The Open Journal of Astrophysics – Call for Editors
It’s nice to see that my recent post on the Open Journal of Astrophysics has been attracting some interest. The project is developing rather swiftly right now and it seems the main problems we have to deal with are administrative rather than technical. Fingers crossed anyway.
I thought I’d do a follow-up re-iterating a request in that recent post. As you will be aware, the Open Journal of Astrophysics is an arXiv overlay journal. We apply a simple criterion to decide whether a paper is on a suitable topic for publication, namely that if it it is suitable for the astro-ph section of the arXiv then it is suitable for the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This section of the arXiv, which is rather broad,is divided thuswise:
- astro-ph.GA – Astrophysics of Galaxies.
Phenomena pertaining to galaxies or the Milky Way. Star clusters, HII regions and planetary nebulae, the interstellar medium, atomic and molecular clouds, dust. Stellar populations. Galactic structure, formation, dynamics. Galactic nuclei, bulges, disks, halo. Active Galactic Nuclei, supermassive black holes, quasars. Gravitational lens systems. The Milky Way and its contents - astro-ph.CO – Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics.
Phenomenology of early universe, cosmic microwave background, cosmological parameters, primordial element abundances, extragalactic distance scale, large-scale structure of the universe. Groups, superclusters, voids, intergalactic medium. Particle astrophysics: dark energy, dark matter, baryogenesis, leptogenesis, inflationary models, reheating, monopoles, WIMPs, cosmic strings, primordial black holes, cosmological gravitational radiation - astro-ph.EP – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics.
Interplanetary medium, planetary physics, planetary astrobiology, extrasolar planets, comets, asteroids, meteorites. Structure and formation of the solar system - astro-ph.HE – High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena.
Cosmic ray production, acceleration, propagation, detection. Gamma ray astronomy and bursts, X-rays, charged particles, supernovae and other explosive phenomena, stellar remnants and accretion systems, jets, microquasars, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes - astro-ph.IM – Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics.
Detector and telescope design, experiment proposals. Laboratory Astrophysics. Methods for data analysis, statistical methods. Software, database design - astro-ph.SR – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics.
White dwarfs, brown dwarfs, cataclysmic variables. Star formation and protostellar systems, stellar astrobiology, binary and multiple systems of stars, stellar evolution and structure, coronas. Central stars of planetary nebulae. Helioseismology, solar neutrinos, production and detection of gravitational radiation from stellar systems.
The expertise of the current Editorial Board is concentrated in the area of (2), and a bit of (5), but we would really like to add some editors from different areas (i.e. 1, 3, 4 and 6). We would therefore really appreciate volunteers from other areas of astrophysics (especially stars/exoplanets, etc). If you’re interested please let me know. Please also circulate this call as widely as possible among your colleagues so we can recruit the necessary expertise. The journal is entirely free (both to publish in and to read) and we can’t afford to pay a fee, but there is of course the prestige of being in at the start of a publishing revolution of cosmic proportions!
If you join the Editorial Board we will invite you to an online training session to show you how the platform works.
Thank you in advance for your interest in this project, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Follow @telescoper
September 18, 2018 at 8:11 am
I actually know a few non-cosmologist astronomers; I’ll spread the word.
September 18, 2018 at 12:12 pm
Hi Peter I might be able to help for SR, depending on the workload. Please email, if interested.
September 18, 2018 at 5:55 pm
You can also advertise on astronomers FB group
September 18, 2018 at 6:59 pm
Good plan. I have posted there now.
September 19, 2018 at 9:53 am
And on Twitter. Perhaps you have already. I haven’t figured out how people find enough time to follow Twitter.
September 19, 2018 at 10:21 am
I got a few contacts through Twitter, but Facebook has generated a lot of interest so I’m very grateful for this suggestion. Now, of course, I have too many…:-/
September 19, 2018 at 7:38 am
I am a planetary scientist, specialty: interplanetary dust and small bodies more generally. I’ve been in the planetary science field since the early 80s working on two continents. I am just getting my nonprofit Baltics in Space self sustaining so I don’t have abundant time, but I would like to help. I have a lot of editorial experience. And I bring this journal to the wider community. Question: would you consider a ‘space resources utlization’ Or entrepreneurial space branch? The community needs that too.
September 19, 2018 at 9:58 am
I think that one should look at the leading journals—A&A, ApJ, AJ, MNRAS, AN, PASA, PASP, and so on—and have at least all the categories they have. In particular, computer code might be a good idea, especially if it is code which could be used in more than one of the above branches.
September 19, 2018 at 3:35 pm
Hi Peter, I can help on topics 1 and 2, if you need that. Cheers
Elena
September 22, 2018 at 4:51 pm
I’ve sent you an invitation from the OJA site. Did you receive it?
September 19, 2018 at 4:09 pm
I think I could help with the Solar System planets and exoplanets (observations, atmospheres, modelling etc.).
September 19, 2018 at 4:33 pm
Hello and good luck to this nice initiative. I saw your latest post in the Astronomers’ facebook page, and was sad to see your point about the gender imbalance in the editorial board.
What was the gender ratio in the responses you got?
Were the female astronomers that contacted you under-qualified (on average) compared to the male ones?
September 19, 2018 at 4:43 pm
In the initial responses I didn’t have any women at all, but after my second post I have quite a few. I don’t think there’s any real difference in level of qualification.
September 19, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Thanks for the quick reply. Impressive that you got no women at all the first time around…Glad the second, more specific, call to them worked.
September 20, 2018 at 8:11 am
Note that the majority who have offered their services here in the blog comments are women.
September 20, 2018 at 10:14 am
Yes. I think they might have been sent here from Facebook however.
September 20, 2018 at 10:29 am
I might have sent one. 🙂
September 20, 2018 at 2:47 pm
I work in the field of planets and small body dynamics. If my expertise is in need I will be glad to help. I am based in Brazil at the moment.