What would the world look like if, as proposed by the Max Planck Institute, the scholarly world flipped from being dominated by subscriptions to Gold open access? I think there are three things to say. First, incentives. A concern is sometimes expressed that when publishers are paid per paper published, they will have an incentive to want more papers to be published.

From 19th-22nd April this year, it will be my privilege to participate in OSI2016, the first annual meeting of the Open Scholarship Initiative.

There’s also this: {.aligncenter .size-large .wp-image-13201 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“13201” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2016/03/28/mind-you-its-not-all-dead-badgers-in-my-kitchen/2016-03-28-20-59-36-sushi/” orig-file=“https://svpow.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2016-03-28-20-59-36-sushi.jpg” orig-size=“2560,1920” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"Wileyfox

There’s no sense in decapitating a badger if you’re not going to make good use of the severed head. So here’s what I did with mine.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to acquire two medium-sized native mammals, both roadkill specimens in good conditions: a fox and a badger: {.aligncenter .size-large .wp-image-13160 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“13160” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2016/03/27/happy-easter-i-celebrated-by-decapitating-a-fox-and-a-badger/2016-03-27-15-09-09/”

A couple of weeks ago, I was given a pheasant, which I reduced to science and food. When we last saw it, it was down to a skinned and partially defleshed head/neck and feet.

I’m trying to free some space in my office, and I’m going to let my run of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology go: {.aligncenter .size-large .wp-image-13145 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“13145” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2016/03/24/free-to-a-good-home-sixteen-issues-of-the-journal-of-vertebrate-palaeontology/2016-03-24-07-42-13-2-stack-of-jvp/”

I’ve been lucky enough to acquire another beautiful specimen.

The European Commission is putting together a Commission Expert Group to provide advice about the development and implementation of open science policy in Europe. It will be known as the Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP). This is potentially excellent news. The OSPP’s primary goal is to “advise the Commission on how to further develop and practically implement open science policy”. But there’s potentially a downside here.

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This post shouldn’t need to be written, but apparently it does. In recent discussions of Sci-Hub, I still keep seeing people trot out idiot analogies where copying scientific papers is portrayed as the equivalent of stealing physical goods. A couple of examples: Or: It pains me to read the words of experienced and presumably knowledgeable people when they trot out such absolute nonsense.