The Development of Quality Assurance System Construction for Academic Journals in the New Media Era

Authors: Huang Guichun¹,², Zheng Yawen¹,², Luo Linqing¹,², Wu Yang¹,²
¹Chongqing Materials Research Institute Co., Ltd., Chongqing 400707
²Editorial Department of Journal of Functional Materials, Chongqing 400707

Abstract:
Purpose: This study aims to explore the construction and optimization of quality assurance systems for academic journals in the new media era. Through systematic analysis of internal quality assurance systems and external quality monitoring systems, as well as the impact of new media on these two systems, it provides references for other academic journal publishers to enhance journal quality and influence in the new media environment.
Methodology: This paper summarizes the specific impacts of the new media era on both internal and external systems, using the new media practices of Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press as a case study to analyze in detail its experience in gradually improving the journal quality assurance system through digitalization, informatization, and user interaction.
Results: Through analysis of Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press's practices in the new media era, this study reveals specific pathways and effectiveness of quality assurance system construction for academic journals in the new media environment.
Conclusion: The study proposes optimized development strategies for academic journal quality assurance systems in the new media era, including: strengthening digitalization and informatization to improve editorial quality and dissemination efficiency; enhancing user interaction to increase journal visibility and influence; and continuously improving internal quality assurance and external quality monitoring systems to ensure sustained quality improvement.

Keywords: new media; academic journals; assurance system; quality assurance; development strategies
CLC Number: G231
Document Code: A
Article ID: 1671-0134(2025)04-117-05
DOI: 10.19483/j.cnki.11-4653/n.2025.04.024
Citation Format: Huang GC, Zheng YW, Luo LQ, Wu Y. The development of quality assurance system construction for academic journals in the new media era [J]. China Media Technology, 2025, 32(4): 117-121.

With the rapid development of technology, new media forms such as the Internet, mobile devices, and social media are evolving daily, fundamentally transforming not only people's lifestyles but also exerting profound influence on academia [1]. As a crucial platform for academic exchange, quality assurance for academic journals has become particularly important. In the new media era, how to construct and improve quality assurance systems for academic journals to ensure their academic value and influence has become a subject worthy of in-depth research. The advent of the new media era has dramatically accelerated the dissemination of academic information and unprecedentedly expanded the breadth and depth of academic exchanges. However, new media has also brought numerous challenges, such as information overload and the spread of false information, placing higher demands on academic journal quality [2]. Therefore, establishing and improving quality assurance systems for academic journals is an essential means to address the challenges of the new media era.

As carriers of academic research achievements, the quality of academic journals directly relates to the dissemination and influence of academic research. High-quality academic journals can not only attract outstanding scholars and research findings but also promote disciplinary development and progress. Consequently, establishing and improving quality assurance systems holds significant meaning for enhancing journal quality and influence and advancing academic research progress [3]. This study aims to deeply explore quality assurance system construction for academic journals in the new media era by analyzing new media's impact on journal quality, clarifying the constituent elements of quality assurance systems, conducting in-depth case studies using Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press's new media practices, and further proposing development strategies for quality assurance systems in the new media era. Through this research, we hope to provide beneficial references for academic journal publishers to enhance journal quality in the new media era.

1. Constituent Elements of Academic Journal Quality Assurance Systems

Academic journal quality assurance systems refer to a series of institutions, processes, and mechanisms established by journals to ensure the academic quality, ethical standards, and publishing standards of their publications. This comprehensive system covers multiple aspects and aims to safeguard the reliability and credibility of academic journals, making them important channels for disseminating academic research achievements and effectively ensuring that published content meets high academic standards [4]. Academic journal quality assurance systems typically consist of two components: internal quality assurance systems and external quality monitoring systems, which complement each other and jointly promote quality improvement.

1.1 Internal Quality Assurance System

Internal quality assurance systems refer to a series of institutions and processes established within journal publishers to ensure internal operations and publication quality [5]. As the foundation of academic journal quality assurance, internal systems primarily include manuscript quality control, editorial team construction and training, and standardized management of publishing workflows. Manuscript quality is the direct reflection of journal quality and must be controlled from the source through strict screening of high-quality manuscripts. Editorial team construction and training are also crucial, as editors' professional competence and sense of responsibility directly affect journal quality. Internal quality assurance systems should emphasize internal training and exchange to continuously enhance editors' professional competence and academic level, thereby improving overall editorial quality. Furthermore, standardized management of publishing workflows represents an important link in ensuring journal quality, including manuscript solicitation, screening, peer review, editing, typesetting, and proofreading, with each link strictly following standard procedures [6]. Through the operation of internal quality assurance systems, internal management and editorial workflows become smoother, improving work efficiency, shortening publication cycles, and enabling faster dissemination of academic achievements.

