Radical transparency is a phrase used across fields of governance, politics, software design and business to describe actions and approaches that radically increase the

openness Openness is an overarching concept or philosophy that is characterized by an emphasis on transparency (behavior), transparency and decentralized decision-making, collaboration. That is, openness refers to "accessibility of knowledge, technology a ...

of organizational process and data. Its usage was originally understood as an approach or act that uses abundant networked information to access previously confidential organizational process or outcome data.

History and uses

Modern usage of the term radical transparency coincided with increased public use of

Information communications technologies Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...

including the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Kevin Kelly argued in 1994 that, “in the network era, openness wins, central control is lost.”

David Brin Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American scientist and author of science fiction. He has won the Hugo,The Transparent Society ''The Transparent Society'' (1998) is a non-fiction book by the science-fiction author David Brin in which he forecasts social transparency and some degree of erosion of privacy, as it is overtaken by low-cost surveillance, communication and d ...

'' re-imagined the societal consequences of radical transparency remixing

Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitari ...

's ''

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...

''. However, the explicit political argument for “radical transparency” was first made in a 2001

Foreign Affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and ...

article on information and communication technology driving economic growth in developing regions. In 2006

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

’s Chris Anderson blogged on the shift from secrecy to transparency blogging culture had made on corporate communications, and highlighted the next step as a shift to ‘radical transparency’ where the “whole product development process slaid bare, and opened to customer input.” By 2008 the term was being used to describe the

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...

platform that radically decentralized the power, voices and visibility of governance knowledge that was previously secret.

Contexts

Radical corporate transparency

Radical corporate transparency, as a philosophical concept, would involve removing all barriers to free and easy public access to corporate, political and personal (treating persons as corporations) information and the development of laws, rules, social

connivance Connivance is the act of conniving or conspiring, especially with the knowledge of and active or passive consent to wrongdoing or a twist in truth, to make something appear as something that it is not. A legal finding of connivance may be made ...

and processes that facilitate and protect such an outcome. Using these methods to 'hold corporations accountable for the benefit of everyone' was emphasised in Tapscott and Ticoll's book "The Naked Corporation" in 2003. Radical transparency has also been explained by Dan Goleman as a

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

approach where (ideally,) all decision making is carried out publicly. Specific to this approach is the potential for new technologies to reveal the eco-impact of products bought to steer consumers to make informed decisions and companies to reform their business practices. In traditional

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...

management,

damage control In navies and the maritime industry, damage control is the emergency control of situations that may cause the sinking of a watercraft. Examples are: * rupture of a pipe or hull especially below the waterline and * damage from grounding (ru ...

involved the suppression of public information. But, as observed by

Clive Thompson Clive Thompson may refer to: *Clive Thompson (businessman) (born 1943), Deputy Chairman of Strategic Equity Capital *Clive Thompson (journalist) Clive Thompson (born 30 October 1968) is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger, and science and t ...

in ''

'', the

has created a force towards transparency: " re's the interesting paradox: The reputation economy creates an incentive to be more open, not less. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it. Being transparent, opening up, posting interesting material frequently and often is the only way to amass positive links to yourself and thus to directly influence your Googleable reputation. Putting out more evasion or PR puffery won't work, because people will either ignore it and not link to it – or worse, pick the spin apart and enshrine ''those'' criticisms high on your Google list of life."

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...

has opined that "more transparency should make for a more tolerant society in which people eventually accept that everybody sometimes does bad or embarrassing things."

Radical political transparency

Heemsbergen argues that radical political transparency consists of actors outside of the structures of government, using new media forms, to disclose secrets to the public in ways that were previously unavailable and that create new expectations around how information should be used to govern. A prominent example of these evolutions of democracy was seen in the creation of ''

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the traditional name of the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official print ...

'' in parliaments of the Westminster system, which started in pirate markets of pamphleteers illegally sharing the 'secrets' of what was said in British Parliament. ''

'' is now institutionalised in many parliaments, with full records of discussions in parliament recorded and published, while the texts of proposed laws and final laws are all, in principle, public documents. Since the late 1990s, many national parliaments decided to publish all parliamentary debates and laws on the Internet. However, the initial texts of proposed laws and the discussions and negotiations regarding them generally occur in parliamentary commissions, which are rarely transparent, and among

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...

, which are very rarely transparent. Moreover, given the logical and linguistic complexity of typical national laws, public

participation Participation or Participant may refer to: Politics *Participation (decision making), mechanisms for people to participate in social decisions *Civic participation, engagement by the citizens in government *e-participation, citizen participation ...

is difficult despite the radical transparency at the formal parliamentary level. Radical transparency has also been suggested in the context of government finance and public economics. In Missed Information, Sarokin and Schulkin take the concept even further, advocating for ''hypertransparency'' of government decision-making, a situation where all internal records, emails, meeting minutes and other internal information is proactively available to the public. Hypertransparency reverses the current Freedom of Information model of access only upon request, instead making all information available by default unless withheld for limited exemptions such as personal information or national security.

Radical educational transparency

A radically transparent approach is also emerging within education.

Open educational resources Open educational resources (OER) are Instructional materials, teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and Free license, licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" descri ...

(OER) are freely accessible, usually openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, educational, assessment and research purposes. Although some people consider the use of an

open format An open file format is a file format for storing digital data, defined by an openly published specification usually maintained by a standards organization, and which can be used and implemented by anyone. Open file format is licensed with open lic ...

to be an essential characteristic of OER, this is not a universally acknowledged requirement. In addition online courses activities are also becoming increasingly more accessible for others.Baltzersen, R. K. (2010)
Radical transparency: Open access as a key concept in wiki pedagogy
. ''Australasian Journal of Educational Technology'', 26(6), p.791-809. Retrieved May 13, 2013 One example are the new and popular

massive open online courses A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, man ...

(MOOC).

History and uses

Contexts

Radical corporate transparency

Radical political transparency

Radical educational transparency

See also

References

Further reading