Developing the tasks-toward-transparency (T3) model for research transparency in open science using the lifecycle as a grounding framework

An increasingly data-intensive research environment has highlighted the need for greater research transparency to facilitate integrity and trust in open science and in the conduct of research more widely. The initial findings of faculty researchers' behaviors and practices toward research transparency, using the research data lifecycle as a grounding framework are reported. Four focus group sessions were conducted with faculty researchers in different disciplines, including natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and different transparency practices were captured using the researchers' own language. Four generic transparency components were identified: action verb, object, task, and stage in the research lifecycle. The inter-relationships between specific transparency components were visualized using network visualizations. The network visualizations suggest that the lifecycle stages of Process/Visualize/Analyze and Publish/Preserve/Archive are key points for transparency, where ‘data’ play a critical role demonstrated by the multiple node-edge relationships. Based on the findings, a conceptual model, termed the Tasks-Toward-Transparency (T3) Model, was developed. This model may inform researcher practices and support research stakeholders whose role is to articulate and deliver transparency advocacy, policy, training programs, and services.