The online portal is called PubSpace, and this paved the way for easier access to research and information that are usually not accessible to public even to those with journal subscriptions. As a result, ordinary users like us will no longer need to make any payments before accessing them.
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Ever wonder about martian tsunamis or how astronauts stay in shape?
NASA just announced that it is making all its publicly funded research available online for free.
“At NASA, we are celebrating this opportunity to extend access to our extensive portfolio of scientific and technical publications”, NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman said in a press release.
She added that the open access archive is an invitation to people around the globe to join NASA in its quest of exploring Earth, air, and space.
It seems to me that NASA wants each and everyone to take part in discovering every minute aspect of the Earth.
While the agency always has made access to its research a high priority, the focus now is to make Nasa science data more easily accessible via ‘one-stop shopping’.
NASA announced on August 16 that nearly all of its research papers would be available through a new agency public access website.
“Making our research data easier to access will greatly magnify the impact of our research”, said NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan. The space agency then chose to create this database in order to help government, universities, industrial companies and the general public learn more about its research.
If NASA uses government or public funds for research they have to publish their findings and post the full report on Pubspace, within one year. NASA and other agencies received directions from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2013 to increase access to their research, which earlier was available via a paywall only. PMC seeks to preserve and create a way of public access to NASA’s work. I’m absolutely thrilled by this growing trend of openness and accessibility to science. Several prominent peer-reviewed journals, including Science and Nature, have launched separate open-access publications in the past few years.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy ordered numerous agencies, including NASA in 2013 to increase their research’s access.
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While NASA’s selection of articles is already available for browsing, the agency says that PubSpace will not be fully functional until sometime this fall.
