Category Archives: oa.astronomy

EDP Sciences – EDP Sciences and ESO Enhance Research Discoverability with Direct Links between Astronomy & Astrophysics and ESO Telescope Bibliography Records

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“EDP Sciences, in collaboration with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is delighted to announce the introduction of links between Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) articles and corresponding ESO datasets. This initiative establishes A&A as the first major astronomy journal to feature such links, significantly enhancing research discoverability and facilitating a more comprehensive reader experience.

The ESO Telescope Bibliography (ESO telbib), a longstanding resource developed and curated by the ESO Library, Documentation and Information Services (LDIS) department, references articles published in the major astronomy journals that utilize ESO data. Now, the A&A publication platform, maintained by EDP Sciences, integrates direct links to the associated datasets at ESO telbib by leveraging its API. This development offers researchers approximately 8000 links to ESO data, enabling them to explore and analyze the linked data seamlessly.

By simply following the “ESO data at telbib”* links on the A&A publishing platform, readers can easily access the corresponding datasets. This integration expands upon EDP Sciences’ existing provision of direct links to essential astronomy databases, including the NASA ADS Abstract Service and the CDS (Strasbourg astronomical Data Center)….”

Astronomy & Astrophysics to remain in Open Access under Subscribe to Open model in 2023

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“Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is pleased to announce that it will continue to publish its research in open access for the second consecutive year under the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model. In contrast to other core astronomy journals that have transitioned or will transition to open access via the Gold (APC) route, A&A has chosen a different approach to achieve immediate open access while minimizing any potential disruption to authors or subscribers. This decision reaffirms A&A’s commitment to making its high-quality research easily accessible to the global scientific community, while also ensuring sustainability and financial stability for the journal.

A&A’s Board of Directors and EDP Sciences have confirmed that despite the challenges in maintaining subscriptions under the S2O model, they have decided to continue publishing in open access for another year. This ensures that A&A’s high-quality scientific content remains freely accessible to all readers with no article processing charges (APCs) imposed on authors. Authors retain copyright ownership and comply with institutional and funders open access requirements. The engagement of A&A with the S2O model is a testament to the journal’s commitment to open access and to providing a cost-effective publishing option for many authors, despite the challenges faced by the scholarly publishing industry….”

NASA’s Thirst for Open Source Software — and for Open Science – The New Stack

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“Software has been a crucial component to all of NASA’s major achievements, from space travel to the deepest images of our universe. Naturally, NASA’s need for high-quality scientific software has led it to open source developers, and now to an ambitious new program based on the larger principles of “open science.”

Bringing NASA’s open source message to the annual FOSDEM conference was Steve Crawford, a space-loving astronomer who is now also the data officer of NASA’s science directorate, the group engaging the scientific community to define questions and expand research….

But there’s also an outreach to the world beyond NASA — including a new $40 million, five-year program called Transform to Open Science. The idea of open science involves free availability of research information to encourage outside contributions, and NASA is actively trying to lead us there….

The official TOPS webpage calls it NASA’s “global community initiative to spark change and inspire open science engagement through events and activities that will shift the current paradigm.” Throughout 2023, NASA TOPS will be partnering with 12 scientific professional societies in the scientific community “to advance the adoption of open science, roll out an open science curriculum, and support minority-serving institutions engagement with NASA through prizes, challenges, and hackathons.”…”

Royal Astronomical Society announces all journals to publish as open access from 2024 | The Royal Astronomical Society

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“The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) has today announced that all journals published by the Society will be Open Access (OA) from January 2024. This move will enable everyone in the global community to have free, immediate, and unrestricted access to the high-quality research published in the portfolio of RAS journals….”

Royal Astronomical Society announces all journals to publish as open access from 2024 | The Royal Astronomical Society

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“The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) has today announced that all journals published by the Society will be Open Access (OA) from January 2024. This move will enable everyone in the global community to have free, immediate, and unrestricted access to the high-quality research published in the portfolio of RAS journals….”

