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2026 , Vol. 70 >Issue 15: 60 - 76

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13266/j.issn.0252-3116.2026.15.005

RESEARCH PAPERS

Research on an Innovative Blockchain-Based Review Mechanism: A Case Study of Academic Peer Review

  • Zhou Zhigang ,
  • Qu Jingchen ,
  • Luo Cuixian ,
  • Dou Luyao
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  • 1 School of Information, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan 030006;
    2 National Science Library (Wuhan), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071;
    3 Department of Information Resources Management, School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190
Zhou Zhigang, Associate Professor, PhD, Master's Supervisor; Qu Jingchen, Master's Candidate, Corresponding Author, E-mail:qujingchen0512@163.com; Luo Cuixian, Associate Professor, PhD, Master's Supervisor; Dou Luyao, Doctoral Candidate.

Received date: 2025-06-03

  Revised date: 2025-08-12

  Online published: 2026-07-30

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Abstract

[Purpose/Significance] Innovation review helps to promote academic progress and promote the fairness and justice of the scientific research process by optimizing the review process. However, the existing evaluation mechanism has the problems of low fairness and insufficient incentives. Therefore, it is urgent to explore a new evaluation model that can improve the fairness of distribution and strengthen incentive constraints. Using blockchain technology, the review process is transparent, credible and automated through decentralization and smart contracts, aiming to improve the fairness of review allocation and strengthen the incentive and restraint mechanism. [Method/Process] Taking peer review as an example, this paper proposes an innovative review model based on blockchain architecture——Mercury. It designs different entities and their interaction behaviors in the review network as meta-paths. On this basis, the algorithm and intelligent contract are constructed, and the evolutionary game model between the blockchain platform and the reviewer is further introduced to simulate and analyze the key influencing factors. [Result/Conclusion] ① The meta-path finely characterizes the interaction between authors, papers, reviewers and blockchain platforms, improves the accuracy and fairness of task allocation, and makes the system utility converge to Pareto optimality. ② The dynamic reputation evaluation based on meta-path achieves a precise balance between incentives and constraints, and significantly improves the dual utility of the platform and reviewers. ③ The complete model is superior to each ablation version in terms of platform utility, reviewer utility and social welfare, and verifies the key role of the meta-path-driven mechanism. ④ The simulation results show that under the differentiated reward-punishment strategy, the utility of compliant reviewers is steadily improved and significantly higher than that of malicious reviewers, which ensures the long-term rational behavior of reviewers. ⑤ In baseline comparisons, Mercury achieves improvements of 11 % in Precision@10 and 12.5 % in Recall@10 over the best alternative (Agent Review) and reduces the Gini coefficient to 0.22, thereby markedly enhancing both the relevance and fairness of recommendation distribution.

Key words： blockchain; meta-path; peer review; game theory; simulation

Cite this article

Zhou Zhigang , Qu Jingchen , Luo Cuixian , Dou Luyao . Research on an Innovative Blockchain-Based Review Mechanism: A Case Study of Academic Peer Review[J]. Library and Information Service, 2026 , 70(15) : 60 -76 . DOI: 10.13266/j.issn.0252-3116.2026.15.005

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