Keeping a lid on open science : Nature : Nature Research

"Obstacles to open science in China are not solely down to the scientific community. The country's internet firewall is a major blockage for scientists eager to share their work. For instance, a growing trend to gauge the impact of scholarly work is to measure references to a paper in news reports and reactions on social media, through platforms such as Altmetric. But this requires access to Google, Facebook, Twitter and other blocked sites.

Although the platform's owner, Digital Science, has incorporated into its metrics algorithm, Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Li Yan, a Wiley editor, said few Chinese scientists are active on it. 'Altmetric is a valuable tool to track the scholarly influence of a paper beyond the impact factor, and it does help promote open science in China,' he says.

Scientists are finding their own ways around the problem. Many use the instant messaging app, WeChat, to read and share links to papers. Even with this work-around, Chinese science still has a long way to go before it fully embraces open science."