Transparency , Research In - tegrity and Multiple Methods

In my view, however, what social scientists should value most highly is not transparency, but the integrity of research, understood as research that reflects an honest and systematic search for truths about society, the economy, or politics. In its various dimensions, transparency is a means toward that end. But it is only one of several such means and, like most of them, its various modalities come laden with trade-offs. Therefore, as they seek to assure the integrity of research, the gatekeepers of the discipline should weigh the value of demanding certain kinds of transparency carefully against the costs of meeting those demands, and they should do so in light of the alternative means available for securing integrity.