1.2 External Quality Monitoring System

External quality monitoring systems constitute external evaluation and supervision mechanisms for academic journal quality, primarily including participation of professional evaluation institutions, cooperation and exchange among journals, and establishment and improvement of social supervision mechanisms [7]. Third-party evaluation institutions such as the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) can objectively evaluate academic journals in terms of academic quality, editorial level, publishing quality, and influence, providing scientific and impartial evaluation results that offer clear quality standards and improvement directions for journals. Through organizing academic exchanges and cooperation activities among journals, information sharing and experience exchange can be promoted, jointly improving overall academic journal quality and advancing the overall level of academic journals. Meanwhile, academic journals can also strengthen connections and interactions with society through external quality monitoring systems [8]. On the one hand, this can enhance journals' social influence and promote the dissemination and application of academic achievements; on the other hand, it can establish external supervision mechanisms, such as peer review and expert evaluation, to further strengthen external supervision of journal quality and improve quality awareness and social responsibility. External quality monitoring systems also play important roles in academic journal quality assurance by supervising and evaluating journal quality to promote quality improvement and prosperous academic exchange.

2. Impact of the New Media Era on Academic Journal Quality

With the rapid development of information technology and diversification of network communication methods, the new media era has exerted profound influence on academic journal quality assurance systems, manifesting in both internal quality assurance systems and external quality monitoring systems.

2.1 Simplifying Internal Processes and Raising Editorial Requirements

The new media era has transformed academic journals' dissemination methods, enabling faster and broader distribution. This requires journals to pay greater attention to timeliness and relevance in content selection, editing, and publishing to meet readers' needs for rapid access to academic information [9]. Meanwhile, in the new media environment with massive and diverse information, ensuring the academic, professional, and authoritative nature of published content presents an important challenge for internal quality assurance systems, making strict review and quality control of content particularly crucial. Furthermore, the new media era has diversified content formats in academic journals, incorporating not only traditional text and charts but also audio, video, and other multimedia elements. This requires editorial work to emphasize innovation and skillfully utilize multimedia means to present academic achievements, enhancing readability and attractiveness [10]. Additionally, the rapid development of new media technology requires editorial staff to continuously learn and master new technologies, placing higher demands on academic journal editorial teams. Editors need to constantly update their knowledge structure, improve their academic competence and editorial skills to meet the increasing quality requirements, while also strengthening their mastery and application of new media technologies to improve digital publishing capabilities.

2.2 Enhancing External Cooperation and Improving Regulatory Standards

The new media era has promoted exchanges and cooperation among different disciplines, strengthening opportunities for academic journals to cooperate and communicate with other institutions and platforms to jointly conduct academic exchange and research activities. This can not only improve academic levels and influence but also promote cooperation and development in academic research, expanding the vision and scope of external quality monitoring. Secondly, the new media era has significantly changed academic journal evaluation systems. Traditional evaluation systems primarily based on impact factors and citation frequency may see their weightings shift, replaced by new evaluation indicators such as network dissemination power and social media influence [11]. This requires academic journals to pay greater attention to network dissemination and social media marketing to improve their evaluation scores. However, with massive and diverse information in the new media era, the difficulty of ensuring information authenticity poses an important challenge for external quality monitoring systems. How to screen and identify genuine and effective evaluation information while avoiding false evaluations and malicious attacks has become a key issue. Finally, evaluation standards in the new media era are diverse and complex, with different readers, disciplines, and institutions having different evaluation criteria and requirements. How to formulate reasonable, unified evaluation standards that conform to academic development patterns represents another critical problem that external quality monitoring systems need to solve. Moreover, with network development, more scholars and readers have begun paying attention to academic journal quality issues, supervising and reporting academic misconduct and non-standard editorial practices. This requires academic journals to emphasize self-discipline and standardization more strongly, strengthening internal management to prevent quality problems [12].

