The year 2016 in open access. Cracks in the mainstream – a subjective review | Open Science

"The end of December gives a natural opportunity to look back on the passing year. For me this is the fourth time that I write 'The year in open access' summary for opensciece.com blog. And, as usual, I am really moved when I think about how much progress has been made by the open access community in last 12 months.

For the first time I have decided to add a subtitle to this review. I think that at the end of 2016 we, without much exaggeration, can talk about 'Cracks in the mainstream' of scholarly communication. During last several years the debate on open access has changed its main subject from 'do we need open access' to 'how we should make research open'. I am far from triumphant, however the number of national research funding bodies world-wide that have started to support and promote open access publishing in recent years really makes me optimistic. We, the open access advocates, have seen this trend for some time now. However, the year 2016 brought some very serious symptoms of cracks and fractures inside 'the status quo', that previously might have appeared to be quite monolithic."