APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science (Nosek et al. 2015opens in new window). The TOP Guidelines cover eight fundamental aspects of research planning and reporting that can be followed by journals and authors at three levels of compliance.
For example:
- Level 1: Disclosure—The article must disclose whether or not the materials are available.
- Level 2: Requirement—The article must share materials when legally and ethically permitted (or disclose the legal and/or ethical restriction when not permitted).
- Level 3: Verification—A third party must verify that the standard is met.
APA recommends sharing data, materials, and code via trusted repositoriesopens in new window (e.g., APA’s repositoryopens in new window on the Open Science Framework (OSF)), and we encourage investigators to preregister their studies and analysis plans prior to conducting the research. There are many available preregistration forms (e.g., the APA Preregistration for Quantitative Research in Psychologyopens in new window template, ClininalTrials.gov (NIH), or other preregistration templates available via OSF). Completed preregistration forms should be posted on a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSF, NIH, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network).
Read an interview with the APA Open Science and Methodology Expert Panel to learn more about TOP Guidelines.