Writing, publishing, archiving.
Many people ask if it is a good idea to spend money for large astronomical projects while we are having so many other problems to solve on Earth. Since you are reading this post, you have probably answered this question already for yourself.
Nevertheless it is a legitimate question, although it should be extended to other supposedly unnecessary things as well… should we spend money for soccer players, vacation, the latest Harry Potter movie? However, this is not the topic of this post. But we astronomers have to think sometimes how to give something back to the general public which is paying our observatories, our instruments, and - of course - our salaries! The most natural and probably one of the most rewarding activities in this sense is telling the public about our discoveries. Public Outreach. That’s one of the reasons which let me participate in the Cosmic Diary project. Also, whenever we have visitors here at APEX who want to see our installations and the telescope, I am always more than happy to show them around, since I think the taxpayer should see where his/her money goes.
Thinking further it’s not so illogical that professional success of astronomers is measured by how many papers they publish, and by the impact these papers have on the astronomical community. Although it has its downsides: an operations astronomer at an observatory (like me) or a university professor with teaching duties will never publish as many papers as a 100%-astronomer at a research organization, although their work is important as well.
But there is no way around: If you get excellent data and don’t publish it, they are lost! As well as all the money that went into getting these data. But what does this publishing process involve? First, of course, you have to write your paper. During this process, an astronomer is a bit like a salesman, telling his colleagues how great his data are. Remember that in this phase the writing is usually not for the public (that comes - hopefully - later), it’s for the astronomical community. Ideally this paper comes with nice pictures. If one nice picture of your paper makes it on the cover page of the journal you are publishing in - great (up to now I never achieved this…).
APEX data on the A&A cover page (from Vlahakis et al., A&A 485, L25 (2008))
What comes next? Well, there is actually one step more before publishing: When a paper is accepted for a journal (and sometimes even already when it is submitted), many people publish it on a preprint server. Astronomers usually use arXiv.org, and I actually heard about people who regularly check this preprint server rather than the journals in order to be informed about latest discoveries. But beware: Depending on where you want to publish your science, the publisher doesn’t like this paper to be available elsewhere. This is kind of understandable, since if all papers were available otherwise, who would subscribe to a (expensive) refereed journal anymore? The most popular astronomical journals usually don’t have problems with this, but others do. You could ask “I am the author, why should I care?”, but in order to get your science published, you normally will have to transfer the copyright to the publisher (i.e. you sign a so-called “Copyright transfer agreement”), and obviously you are bound to what you signed.
Some people publish so many papers they do not read these agreements, they consider it a formality… but there are services on the web that can tell you what is usually allowed depending on the publisher (e.g. SHERPA/RoMEO). Some publishers allow almost everything (you even keep the copyright), with others you cannot use services like arXiv.org neither to publish a preprint, nor to archive your paper after it has been officially published. Thus the only online source for your article will be that publisher, and everyone who wants to see your results, has to (probably) pay for it, no matter how much taxpayer’s money has gone into your research before. Fortunately, the publishers which belong to the last group usually work in other fields than astronomy… we astronomers have a good amount of freedom when it comes to “recycling” our science. Even SPIE, although it does not allow archiving the material on arXiv.org, allowed me to put a copy of one of my recent articles on my personal webpage, or a webserver which is under control of my employer, which is kind of a fair compromise.
And even if the publisher is more restrictive: If you intend to recycle your science for a different audience, it’s usually no problem to rewrite the paper, add additional data, or slightly change the figures. For example, a published paper in an astronomical journal can be rewritten, in order to be published again in a press release of your organization, or even in the local newspaper in order to share your results with the general public. Most people who read that newspaper would hardly ever pay several thousand dollars per year for the subscription of a highly specialized journal anyway…
Tags: ArXiv, Copyright, Preprint, Publishing, SHERPA
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Michael,
After reading your post, it seems to me that the worth of an astronomer, and for that matter, most other scientists as well, is measured partly by their perceived contributions to the community, and eventually the world, through their work.
Obviously, in our rapidly growing global society, the number of intellectuals who seek to uncover the mysteries of the universe are much greater than in the days of the ancient astronomers.
The pressures they faced, be they religious or lack of education among the masses, are mostly no longer present, but the pressures of today surely include having your discovery being presented by someone else first if you are not quick to publish your material, or have it plagiarized by a less-honorable individual.
I am certainly no expert in any field of science, and I claim no great knowledge of astronomy in particular, but what do you think are some of the areas that are receiving extra attention from astronomers who are seeking to have their name known for being the one who found some new, groundbreaking, data?
Anthony Harbo
May 24th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Hi Anthony,
thanks for your comment. One point you mention, the danger that somebody publishes your discovery first, indeed puts some pressure on astronomers to publish their results quickly. Despite global collaborations, there are usually competing groups, working on similar fields as yourself.
To your question: this extra attention is received by all topics that are of high interest for the general public, i.e. things you could expect to read in a daily newspaper, or to watch on TV. Many astronomers agree that there are currently two key subjects:
One is cosmology, with all the questions it raises: What is dark matter? What is dark energy? What exactly happened during the Big Bang? Why does the universe exist? or similar. While most of the work done here is by theorists, experiments (in particle physics and astronomy) are needed as well.
The other is called exoplanets, planets around other stars. The question behind this is how probable is the existence of life (other than ourselves) in the universe. Just imagine astronomers would found Earth-like planets within the habitable zones around many other stars… then, from a statistical viewpoint, it would be just normal if many of them have developed some form of life, maybe similar to the life forms we know from our own planet.
Michael
May 24th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Michael,
Pretty much everything you mentioned sounds extremely interesting, and I sincerely hope that our generation is able to surmount some of those questions, if not all, so that our descendents can benefit from us just like we did from those which came before us.
Thanks for great info,
Anthony