a serverless program. As such, we developed a storage engine architecture in order to store the data that is gathered from users as they move through the study. While you can test the program locally using the browser's local storage, you will need to set up some sort of cloud database in order to save study participant data. Our intention is that those who create the study have full control over the data that is generated by participants -- no data is ever linked back to the reVISit repository or those who have contributed to its creation. See the Deployment section for more information about deploying your study to GitHub.io once the connection to Firebase has been set up.

We provide multiple storage engines and an abstract class that you can extend to create your own storage engine. There are two cloud databases that reVISit supports out of the box: Firebase and Supabase. Firebase is a Google product that provides a real-time NoSQL database and storage solution, while Supabase is an open-source alternative that provides similar functionality that can be self-hosted (perfect for researchers who operate under strict data privacy regulations).