Transparency

Last updated on Nov 3, 2021

Definition: Having one’s actions open and accessible for external evaluation. Transparency pertains to researchers being honest about theoretical, methodological, and analytical decisions made throughout the research cycle. Transparency can be usefully differentiated into “scientifically relevant transparency” and “socially relevant transparency”. While the former has been the focus of early Open Science discourses, the latter is needed to provide scientific information in ways that are relevant to decision makers and members of the public (Elliott & Resnik, 2019).

Related terms: Credibility of scientific claims, <a href='/glossary/open-science/'>Open science</a>, <a href='/glossary/preregistration/'>Preregistration</a>, <a href='/glossary/reproducibility/'>Reproducibility</a>, Trustworthiness

References: Elliott and Resnik (2019), Lyon (2016), & Syed (2019)

Drafted and Reviewed by: William Ngiam, Tamara Kalandadze, Aoife O’Mahony, Eike Mark Rinke, Flávio Azevedo

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