The Heliocentric Model of Open Science Documentation Conceptual Structures for Effective RDM

Open Science (OS) promised a paradigm shift, a revolution in how we conduct and share science to create a reliable and accessible scientific knowledge base. It delivered techno-solutionism, e.g., open data, open infrastructure, open access. More than a decade later, there is not a single example of a study documented with complete transparency– instead, we have prioritized archiving experimental results or analysis code, thereby skirting the fundamental issues. Some argue the problem is lackadaisical adoption of OS. We argue the problem runs deeper: we are dealing with a broken metonymy (a literary trope whereby a part represents a whole) where the tools built to address insufficient transparency are conflated with actually addressing insufficient transparency. Those are not the same thing. For example, simply having and knowing how to use tools needed to build a house does not mean one knows how to build a house. We need to understand what the final structure must look like and why, as well as have a plan for how to build it and distribute the labor. We introduce the Heliocentric Model of Open Science Documentation as the conceptual framework needed to understand what Open Science must look like to support process-wide transparency. We argue that tools like open data and open infrastructures should not be promoted separately, but must instead be reconceptualized as mutually dependent and compulsory components of scientific documentation, intended to effectively document researchers' decisions, actions, & interpretations. In other words, Helio reconceptualizes science as a human process embedded in human cognition, and for human use. (Note to reviewers: this is not a computational model but a conceptual framework. Because this is a conceptual framework, there is no associated software or computational modelling.)