[removed]

Disclaimer: I have a master's degree in astronomy. I no longer work in academia though.

I remember from my university days (between 5-10y ago) that nearly all astronomy papers were free access. Even the ones published in Nature had a free version somewhere. I don't remember the exact locations, but I think it was a Harvard resource that hosted nearly everything I ever needed. I never felt like I had to struggle to find papers and references when I was doing my projects.

Compare that to my partner who works in biochemistry and she has to rely on preprints on ArXive.org or mailing the original authors for a free copy.

Astronomer here! You are referring to the Astrophysics Data System (ADS). It has been around since the 1990s, and yeah, astronomy basically has been completely open access since back then. We are a very unusual field in that regard, and it is darn useful for things like finding good citations for your papers- it must be so hard in other fields that don't have a tool this nice.

Yeah, Harvard hoste ADS which helps - but for e.g. Nature (astronomy) you still rely on arXiv publications for a year at least. Luckily, A&A and MNRAS don't have similar restrictions. But still, a good move on their part

Astronomer here! Believe it or not, there is actually significant concern that this will make astronomy much less accessible as a field. Two important reasons:

• The big journal run by the Royal Astronomical Society is the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS)- it has traditionally been a very important journal because unlike pretty much any other, it was free to publish in it. Obviously cool for obvious reasons, and meant researchers at less prestigious universities with less funding for these sorts of things would still be able to publish in a great journal (and MNRAS picked up the tab by having subscription charges to universities). Now, however, this means it'll be 2310 GBP (~$2700 US) to publish in MNRAS- a huge barrier for some institutes. They say there are going to be fee waivers, and authors from certain countries don't have to pay... but trust me, there are astronomers on more bare bones budgets in other countries where having "pay to play" to get your science out is going to be a hardship. :(

• Meanwhile, it is worth noting that astronomy has been open access since the 1990s! Pretty much everything goes on ArXiv.org when it's submitted/published, and older papers are available via the Astrophysical Data System (ADS), which is kinda what Google Scholar is for other science fields but leagues better. So it's not like anyone in astronomy has been hurting for a lack of access to MNRAS.

So, why is this happening? Well right now there is a push by science governmental organizations to have open access journals. I'm not knocking this at all, mind- it does seem ridiculous that the taxpayer has to pay for access- but my point is astronomy is the field that actually solved this decades ago. And, in practice, guess who's paying all those paper charges? The taxpayer, of course- it's just now in a way where it's bundled into grants, and makes the field less equitable in terms of who can afford to publish. Think of it this way- if you have a PhD student and X amount to spend on them, this is now going to mean that student will be attending one or two fewer conferences during their career for doing the same bare minimum of getting published (because I guarantee you that research grant sure ain't going up).

Mind, I don't know if MNRAS had much choice in this decision. But my point is, this is far more complicated than meets the eye from this initial press release.

Yes, that's exactly it! I even remember the layout.

[removed]

This move is actually deceptive and scummy. Yes, articles will be free to read, but only because publishers are shifting their profit mongering to shake down authors rather than readers and libraries. To wit:

> With this move to OA the journals will no longer charge subscription fees and will instead be supported by Article Processing Charges (APCs)...

So now, to finance the unpaid editors and unpaid reviewers, publishers will charge the unpaid authors thousands of dollars to publish their papers. This is literally paying to work for someone, and it's exploitative as hell. And it's furthermore a massive barrier for scientists in the developing world, as well as less privileged developed-world institutions. It's a massive assault on actual DEI.

This scam should not be called Open Access.

Do papers currently published in MNRAS also go into ADS? If so, what would the point be of this move? If not, doesn't this move still have value for access (if not for researchers wanting to publish)?

They do- literally all papers do in astro. It's an amazing resource.

The point of this move is the UK funding agencies have prioritized open access across all of science. Which is great... but in the case of astronomy, it already basically is. The only ones paying for access these days are basically universities and the like.

Aw... innit it cute when exclusive clubs hit that tipping point for open sourcing?

Heh, for my DPhil I basically relied entirely on Arxiv. There were very few occasions where I'd look at the journal's version of a paper.

It's a little surreal really - all the institutions pay great sums for access to various physics journals, and none of the researches actually have to use it because the web interface for arxiv.org is more convenient!

[removed]

"U.K. government addresses publishing crisis by making publishing even more elitist" is so in-character that it sounds like a parody headline.

"U.S. government approves merger of all scientific journals under Rupert Murdoch," is definitely the next thing we'll be hearing.

ADS has copies of old papers, and links to preprints of new ones on arXiv, but if you want the version of record from the journal site you generally still need a subscription.

Yes, but for new papers ADS is just a catalogue - it doesn't store the full text. Often you can get the paper's preprint on arXiv, but this can differ from the published version (in particular, it reflects the paper as it was before peer review).

What can you do with a masters in astronomy?

What is a DPhil and how is it different to a PhD?

All uk government funded research (UKRI) needs to be open access already. Its a change in business model from universities buying packages of journal subscriptions to universities paying for their staff’s publications. I’m sure the journals are making more money this way.

Both ways the authors, reviewers, and editors get nothing. Its disgusting. Its an abusive relationship. Its a system our careers and aspirations depend on.

I wish biological and environmental sciences would follow the same process. Also making reviewer comments public, it can be such a toxic and murky process to publish.

Quite a few things, really. I had a lot of options, but I currently work as a data engineer/scientist.

There's a few UK institutions that call it a DPhil instead of PhD (including where I went), and I don't know why. Knowing Oxford, I wouldn't discount the possibility that someone was making a point about latin word order or being different for the sake of being different.

Interesting. My PhD certificate (UK) says Doctor of Philosophy yet my title is PhD

PhD means philosophy doctor.

I was just passing by but Im gonna take that link with me. Thank you for an excellent resource.

And my certificate still says Doctor of Philosophy 🧐