3. Case Study of Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press's New Media Practices

With the rapid development of information technology and diversification of network communication methods, the new media era has profoundly impacted academic journal quality assurance systems. To actively adapt to new media development trends, Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press has implemented a series of proactive measures, placing greater emphasis on user needs and experience to achieve more efficient, convenient, and personalized services.

3.1 Digital Transformation and Content Innovation

Facing challenges and opportunities in digitalization and informatization in the new media era, Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press launched its digital transformation initiative as early as 2011 to comprehensively enhance journal quality and influence. To ensure successful transformation, the press established a specialized digital transformation team responsible for formulating and implementing digital strategies. Through cooperation with professional institutions, the press achieved online publishing and dissemination of journal content. By developing an online publishing platform offering full-text search and semantic analysis functions, users can quickly find needed content. Additionally, to meet diverse quality and format demands from readers in the new media era, the press encourages content and format innovation through multimedia and interactive content to enhance reader engagement and improve journal attractiveness. The press has also introduced multimedia content such as online live streaming, video, and audio to enrich presentation forms and enhance user reading experience. In 2018, the press introduced the Chinese Academy of Sciences' academic evaluation system and database to support data-driven decision-making and comprehensive data governance and evaluation of journals. The academic evaluation system provides objective, quantitative indicators to help editorial teams understand the journal's position and advantages in academia. The database provides rich data resources including article quality, citation frequency, and download volume, offering scientific basis for editorial teams to ensure content quality and academic value. In 2022, the press developed a cloud-based editorial platform, migrating all data from the original editorial system—including personnel data, manuscript data, and dynamic review data—to the new system. By fully utilizing big data and cloud computing technologies combined with editorial workflows, the platform enables comprehensive journal process management, allowing editors to handle all business processes including manuscript receipt, peer review, revision, editing, fee management, and statistical analysis, achieving unified and standardized editorial publishing workflow management. Furthermore, the cloud platform provides authors with professional data analysis, transforming complex data into intuitive charts that enhance article readability and offer readers clearer, more intuitive information presentation. Through introducing the academic evaluation system and database, the journal's quality assurance system has been further improved. This initiative not only enhances journal quality and influence but also injects new vitality into academic exchange and knowledge dissemination.

3.2 Social Media Marketing and Promotion

To better interact with readers and disseminate information, Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press opened a WeChat official account in 2015. Through this platform, the press regularly publishes latest academic articles, event notifications, and academic information, providing online reading and download services. The WeChat account not only expands the journal's audience but also enhances interaction and engagement with readers. To further expand influence in knowledge sharing and academic exchange, the press opened a Superstar column in 2017. Through deep interaction with Superstar users, sharing research achievements and viewpoints, the press has attracted more attention from materials science researchers. The Superstar column also provides a new dissemination channel for the journal, improving brand awareness and influence. Simultaneously, the press strengthened cooperation with other new media platforms such as Zhongyou Reading Network and China Functional Materials Network to publish journal content and interact with academic professionals. By precisely pushing relevant content, the press expanded its audience and improved visibility and influence. Additionally, utilizing the interactivity of new media platforms, the press strengthened communication with readers, collected feedback, and continuously optimized content quality and presentation forms. To enhance international influence, the press strengthened cooperation with international journals in 2014 through cooperative publishing and joint journal management to improve international reputation. Through joint journal management with international publishers such as Trans Tech Publications, the press attracted more international author submissions and effectively promoted global academic exchange and knowledge dissemination. Moreover, the press actively promoted the journal at international academic conferences and seminars to establish connections with the international academic community, providing a platform for domestic and international functional materials scholars to showcase research achievements and exchange academic viewpoints. To better adapt to diverse user needs in the new media era, the press established a user feedback mechanism in 2020 to continuously optimize journal content and operations through feedback from readers, authors, and reviewers. Using online platforms such as official websites, social media, and academic forums, the press established dedicated feedback channels for users to submit opinions and suggestions on content quality, layout design, and readability. Through real-time communication with reviewers via email and WeChat groups, manuscripts can be processed more promptly with timely feedback. This user feedback mechanism greatly improves user experience and plays an important role in enhancing the journal's influence in the functional materials academic community.

