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Space & Planetary Science

NASA Hides Science Behind Paywalls

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 26, 2013
Filed under , , ,

Water for Future Mars Astronauts?, LANL
“Perhaps most notable among findings from the ChemCam team is that all of the dust and fine soil contains small amounts of water.”
A Martian Igneous Rock That’s Surprisingly Earth-like, Caltech
“But Curiosity is far more than a one-trick rover, and in a paper published today in the journal Science, a team of MSL scientists reports its analysis of a surprisingly Earth-like Martian rock that offers new insight into the history of Mars’s interior and suggests parts of the red planet may be more like our own than we ever knew.”
NASA paywalls first papers arising from Curiosity rover, I am setting them free, Michael EIsen
“The Mars Curiosity rover has been a huge boon for NASA – tapping into the public’s fascination with space exploration and the search for life on other planets. Its landing was watched live by millions of people, and interest in the photos and videos it is collecting is so great, that NASA has had to relocate its servers to deal with the capacity. So what does NASA do to reward this outpouring of public interest (not to mention to $2.5 billion taxpayer dollars that made it possible)? They publish the first papers to arise from the project behind a Science magazine’s paywall.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

16 responses to “NASA Hides Science Behind Paywalls”

  1. Geoffrey Landis says:
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    That’s phrased in a slightly odd way. _Science_ is almost certainly the most prestigious science journal in the U.S.; it is the top place to publish groundbreaking science. I would worry about the quality of the work if they WEREN’T publishing in _Science_.

    • hikingmike says:
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      Dennis the peasant: Oh, most prestigious science journal, eh, very nice. And how’d you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.

      Science: I am your most prestigious science journal!
      Woman: Well I didn’t vote for you.
      Science: You don’t vote for science journals.
      Woman: Well how’d you become most prestigious science journal then?
      [Angelic music plays… ]
      Science: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Science, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your most prestigious science journal.
      Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of science publication. Supreme science publication power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
      Science: Be quiet!
      Dennis: Well, you can’t expect to wield supreme science publication power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
      Science: Shut up!
      Dennis: Oh but if I went ’round sayin’ I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away.
      Science: Shut up! Will you shut up!
      Dennis: Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I’m being repressed!
      Science: Bloody peasant!
      Dennis: Oh, what a giveaway! Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That’s what I’m on about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw him, Didn’t you?

      https://www.youtube.com/wat

    • kcowing says:
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      The argument is that the research belongs to taxpayer by virtue of being paid for with tax dollars. And I agree.

      • cb450sc says:
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        There’s a tricky issue there. Most journals require you to transfer copyright to them before they will publish (there’s an exception for actual government employees, who by law don’t own their copyrights). Usually the journal grants back to the author a non-exclusive right to the material, which is what allows one to issue “preprints”. These days they specify this can only be off a personal website. To issue any other copy (say, through another journal or a press release), the author must receive permission from the journal. The most prestigious journals usually embargo release and won’t allow this.

        • Geoffrey Landis says:
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          ” The most prestigious journals usually embargo release and won’t allow this.”
          “Embargo” means they ask that for no release until after the journal issue is printed.
          It is now out, so embargo is no longer relevant.

        • Anonymous says:
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          Exactly. I’ve done this many times. Right after the publication, a version of the work can be emailed around, posted elsewhere online, etc, usually saying “as published in whatever, on such and such a date, or conference”. The only thing is it’s not got the formatting, logo or other markers of the publication company. It’s just not the pretty version as it would show in a magazine. Other than that, it’s got no copyright and it’s distribution is only limited by other considerations (like being approved, “public” etc.)

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      My reaction too. And I don’t begrudge the researchers the prestige, even if it is taxpayer funded.

      It’s worth pointing out that the current model is under stress and not likely to see another decade or so. However, publishers are fighting back. Elsevier’s profit is in the billions and worth protecting. This is a fight between David and Goliath and David has a real chance. It will be interesting.

      • Geoffrey Landis says:
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        The current publishing model is definitely under stress. Not just for scientific publishing, but for books and magazines and newspapers and music. It is not at all clear what is going to replace it. Possibly a completely open-access model– but the open-access journals charge money, too, and publish whoever pays them regardless of quality. Or maybe the coming system will be that scientists just post their results on the web, with no peer review and no editing.

  2. hikingmike says:
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    Who gets the money? Just Science, or does some go to the individual scientists, or NASA? Just curious.

    • cb450sc says:
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      Actually, scientists _pay_ to publish their work. Page charges in most journals are typically of order $100/page. Color figures typically charge $300-800/ per figure. An entire paper usually costs a couple thousand to publish. Oh, we also aren’t paid as reviewers, that is typically done pro bono.

  3. dogstar29 says:
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    If you are a scientist, and want your work to be read, publish only in journals which provide unrestricted full-text access. Better yet, cite only what is available online without restriction.

    Copyright law was intended to provide the author of a “creative work” with the right to income derived from its sale, and to pay publishers for the cost of printing on paper. But scientific publishers do not pay authors or reviewers, publication is online and costs almost nothing, and subscriptions are often so expensive that scientists may not have access to their own works. As a sometime scientist, I have resented for many years the stranglehold that commercial publishers hold on the supply of knowledge. But this status quo has been shaken to the core by the unlikely heros of the Public Library of Science, stringently peer-reviewed and edited journals that are freely accessible online. PLoS One, a journal of original research, has sprung from nowhere to become one of the largest and most influential journals in the world, with credit for announcing many important breakthoughs, event though (unlike Science and Nature) it does not demand that accepted papers have “impact”. Thanks to the persistent efforts of scientists, authors now have the right to make their own papers accessible online, and many choose to do so; such papers can usually be found in Google Scholar.

  4. fcrary says:
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    Science appears to pay some fairly good lawyers. According to their web page (under information to authors) authors retain the copyright to their papers. Technically,

    “Authors retain copyright but agree to grant to Science an exclusive license to publish the paper in print and online. Any author whose university or institution has policies or other restrictions limiting their ability to assign exclusive publication rights (e.g., Harvard, MIT, Open University) must apply for a waiver or other exclusion from that policy or those restrictions.”

    Government employees aren’t covered (although I can’t tell how access to these papers is managed), and anyone working under a government contract requiring public distribution is free to publicly distribute _but_ only six months after first publication by Science.

  5. stonemoma says:
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    The system makes your chance to get a position directly depending on the amount of publications and their citation index. If you want to have a future you have to publish in science and nature. With that method only a few people have access.
    A change has to come from politics if this is what is wanted.

  6. Saturn1300 says:
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    Wow! 2 pints of water in one cubic foot of dirt. Everywhere. No need to land at a certain location. Great news.

  7. MarcNBarrett says:
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    This article is very pertinent to this discussion. It is a pretty damning indictment of the state of peer review in the world today.

    http://kazu.org/post/some-o