Exploratory study of quality control mechanism for academic papers in the Internet era: A case study of Sciencepaper Online in China

Information and communication technologies such as the Internet can both challenge traditional ways and open opportunities for solving existent problems of present academic quality assurance system. Sciencepaper Online in China (CSPO) has adopted a sophisticated mechanism for quality controlling, which can be represented by "Publish Online First, Author Selected Peer-Review Later". Using a five-star rating system for quality labelling, each reviewed paper will be assigned a one to five star grade label, corresponding with Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, and Excellent. With this system, CSPO innovatively solves the conflict between rapid publication and quality assurance. This paper investigates this unique quality mechanism with the aim to understand its operation more thoroughly and evaluate its value to the scientific communication community.