This paper reports the results of a survey on Chinese researchers' perceptions and use of open access journals (OAJs). A total of 381 Chinese researchers from different universities and disciplines were investigated through an online questionnaire survey in August and September 2018. The results showed that most Chinese researchers are familiar with and have positive attitude to OAJs. They know OAJs mainly through their peers, colleagues, and friends. PubMed Central, PLoS, and COAJ (China Open Access Journals) are the most well-known OAJ websites among Chinese researchers. As for use, most of the respondents read and cite OAJs frequently and have experience of publishing in OAJs. However, they strongly prefer to use OAJs indexed in reputable databases (e.g. Web of Science, WoS) when making publishing decisions. Significant differences can be seen among disciplines, with researchers in HSS areas using OAJs less frequently than researchers from other disciplines, although they have the same positive attitudes and are equally well informed about them. Younger researchers preferred to rely on prestigious institutions and authors when using OAJs.

This paper examines differences in Chinese and American researchers' uses of social networking sites (SNS). It compares their attitudes and behaviours as determined from data collected in an online survey and a semi-structured focus interview. For various reasons, most international SNS are blocked in China, and we were curious to see how this influences scholarly online communication.

This paper presents research into the scholarly communication attitudes and behaviours of Chinese early-career researchers (ECRs). This research comes from year two of a projected three-year-long study of ECRs from seven countries (China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, the UK, and the US), for which semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with study participants. For the findings reported in this paper, fourteen Chinese ECRs from science and social science disciplines at six different universities were interviewed during the period from March to May 2017. The interview record was compared with the previous year's (2016) record to identify changes in interviewees' responses to a battery of questions. In addition, contextual data were obtained from the CVs of the ECRs. Our findings indicate that the scholarly communication attitudes and behaviours of Chinese ECRs have changed from year one to year two. We observed noteworthy changes in Chinese ECRs' attitudes and behaviours regarding open access publishing and peer review. As compared with data from 2016, the ECRs are more positive about open access journals but more negative about the peer-review system. Social media and online communities are now more frequently used as supplementary channels for scholarly communication, and WeChat is becoming very popular for Chinese ECRs. Authorship policies, the academic evaluation system, and the prevalent use of social media are the most important factors bringing about the changes we observed. What remains unchanged for the Chinese ECRs is the persistent pressure they feel to publish papers in select journals in order to advance their careers.

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