3.3 Digital Governance and Journal Evaluation

With increasing complexity and diversification of academic research, to further improve journal quality and influence, Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press introduced the Chinese Academy of Sciences' academic evaluation system and database in 2018 for data-driven decision-making and comprehensive journal data governance and evaluation. The academic evaluation system provides objective, quantitative indicators to help editorial teams understand the journal's position and advantages in academia. The database provides rich data resources including article quality, citation frequency, and download volume, offering scientific basis for editorial teams to ensure content quality and academic value. To better present academic research achievements and data information, the press developed a cloud-based editorial platform in 2022, migrating all data from the original system—including personnel data, manuscript data, and dynamic review data—to the new system. By fully utilizing big data and cloud computing technologies combined with editorial workflows, the platform enables comprehensive journal process management, allowing editors to handle all business processes including manuscript receipt, peer review, revision, editing, fee management, and statistical analysis, achieving unified and standardized editorial publishing workflow management. Furthermore, the cloud platform provides authors with professional data analysis, transforming complex data into intuitive charts that enhance article readability and offer readers clearer, more intuitive information presentation. Through introducing the academic evaluation system and database, the journal's quality assurance system has been further improved. This initiative not only enhances journal quality and influence but also injects new vitality into academic exchange and knowledge dissemination.

4. Development Strategies for Academic Journal Quality Assurance Systems in the New Media Era

4.1 Strengthening Content Innovation and Quality Enhancement

In the new media era, the competitive environment for academic journals has become more intense, as readers have more diversified channels for accessing information. They can obtain academic content not only through traditional print journals but also via the Internet, social media, and mobile applications. Therefore, academic journals need to strengthen content innovation and quality enhancement to maintain their ability to attract readers. In terms of content, academic journals should encourage interdisciplinary cooperation and cross-domain research, promoting exchanges and collaboration among different disciplines and breaking down disciplinary barriers to provide readers with more comprehensive and diversified content. Simultaneously, journals should optimize peer review and editorial processes by introducing measures such as double-blind review and external evaluation to strictly control manuscript quality and enhance academic rigor and innovation. Journals should support the publication of original research findings, advocate academic innovation and independent thinking, and provide the academic community with more new perspectives and ideas to improve academic rigor and innovation [13]. Additionally, in terms of layout and design, academic journals should emphasize standardization and aesthetics by reasonably arranging article structures to make them clear and readable, avoiding information overload and layout confusion, thereby improving readability and attractiveness. Introducing multimedia elements such as charts, audio, and video into academic journals can enrich content formats and enhance readers' reading experience.

4.2 Strengthening Digital Publishing and Network Dissemination

The new media era requires academic journals to transform toward digitalization and networking. Academic journals should strengthen digital publishing efforts, including establishing comprehensive digital platforms such as online submission systems, digital editing systems, and electronic journal archive management systems to improve work efficiency, reduce paper-based processes, and provide more convenient services [14]. They should also introduce and promote advanced digital editing tools such as grammar checkers and typesetting software to improve editing quality and efficiency, minimize typesetting errors, and ensure final publication quality. Academic journal publishers should also emphasize open sharing of information by adopting open-access publishing models to more widely disseminate academic research findings, enhance journal visibility, and increase influence. Simultaneously, they should strengthen the application of new media platforms to improve network dissemination efficiency. Disseminating academic journal content through diverse social media platforms can not only attract more readers but also increase journal exposure in academic communities. By establishing professional journal websites providing online browsing, downloading, and subscription services, and regularly sharing academic highlights, special events, and related news, journals can attract readers to gain deeper understanding of journal content.

4.3 Establishing Scientific and Rational Evaluation Systems

In the new media era, establishing scientific and rational evaluation systems for academic journals is crucial, as it directly relates to journals' reputation and influence in academia and among the public [15]. First, evaluation systems should comprehensively consider both traditional and new evaluation indicators. Traditional indicators such as impact factor and citation frequency remain important standards for measuring journal quality, but in the new media era, more new indicators need to be introduced, such as network dissemination power and social media influence. These indicators can reflect journals' attention and influence on digital platforms, more comprehensively representing actual journal impact. Secondly, multiple evaluation methods such as peer review and expert evaluation should be more widely applied. Peer review is a long-standing academic tradition, while expert evaluation in the new media era can provide more comprehensive understanding of journals' academic levels, editorial quality, and academic ethics. Additionally, introducing reader feedback and evaluation can better understand journals' impact on different reader groups. Furthermore, evaluation systems need to emphasize journal openness and transparency—journals should clearly publish their evaluation systems and update them regularly. Transparency can increase trust from readers and authors in journal evaluation and also promote continuous improvement in quality assurance. Finally, considering the diversity of academic fields, evaluation systems should be flexible and inclusive. Journals in different disciplinary fields have different characteristics and development conditions, and evaluation systems should be adjustable according to specific circumstances to ensure fair evaluation of different academic journals.

