Published in 2015, the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines are an influential framework for journals to design and implement publication standards. This moderated panel will discuss TOP 2025: the first major update to the TOP Guidelines.
Description
Published in 2015, the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines (TOP 2015) provided a framework for journals to design and implement publication standards aligned with these values. Since its publication, stakeholders have used TOP 2015 across various disciplines, research paradigms, study designs, and thousands of journals and other organizations (e.g., preprint platforms, publishers, funders, and research institutions). The TOP Guidelines Advisory Board decided to update TOP 2015 in order to incorporate insights from those who have used TOP and from the meta-scientific literature over the past decade. This moderated panel will discuss TOP 2025: this first major update to the TOP Guidelines. TOP 2025 includes a conceptual framework to clarify its primary objective—promoting the verifiability of empirical research claims—and to guide the reorganization, revisions, and recommended applications of the TOP Guidelines for use across its broad range of stakeholders. TOP 2025 makes three major classes of updates. First, standards are reconfigured into three distinct types: research practices, verification practices, and verification studies. Second, for research practices, levels are now streamlined so that they follow the same logical structure for all practices: disclosure (Level 1), share and cite (Level 2), and certify (Level 3). Third, we have revised the registration and reporting research practices based on cross-disciplinary feedback. TOP 2025 will help journals improve the verifiability of empirical research claims in articles they publish, and provide a shared framework for other organizations across the global research enterprise to coordinate efforts that promote transparency and openness.
David Mellor (Center for Open Science)
Katie Corker (ASAPbio)
Suzanne Stewart (University of Chester)
Short Abstract
Published in 2015, the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines are an influential framework for journals to design and implement publication standards. This moderated panel will discuss TOP 2025: the first major update to the TOP Guidelines.
Description
Published in 2015, the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines (TOP 2015) provided a framework for journals to design and implement publication standards aligned with these values. Since its publication, stakeholders have used TOP 2015 across various disciplines, research paradigms, study designs, and thousands of journals and other organizations (e.g., preprint platforms, publishers, funders, and research institutions). The TOP Guidelines Advisory Board decided to update TOP 2015 in order to incorporate insights from those who have used TOP and from the meta-scientific literature over the past decade. This moderated panel will discuss TOP 2025: this first major update to the TOP Guidelines. TOP 2025 includes a conceptual framework to clarify its primary objective—promoting the verifiability of empirical research claims—and to guide the reorganization, revisions, and recommended applications of the TOP Guidelines for use across its broad range of stakeholders. TOP 2025 makes three major classes of updates. First, standards are reconfigured into three distinct types: research practices, verification practices, and verification studies. Second, for research practices, levels are now streamlined so that they follow the same logical structure for all practices: disclosure (Level 1), share and cite (Level 2), and certify (Level 3). Third, we have revised the registration and reporting research practices based on cross-disciplinary feedback. TOP 2025 will help journals improve the verifiability of empirical research claims in articles they publish, and provide a shared framework for other organizations across the global research enterprise to coordinate efforts that promote transparency and openness.