The AAS Journals and Open Science

The mission of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe as a diverse and inclusive astronomical community. The Journals of the AAS cover the domains of astrophysics, heliophysics, and planetary science, and publish over 5000 articles annually. In addition to dedicated Science Editors, the Journals employ Data Editors. The role of the AAS Data Editor, which was started in 2000 and expanded to a journal staff of three full-time PhDs in 2023, has the expressed goals of increasing data sharing and improving the overall published results in the AAS Journals. The value of open data depends not simply on its accessibility but also on its quality and reusability. I will describe how we work with AAS authors to increase data sharing, to enable data and software citation, and to curate and improve data products as part of the Journal peer-review and publication process. This work includes both our review of initial manuscript submissions and our curation of the data submitted by authors in tabular and other domain-specific formats. Lastly I will describe how the AAS Journals interface presently with NASA data archives and international knowledge bases and our aims for improving these links and relationships in the future.