Reflection
Having not been directly involved in research for several years, I was relieved to read that the perceived stigma formerly associated with open access (OA) journals is diminishing. McKiernan et al. 2016 provides considerable encouragement to researchers pursuing OA publications. In addition to the flexibility OA forums can provide to authors, many OA journals use a transparent peer review process, where the review is published with the paper. Additional benefits include funded fellowships and career advancement for those implementing open research practices (an added bonus I had not even considered)! Perhaps what is most telling about the acceptance of OA standards in the research community, are the recent policy changes by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and other federal agencies; all indicators that OA is becoming the new standard.