> Do you have a link to what goes into methodological review, esp good review, so I can try to assess how to reduce its cost? You can read PLOS One's criteria

> Do you have a link to what goes into methodological review, esp good review, so I can try to assess how to reduce its cost? You can read PLOS One's criteria here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication or their reviewer guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/reviewer-guidelines http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/reviewer-guidelines which states: Unlike many journals which attempt to use the peer review process to determine whether or not an article reaches the level of 'importance' required by a given journal, PLOS ONE uses peer review to determine whether a paper is technically sound and worthy of inclusion in the published scientific record. So basically they've removed any assessment whatsoever about the "importance" of the work, but keep the aspect that assesses for scientific soundness. One note on that is that it allows you to use a broader pool of reviewers. If I'm looking for reviewers to assess the impact of a certain study, I'm going to need potentially very specific people who deeply know the field and how this particular study falls in the context of other noteworthy studies. However, if I only need reviewers to assess scientific soundness I can include a larger pool of reviewers for each paper, since theoretically someone's ability to assess scientific method doesn't require quite the same deep expertise (obviously there's still a good amount of expertise required, just not within the specific micro sub-specialty). So the theory is that that allows you to do faster peer review and accept more papers because 1) you don't have to be so specific with regard to finding the right reviewers, 2) the review itself is faster because the reviewer can focus purely on methodology, not on importance, and 3) you can accept everything that meets the methodology bar. And remember that the revenue of these types of journals is directly related to how many articles are accepted because it's purely author pays upon acceptance. But other than those distinctions in general the peer review process is the same as a traditional journal. Typically at least 2 reviewers, and either single-blind (which is the case for PLOS and others like PeerJ) or double-blind. And typically the process can take a few rounds, because the reviewers can reject a paper in its current form but ask for a revision and then re-review the new version. The PLOS pricing is listed here: https://www.plos.org/publications/publication-fees/ https://www.plos.org/publications/publication-fees/ PLOS One is their megajournal that does the type of methodological review discussed above. Other PLOS journals, like PLOS Biology have different review criteria (and higher author charges) that does include importance as a factor (http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/editorial-and-peer-review-process http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/editorial-and-peer-re...).