Royal Astronomical Society announces all journals to publish as open access from 2024 | The Royal Astronomical Society

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“The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) has today announced that all journals published by the Society will be Open Access (OA) from January 2024. This move will enable everyone in the global community to have free, immediate, and unrestricted access to the high-quality research published in the portfolio of RAS journals….”

Royal Astronomical Society announces all journals to publish as open access from 2024 | The Royal Astronomical Society

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“The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) has today announced that all journals published by the Society will be Open Access (OA) from January 2024. This move will enable everyone in the global community to have free, immediate, and unrestricted access to the high-quality research published in the portfolio of RAS journals….”

Astronomers disagree on how quickly to release space telescope observations : NPR

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“As it stands now, if an astronomer makes a proposal for where to point this $10 billion space telescope, and the proposal gets accepted, that scientist usually has a year of exclusive access to the resulting observations.

Now, though, with the federal government pushing for more taxpayer-funded research to be made public instantly, telescope managers are pondering whether all of the data collected by JWST should be available to everyone right away.

They’re considering a similar change for the venerable Hubble Space Telescope. Currently, scientists who get a chance to use that instrument generally enjoy six months of exclusive access to their observations.

Proponents of open access say that sharing all of these space telescopes’ findings immediately could accelerate new discoveries and maximize the return from these powerful scientific assets.

Critics, however, worry that this could exacerbate existing inequities in who gets to do astronomical research, and perhaps even result in shoddier science as scientists race to be first to find hidden gems in the data….”

How the James Webb Space Telescope broke the universe | MIT Technology Review

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“Every day, JWST can collect more than 50 gigabytes of data, compared with just one or two gigabytes for Hubble. The data, which contains images and spectroscopic signatures (essentially light broken apart into its elements), is fed through an algorithm run by STScI. Known as a “pipeline,” it turns the telescope’s raw images and numbers into useful information. Some of this is released immediately on public servers, where it is picked up by eager scientists or even by Twitter bots such as the JWST Photo Bot. Other data is handed to scientists on programs that have proprietary windows, enabling them to take time analyzing their own data before it is released to the masses….”

The Design and Delivery of an Astrobiology Massive Open Online Class | Astrobiology

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Abstract:  MOOCs, or massive open online classes have reached hundreds of millions of people around the world in the past decade with a model of free open access learning. They are an excellent vehicle for delivering science to lifelong learners. Building on experience in designing astronomy MOOCs for Udemy and Coursera, we have created an astrobiology MOOC for Coursera called “Astrobiology: Exploring Other Worlds” that launched in April 2019. As of early 2022, about 9000 people have started the course, and nearly 10% of those have completed it. The average user rating is 4.9 out of 5. The core content is 10?h of video lectures, divided into six modules, which cover the possibilities of life in the Solar System, the search for exoplanets, the concept of habitability, the definition of life and basics of biology, evolution of life on Earth, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Pedagogy was designed around clear learning objectives and includes quizzes, writing assignments, and a final project that draws on all the concepts presented in the course where students design their own mission to characterize exoplanets. In this study, we describe the design, implementation, and subsequent success of our 2019 astrobiology MOOC.

 

NASA Releases Updated Scientific Information Policy for Science Mission Directorate

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“On December 8, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) released an important update to its comprehensive Scientific Information Policy (SPD-41a), which represents a significant percentage of NASA’s research expenditures. While this policy does not serve as NASA’s official response to the OSTP Nelson Memorandum, it is a good indication of what we are likely to ultimately see in NASA’s agency-wide public access plan, which is due out in February 2023….

Requires that peer-reviewed publications be made openly available with no embargo period via deposit in an agency-approved repository….

Requires that research data be shared at the time of publication or the end of the funding award….

Requires mission software to be developed and shared openly….

Requires that the proceedings of SMD-sponsored meetings and workshops be held openly to enable broad participation….”

