The history of peer review, and looking forward to preprints in biomedicine - BioMed Central blog

"Early proponents of open access took pains to make it clear that their immediate goal was to improve access to research literature, and not to challenge peer review practices. They were careful not to lose the support of those who held peer review dear.

However, as new open access journals were established they did provide opportunities to experiment with enhancements to peer review. PLOS ONE, launching in 2006, famously popularized the idea of a ‘megajournal’ with its mission to publish 'scientifically rigorous research regardless of novelty'. This model was followed by a swathe of other megajournals. The Frontiers series of journals launched in 2007 and introduced ‘interactive collaborative review’, which aimed to turn the peer review process into a “direct online dialogue, enabling quick iterations and facilitating consensus”. In 2012 eLife launched with the aim of ‘taking the pain out of peer review’, again by a more collaborative approach. Gradually, the role of peer review was challenged and the practice changed. PLOS ONE introduced the idea that dissemination of research was at least as important as validation of research.

Happily, these challenges have not caused the whole world of research communication to come crashing down. In recent years there has been a bit of a rash of retractions, but these are more strongly associated with high end journals than with megajournals. The strong positions that PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports have achieved suggest that megajournals are here to stay.

A few journals have sought to modify peer review further – F1000Research and Wellcome Open Research make preprints of articles available almost immediately after submission, and then invite post-publication open peer review."