Still Waiting

"Data and research results should be recorded and maintained in a form that allows review, analysis, and reproduction by others. It is incumbent on researchers involved in large, publicly-supported studies to make results available in a timely manner." (AAS Ethics Statement)*

On January 5, 2015, almost two years ago, the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy announced that it was conducting a survey of workplace climate, inviting members of the American Astronomical Society to participate. On March 15, the survey closed.

On November 12, 2015, exactly one year ago, Christina Richey presented preliminary results of the survey when she accepted the Division of Planetary Sciences' Masursky Award. She presented them again on January 6, 2016, at the annual meeting of the AAS. Journalists were told the paper was slated for publication in the spring. The paper is still not published, nor been made available upon request.

While Richey has made herself available to media who communicate these results uncritically, she has steadfastly ignored critical questions, and when her critics have pointed out errors she has even corrected them in her original presentations without acknowledgment. All my requests for information about methods and data were ignored for over half a year, and then finally rejected through a press officer of the AAS, only after I took my concerns to the president of the society. (A full account of my communications with Richey, the CSWA and the AAS is available here.)

According to its ethics statement, the AAS requires publicly funded* researchers to allow "review, analysis, and reproduction" of their results in a "timely manner". One would have thought it expects the same of research that it itself funds and conducts.

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*The statement has been updated in the new Code of Ethics. It is slightly stronger on this point: "Data and research results should be recorded and maintained in a form that allows review, analysis, and reproduction by others. It is incumbent on researchers involved in studies (especially publicly supported ones) to make results available in a timely manner." That is, while the past statement seemed to limit the rule to publicly funded research, it now merely emphasizes such research, but includes all studies in its scope.