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OpenAlex: The open catalog to the global research system
OpenAlex is a database of academic authors, institutions and publications. Since its launch in January 2022, OpenAlex has received a lot of attention as an alternative to commercial research databases such as Web of Science or Scopus that would better meet academic needs and values. OpenAlex is based on a multitude of sources across all fields of science and languages, and on a global scale. A user can search by author, institution and research output, and select specifically by type of output (article, book, dataset, preprint, editorial, etc.), citations, publication date or availability in Open Access. The starting point for OpenAlex was the dataset of the discontinued Microsoft Academic Graph (which was the second largest academic search engine after Google Scholar), which was enriched and refined – a process that is still ongoing – to be able to be used as an alternative to commercial research databases for all kinds of searches and/or bibliometric analyses.
The OpenAlex data – which is shared under an open licence, namely Creative Commons Zero (CC0) – is available in three ways: via an online user interface (i.e. ‘OpenAlex Web’), via data snapshots (which enable you to save a copy of the OpenAlex database locally – as is at the time of download) and via the OpenAlex API. Use of OpenAlex Web, the data snapshots and the OpenAlex API is free of charge. There is a paid service which accomodates intensive use and offers additional support, but the free version suffices for the typical individual user.
The (lack of) cost, as well as the open philosophy behind it, is something that sets OpenAlex aside from commercial products like Web of Science and Scopus. These are expensive products and a recent study even shows that the companies behind these use specific sales strategies that maximise profits but come at the expense of the academic community. What is more, OpenAlex is lauded for its completeness and inclusivity. Web of Science and Scopus are selective databases, based on a curated set of sources (which has been criticized in the past for being too focused on particular disciplines, as well as specific languages, regions and publication types); whereas OpenAlex tries to be as complete as possible and is therefore not only more representative for disciplines like humanities, but also for the state of research in various languages on a global scale.
Quite a large number of studies analysing the quality and (dis)advantages of OpenAlex have been produced recently. The status quaestionis is:
- If one wants to get as complete a picture as possible of the research output of an author or of an institution as a whole (all scientific disciplines, all languages, all publication types), it is advisable to use OpenAlex.
- If one wants to map the OA availability of research output, it is advisable to use OpenAlex.
- For specific bibliometric analyses, it may be advisable to use Web of Science or Scopus due to the selectivity of the database and the (for the time being at least) relative superiority of the metadata, provided that one is aware of the limitations (e.g. in terms of scientific discipline, publication type and language).
- When compiling systematic reviews, it depends on the exact objective. If one wants to map scholarly literature on a particular topic as completely as possible, it is advisable to use OpenAlex; if, on the other hand, one wants to obtain a selection of scholarly literature that is representative of mainstream researchin Western Europe and North America, it is advisable to use Web of Science or Scopus for certain scientific disciplines (for other disciplines, no database is suitable for this purpose).
