OSF | Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines Wiki

"Each category presents template text for three levels of transparency: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Adopting journals select among the levels based on readiness to adopt milder to stronger transparency standards for authors and researchers. There are many factors that will influence level selection including considerations for implementation, and concordance with disciplinary norms and expectations. Defining distinct standards and multiple levels facilitates journals’ making informed decisions among the possibilities. Also, it acknowledges and embraces the variation in evolving norms about research transparency in the present science ecosystem. The TOP Guidelines Committee, sponsored by the Center for Open Science, maintains an information commons for transparency standards, serves as an advisory group for journals and funders, evaluate guidelines’ effectiveness, and manages guideline updating to maximize quality and interdisciplinary applicability. Updates to standards are recorded with version number and date. Adopting journals and funders can denote the version number that they adopt to facilitate tracking and updating of standards over time. The remainder of this document provides template guideline text for Level 1, 2, and 3 transparency standards for each category. The Appendix provides the full-text template for each level, and the TOP Guidelines Summary table provides an accessible overview of the Levels as well as a comparison of common journal policies that do not meet the transparency standards. For information on background and rationale, see the forthcoming report by the contributors to the first TOP Guidelines meeting on November 3-4, 2014."