4.4 Strengthening External Cooperation and Academic Exchange

Academic journals should strengthen cooperation and exchange with other institutions and platforms to jointly conduct academic exchange and research activities. Simultaneously, they should enhance international cooperation and exchange to promote the international development of academic journals. This can not only improve academic journals' influence but also promote cooperation and development in academic research. Strengthening cooperation with academic communities and establishing partnerships with other academic institutions and research groups to jointly organize seminars and academic activities can effectively expand journals' academic influence [16]. Academic journals should actively participate in various academic conferences to exchange and cooperate with peers, understand the latest academic trends and research directions. Additionally, they can showcase their research achievements and features at academic conferences to attract more author submissions and reader attention. Academic journals can also use new media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo for online exchange and cooperation with other institutions and platforms. Through these platforms, they can publish academic information, share research achievements, conduct online seminars, and expand journal visibility and influence. Furthermore, academic journals can cooperate with other institutions and platforms to establish resource-sharing platforms, providing online sharing and exchange of academic resources to promote cooperation and development in academic research.

4.5 Strengthening Talent Cultivation and Team Building

While ensuring quality, academic journals must continuously adapt to technological and media transformations, making the strengthening of professional talent cultivation and team building particularly important [17]. Academic journals should formulate multi-level training plans to meet the needs of editorial staff at different levels. They should also reasonably optimize talent structure according to editorial team needs to ensure sufficient attention and support in all fields, thereby establishing a more comprehensive, hierarchical, and collaborative workforce. Simultaneously, academic journals should strengthen the cultivation of editorial staff's professional competence through cooperation and inviting training from experts and scholars in specialized fields to improve editors' understanding and grasp of disciplinary fields, enabling better review and editing work. Strengthening academic journals editors' academic level is also key to improving journal quality—editors need to continuously learn about the latest research developments, actively participate in academic exchange activities, and enhance their academic literacy. Additionally, with the rise of new media, it is crucial to strengthen editors' skills in information technology application, digital editing, and data analysis. On the one hand, relevant editorial staff should be proficient in operating new media platforms and editing software and be able to flexibly use these tools for journal promotion and dissemination. On the other hand, editors should possess basic data analysis skills to extract valuable information from numerous new media platforms, better understand reader needs, provide support for journal strategic decision-making, and enhance journal competitiveness.

The construction of quality assurance systems for academic journals in the new media era still needs continuous improvement. Academic journal publishers should continue strengthening digitalization and informatization to improve online publishing and dissemination efficiency. Simultaneously, they should pay attention to new media platform development trends, fully utilize the interactivity and real-time nature of new media, strengthen interaction and communication with readers, collect feedback, and continuously optimize content quality and presentation forms. Chongqing Functional Materials Journal Press's practical experience in the new media era provides important insights for other academic journal publishers to establish and improve journal quality assurance systems. First, they should recognize the challenges and opportunities that the new media era brings to academic journals and actively adapt to new media development trends. Second, they should strengthen cooperation with professional institutions to jointly build high-quality online publishing platforms and improve journal visibility and influence. Finally, they should emphasize data governance and evaluation to ensure content quality and academic value. In summary, constructing quality assurance systems for academic journals in the new media era is a continuous process. Through measures such as strengthening digitalization and informatization, fully utilizing new media platforms, and paying attention to reader feedback, academic journal publishers can continuously improve journal quality and inject new vitality into academic exchange and knowledge dissemination.

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Author Information:
Huang Guichun (1985—), male, Chongqing, intermediate professional title/Editorial Department Director, research direction: editorial publishing; Zheng Yawen (1980—), female, Chongqing, senior engineer/Director, research direction: publishing and distribution; Luo Linqing (1989—), female, Chongqing, intermediate professional title, research direction: editorial publishing; Wu Yang (1986—), male, Liaoning Jianping, engineer, research direction: digital publishing.

(Executive Editor: Li Jing)