NASA Releases Updated Scientific Information Policy for Science Mission Directorate

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“On December 8, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) released an important update to its comprehensive Scientific Information Policy (SPD-41a), which represents a significant percentage of NASA’s research expenditures. While this policy does not serve as NASA’s official response to the OSTP Nelson Memorandum, it is a good indication of what we are likely to ultimately see in NASA’s agency-wide public access plan, which is due out in February 2023….

Requires that peer-reviewed publications be made openly available with no embargo period via deposit in an agency-approved repository….

Requires that research data be shared at the time of publication or the end of the funding award….

Requires mission software to be developed and shared openly….

Requires that the proceedings of SMD-sponsored meetings and workshops be held openly to enable broad participation….”

Open-Source Science Initiative | Science Mission Directorate

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“NASA is making a long-term commitment to building an inclusive open science community over the next decade. Open-source science is a commitment to the open sharing of software, data, and knowledge (algorithms, papers, documents, ancillary information) as early as possible in the scientific process. The principles of open-source science are to make publicly funded scientific research transparent, inclusive, accessible, and reproducible. Advances in technology, including collaborative tools and cloud computing, help enable open-source science, but technology alone is insufficient. Open-source science requires a culture shift to a more inclusive, transparent, and collaborative scientific process, which will increase the pace and quality of scientific progress.

To help build a culture of open science, NASA is championing a new initiative: the Open-Source Science Initiative (OSSI). OSSI is a comprehensive program of activities to enable and support moving science towards openness, including policy adjustments, supporting open-source software, and enabling cyberinfrastructure. OSSI aims to implement NASA’s Strategy for Data Management and Computing for Groundbreaking Science 2019-2024, which was developed through community input….”

Science Information Policy | Science Mission Directorate

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“SMD has released SPD-41a: Scientific Information Policy for the Science Mission Directorate to provide guidance on the open sharing of publications, data, and software created in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. The core values behind the development of the policy are to make SMD-funded research as open as possible, as restricted as required, and always secure.  …

In November 2021, NASA issued a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit information from SMD communities on proposed updates to SPD-41. SMD has released a summary of the comments and responses from this RFI, which helped to inform the directorate on how to update its minimum requirements for openness and accessibility, as well as how to successfully implement the policy. 

SPD-41a is a forward-looking policy that will apply to new missions and grants starting with ROSES-2023. Existing missions and grants are not required to adopt the new guidance, but they are encouraged to do so if feasible with available resources. For new missions and grants starting with ROSES-2023, SPD-41a requires that: 

 

Peer-reviewed publications are made openly available with no embargo period.  
Research data and software are shared at the time of publication or the end of the funding award. 
Mission data are released as soon as possible and unrestricted mission software is developed openly.  
Science workshops and meetings are held openly to enable broad participation. …”

NASA’s Plan to Make JWST Data Immediately Available Will Hurt Astronomy – Scientific American

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“In August the White House announced that the results of all federally funded research should be freely accessible by the end of 2025. This will be a big change for scientists in many fields but ultimately a good move for the democratization of research.

Under this new guidance, many peer-reviewed papers would be free for the world to read immediately upon publication rather than stuck behind expensive paywalls, and the data that underlay these papers would be fully available and properly archived for anyone who wanted to analyze them. As an astronomer, I’m pleased that our profession has been ahead of the curve on this, and most of the White House’s recommendations are already standard in our field.

NASA, as a federal agency that funds and conducts research, is onboard with the idea of freely accessible data. But it has a plan that goes much further than the White House’s and that is highly problematic. The agency currently gives a proprietary period to some scientists who use particular facilities, such as a 12-month period for the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), so that those scientists can gather and analyze data carefully without fear of their work being poached. NASA is looking to end this policy in its effort to make science more open-access.

Losing this exclusivity would be really bad for astronomy and planetary science. Without a proprietary period, an astronomer with a brilliant insight might spend years developing it, months crafting a successful proposal to execute it, and precious hours of highly competitive JWST time to actually perform the observations—only to have someone else scoop up the data from a public archive and publish the result. This is a reasonable concern—such scooping has happened before….”