What is the general consensus on this Scansoriopteryx study?

The vast majority of paleontologists and biologists agree that birds are descended from dinosaurs because of the significant anatomical and developmental similarities between animals in the two groups. Some dinosaurs are nearly indistinguishable from ancient birds and vice-versa. See this page from UC Berkeley's website: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html

Cladism is a philosophical theory about how to classify organisms. According to cladists, all organisms should be classified strictly on the basis of evolutionary relations, with no other information taken into account. The cladist view (which is also endorsed on the Berkeley page) is that birds aren't simply descended from dinosaurs; more accurately, they should be considered dinosaurs themselves. The majority of paleontologists are cladists, but there is significant debate between biologists over whether cladism should be favored over other methods of classification such as phenetics or genetic similarity.

It is worth noting that the majority of biologists agree that birds are descended from dinosaurs even though many are not cladists. In other words, the consensus among biologists is that dinosaurs are the ancestors of birds, but there is little consensus among biologists as to whether or not birds are dinosaurs.

The article linked in the question represents a minority view: that birds and dinosaurs are both descended from a reptilian ancestor. By this view birds and dinosaurs are closely related, but not in the direct ancestor-descendant relation favored by the majority of life scientists. Czerkas and Feduccia are among the more vocal proponents of the minority view. The linked paper is unlikely to sway anyone who holds the majority view because Czerkas and Feduccia do not seem to define the term "dinosaur" in the same way as other paleontologists. In other words, they agree with other paleontologists about which organisms are the likely ancestors of birds, but they define the term "dinosaur" narrowly enough that it would not include the ancestors of birds. Other paleontologists--i.e., most others--define the term "dinosaur" more broadly, such that the term includes the ancestors of birds.

Insofar as "consensus" in science does not require universal agreement, the best answer to your question would be that the general consensus holds that the cited study is conceptually flawed.

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Thor Hanson has a good summary of the debate, including why there is the current consensus and why Feduccia and Czerkas are in the minority, in his book "Feathers": http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/books/thor-hanso...

For a more technical argument in favor of the minority view, and one that doesn't depend on semantics, try "Taking Wing" by Pat Shipman: http://books.google.com/books/about/Taking_wing.ht...

For the quickest summary of the consensus view, try "Dinosaurs: A Very Short Introduction" by David Norman: http://www.veryshortintroductions.com/view/10.1093...

And for more on birds, dinosaurs, evolution, classification, and everything in between, rummage through this XKCD thread: http://echochamber.me/viewtopic.php?t=102076

There is no general consensus. There are two opposing camps that disagree strongly on whether birds evolved from a dinosaur. The article you cited represents the viewpoint from one of these camps, i.e. the camp that argues birds did not evolve from a dinosaur. Alan Feduccia and Stephen Czerkas belong to this camp, along with John Ruben of Oregon State and his students, Storrs Olson of the Smithsonian, the late Larry Martin of Kansas University and most ornithologists.

The opposing camp includes most cladists, and they believe strongly that birds can only evolve from a dinosaur, regardless of what the evidence says. Most paleontologiss are now cladists, so most paleontologists believe that birds evolved from a dinosaur. The cladists like to point out that most biologists also believe that birds evolved from a dinosaur. That is true, but that is because most biologists have not kept themselves up to date, and they were taught as undergraduates that birds evolved from a dinosaur. The dinosaurian origin of birds was proposed by the late John Ostrom of Yale, and he was not a cladist. John Ostrom used classic detailed comparative anatomy (a method abandoned by the cladists in favor of clado-phenetics) to convince such luminaries as Stephen Jay Gould and Ernst Mayr and an entire generation of biologists that birds evolved from a dinosaur similar to Deinonychus. However, evidence uncovered since Ostrom's proposal, such as the fact that birds have fingers 2-3-4 and that theropod dinosaurs had fingers 1-2-3, plus the fact that no bird-like theropod dinosaur has been found that is older than Archaeopteryx, have led many to doubt that birds actually evolved from a dinosaur.

Then in 2000, the Russians brought some fossils, including among them Longisquama insignis, to the USA on a tour. Several biologists looked at Longisquama under the microscope and found that it had feathers that are anatomically similar to avian feathers, and the number of people who oppose the dinosaurian origin of birds grows, since Longisquama is a basal archosaur, not a dinosaur. Scansoriopteryx is an interesting fossil, because in many ways it is more primitive than Archaeopteryx. It has feathers, and although the cladists try to classify it as a "feathered dinosaur", their classification is unconvincing. Of course the cladists can never be convinced by evidence that Scansoriopteryx is likely a primitive bird. In fact, many cladists refuse to believe that Archaeoptery is a bird. They believe instead that it is a cursorial theropod!

So that is where things stand. One camp argues that Scansorioptery is a feathered dinosaur, but the opposing camp claims that it is a bird or at the least a proto-bird that has no unique dinosaurian character. The two sides will never agree because the cladists will suffer career damage if they admit they have been wrong all these years about the dinosaurian origin of birds. The museums, which spent millions on exhibits that claim that birds are living dinosaurs, would also not admit they are wrong. To the cladists, their careers are far more important than the truth. To their opponents, the truth is far more important than whether the cladists are employed or not, since the cladists are only misleading the public and their own students.