The Open Access Dinosaurs of 2015 | PLOS Paleo Community

"The use of open access publishing in dinosaur paleontology has seen great growth over the past few years, particularly for newly named critters. As is apparently my custom, I’ve put together a list of the dinosaurs named in 2015, with an eye towards their publication venues. This list includes all new taxa (a few forms with controversial–i.e., minimally peer-reviewed–publication venues have been omitted), along with some licensing data. Birds are excluded. So, what are the big trends? ... Out of 35 new taxa, 18 are named in open access or free-to-read journals–2015 is the first year that the majority of new dinosaur taxa (51 percent) are freely readable. CC-BY licenses are also on the rise, constituting 89 percent of all free-to-read taxa (versus 65 percent during 2014). This is due in large part to Scientific Reports going fully CC-BY. (if you want more on the distinction between CC-BY and “free-to-read”, check out my post from last year)  Why does this matter? Or does it? This topic has of course been covered in a number of other venues, so I’ll be brief. I’ll also preface this by saying that I have my own (pro-OA) biases on the topic, so take what I say with the appropriate grain of salt.  First off, open access makes work easily accessible to the entire paleontological community. Paleontology is a strongly international and geographically diverse discipline, with important research conducted at a variety of institutions and by a variety of individuals ..."