The quandary between communication and certification

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to understand individual academics’ perception, attitudes and participation in Open Access Publishing and open scholarship and revisit some principles and designs of openness in academic publishing from the perspective of creative end-users, which helps to increase the sustainability and efficiency of open models.Design/methodology/approach– This paper draws on a case study of China and empirical data collected through semi-structured interviews with a wide range of academics and stakeholders.Findings– A separation between the communication and certification functions of publishing is identified: open initiatives are valued for efficient and interactive communication while traditional publishing still dominates the legitimacy of research publications, which leads to the quandary of individual academics operating within the transitional landscape of scholarly communication.Practical implications– Practical recommendations for sustainable and efficient openness are derived from discussions on the difficulties associated open/social certification and the shifting maxims that govern academics from “publish or perish” to “be visible or vanish”.Originality/value– “Openness” is defined in broad sense integrating Open Access and open scholarship to comprehensively reflect individual academics’ views in the transitional landscape of academic publishing. The research findings suggest that new open approaches are needed to address the evolving tension and conflicts between communication and certification.