How do I access and use OpenAlex?
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What is OpenAlex?
OpenAlex is a global index of research literature, journals, researchers and institutions, developed by the non-profit OurResearch. An alternative to commercial products such as Scopus and Clarivate's Web of Science, unlike these sources OpenAlex is free to access, and both the underlying data and source code behind the database is openly available.
The OpenAlex database includes over 250 million publications (which are referred to as ('Works'), and offers greater coverage of the humanities, non-English languages and the Global South, than its commercial equivalents.
OpenAlex is built upon data from various open sources, including the discontinued Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), Crossref, ORCID, and preprint repositories such as arXiv. Please see Where do works in OpenAlex come from? for more information.
How do I access OpenAlex?
There are three ways to access the data in OpenAlex:
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You can use the web user interface
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You can use the free and easy-to-use API
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Or you can download a full database snapshot.
How do I use OpenAlex?
We recommend watching this webinar for an introduction to OpenAlex.
To get started with the user interface, type in the name of a research topic; UN SDG; author; source (journal) title; or the name of an institution.
On the left-hand side, you can find a list of search results. The right-hand side will show various filters that you can apply to the search results, including publication year, open access status, or publication type.
Further Resources
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You can access comprehensive technical documentation on OpenAlex, including step-by-step instructions on how to use the API.
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The OurResearch team have also put together a series of tutorials and webinars outlining example use cases for OpenAlex data.
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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the Library's Office for Open Research team.