Transparency in design science research

Research transparency promotes openness and trust in the process, evidence, contributions, and implications of scientific inquiry. Information Systems (IS), as a pluralistic research community, must address transparency in relation to its use of multiple research methods appropriate to complex socio-technical contexts and challenging research questions. This commentary presents a set of important transparency challenges and actionable guidance for the Design Science Research (DSR) community. We propose a DSR Transparency Framework containing six forms of transparency: process, problem space, solution space, build, evaluation, and contribution. For each, we discuss challenges with guidance to achieve effective DSR transparency throughout the publication process. •Research transparency promotes openness and trust in the process, evidence, contributions, and implications of scientific inquiry.•The Design Science Research (DSR) community must address a set of important transparency challenges.•We propose a DSR Transparency Framework containing six forms of transparency: process, problem space, solution space, build, evaluation, and contribution.•The risks of DSR Transparency are discussed and future research directions are highlighted.