AAS, DPS Launch Gold Open Access Planetary Science Journal

16 August 2019

This post is based on an AAS press release and a post on the main aas.org website.

Research articles reporting significant developments, discoveries, and theories about planets, moons, small bodies, and the interactions among them will soon have a new showcase: The Planetary Science Journal (PSJ). This online publication is being launched by the AAS in conjunction with the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS). The new journal will publish important research directly relevant to our solar system and other planetary systems, including observational results, theoretical insights, modeling, laboratory studies, instrumentation, and field studies.

PSJ joins the Astronomical Journal (AJ), the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), ApJ Letters (ApJL), and the ApJ Supplement Series (ApJS) as the newest of the AAS’s peer-reviewed research journals, which are produced in partnership with IOP Publishing in the United Kingdom. But PSJ will differ from AJ and the ApJ family in an important way: It will be entirely “gold open access,” meaning all its articles will be free for all to read immediately upon publication. Though the other AAS journals allow authors to publish their articles under the gold open access model for an additional fee, the default for those journals is “green open access,” in which articles are available only to paid subscribers for the first year and then freely to anyone after that period.

Articles in the Planetary Science Journal will be published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon published work, even commercially, as long as they credit the source for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of the various CC licenses and will ensure PSJ a wide readership among researchers, educators, students, and anyone else interested in the latest results in the planetary sciences.

The AAS and DPS will announce when PSJ opens for article submission, currently anticipated in mid-September. Keep an eye on this website, where PSJ will soon be included with the other AAS journals. To celebrate the launch and get the new journal off to a running start, we’ll offer special pricing — half off our regular gold-open-access rates — for the first 100 articles published in PSJ. This discount puts the price below our green-open-access rates and far below the gold-open-access rates charged by other publishers.

The Editor of the new journal is yet to be named; the AAS and DPS are searching for candidates with a record of achievement in planetary science, relevant experience as an author and referee, and a clear vision for the future of the PSJ. Previous editorial experience would be useful but is not required. The Editor will be based at their home institution and is expected to devote approximately 20% of their time to the journal. If you’re interested in this position, or know of someone else who might be, please refer to the posting in the AAS Job Register by 30 September.

Like the other AAS journals, PSJ will feature a quick turnaround from receipt through review to publication. The PSJ Editor, along with the Editor in Chief of the AAS journals, Ethan Vishniac, will rely on a combination of established AAS Science Editors and new Science Editors for the PSJ — along with the AAS Publishing team — to guide submissions through peer review and revision and then transmit accepted manuscripts to IOP Publishing for online publication.

Our goal in launching this journal is to provide a nonprofit venue for publication of research in this field that is driven only by our desire to help planetary scientists disseminate their results to the broadest possible audience, in the most comprehensive and useful way, and at the lowest possible cost to everyone.