Old OpenAlex API documentation
  • Overview
  • Quickstart tutorial
  • API Entities
    • Entities overview
    • 📄Works
      • Work object
        • Authorship object
        • Location object
      • Get a single work
      • Get lists of works
      • Filter works
      • Search works
      • Group works
      • Get N-grams
    • 👩Authors
      • Author object
      • Get a single author
      • Get lists of authors
      • Filter authors
      • Search authors
      • Group authors
      • Limitations
      • Author disambiguation
    • 📚Sources
      • Source object
      • Get a single source
      • Get lists of sources
      • Filter sources
      • Search sources
      • Group sources
    • 🏫Institutions
      • Institution object
      • Get a single institution
      • Get lists of institutions
      • Filter institutions
      • Search institutions
      • Group institutions
    • 💡Topics
      • Topic object
      • Get a single topic
      • Get lists of topics
      • Filter topics
      • Search topics
      • Group topics
    • 🗝️Keywords
    • 🏢Publishers
      • Publisher object
      • Get a single publisher
      • Get lists of publishers
      • Filter publishers
      • Search publishers
      • Group publishers
    • 💰Funders
      • Funder object
      • Get a single funder
      • Get lists of funders
      • Filter funders
      • Search funders
      • Group funders
    • 🌎Geo
      • Continents
      • Regions
    • 💡Concepts
      • Concept object
      • Get a single concept
      • Get lists of concepts
      • Filter concepts
      • Search concepts
      • Group concepts
    • Aboutness endpoint (/text)
  • How to use the API
    • API Overview
    • Get single entities
      • Random result
      • Select fields
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      • Paging
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      • Sample entity lists
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On this page
  • abbreviated_title
  • alternate_titles
  • apc_prices
  • apc_usd
  • cited_by_count
  • country_code
  • counts_by_year
  • created_date
  • display_name
  • homepage_url
  • host_organization
  • host_organization_lineage
  • host_organization_name
  • id
  • ids
  • is_core
  • is_in_doaj
  • is_oa
  • issn
  • issn_l
  • societies
  • summary_stats
  • type
  • updated_date
  • works_api_url
  • works_count
  • x_concepts
  • The DehydratedSource object
  1. API Entities
  2. Sources

Source object

PreviousSourcesNextGet a single source

Last updated 10 months ago

These are the fields in a source object. When you use the API to get a single source or lists of sources, this is what's returned.

abbreviated_title

String: An abbreviated title obtained from the .

abbreviated_title: "J. addict. med. ther. sci."

alternate_titles

Array: Alternate titles for this source, as obtained from the and individual work records, like Crossref DOIs, that carry the source name as a string. These are commonly abbreviations or translations of the source's canonical name.

alternate_titles: [
   "ACRJ"
]

apc_prices

List: List of objects, each with price (Integer) and currency (String).

Article processing charge information, taken directly from .

apc_prices: [
    {
        price: 3920,
        currency: "GBP"
    }
]

apc_usd

apc_usd: 5200

cited_by_count

cited_by_count: 133702 

country_code

country_code: "GB" 

counts_by_year

If the source was founded less than ten years ago, there will naturally be fewer than ten years in this list. Years with zero citations and zero works have been removed so you will need to add those in if you need them.

counts_by_year: [
    {
        year: 2021,
        works_count: 4338,
        cited_by_count: 127268
    },
    {
        year: 2020,
        works_count: 4363,
        cited_by_count: 119531
    },
    
    // and so forth
]

created_date

created_date: "2017-08-08"

display_name

String: The name of the source.

display_name: "PeerJ"

homepage_url

String: The starting page for navigating the contents of this source; the homepage for this source's website.

homepage_url: "http://www.peerj.com/" 

host_organization

id: "https://openalex.org/P4310320595"

host_organization_lineage

host_organization_lineage: [
    "https://openalex.org/P4310321285",
    "https://openalex.org/P4310319900",
    "https://openalex.org/P4310319965"
]

host_organization_name

host_organization_name: "Elsevier BV" 

id

id: "https://openalex.org/S1983995261"

ids

Object: All the external identifiers that we know about for this source. IDs are expressed as URIs whenever possible. Possible ID types:

Many sources are missing one or more ID types (either because we don't know the ID, or because it was never assigned). Keys for null IDs are not displayed.

Example
ids: {
    openalex: "https://openalex.org/S1983995261",
    issn_l: "2167-8359",
    issn: [
        "2167-8359"
    ],
    mag: 1983995261,
    fatcat: "https://fatcat.wiki/container/z3ijzhu7zzey3f7jwws7rzopoq",
    wikidata: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q96326029"
}

is_core

is_core: true 

is_in_doaj

is_in_doaj: true 

is_oa

We say "currently" because the status of a source can change over time. It's common for journals to "flip" to Gold OA, after which they may make only future articles open or also open their back catalogs. It's entirely possible for a source to say is_oa: true, but for an article from last year to require a subscription.

is_oa: true 

issn

issn: ["2167-8359"]

issn_l

ISSN is a global and unique ID for serial publications. However, different media versions of a given publication (e.g., print and electronic) often have different ISSNs. This is why we can't have nice things. The ISSN-L or Linking ISSN solves the problem by designating a single canonical ISSN for all media versions of the title. It's usually the same as the print ISSN.

issn_l: "2167-8359"

societies

societies: [
    {
        "url": "http://www.counseling.org/",
        "organization": "American Counseling Association on behalf of the American College Counseling Association"
    }
]

summary_stats

Object: Citation metrics for this source

While the h-index and the i-10 index are normally author-level metrics, they can be calculated for any set of papers, so we include them for sources.

summary_stats: {
    2yr_mean_citedness: 1.5295340589458237,
    h_index: 105,
    i10_index: 5045
}

type

String: The type of source, which will be one of: journal, repository, conference, ebook platform, book series, metadata, or other.

type: "journal" 

updated_date

updated_date: "2022-01-02T00:00:00"

works_api_url

String: A URL that will get you a list of all this source's Works.

We express this as an API URL (instead of just listing the works themselves) because sometimes a source's publication list is too long to reasonably fit into a single Source object.

works_api_url: "https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=primary_location.source.id:S1983995261",

works_count

works_count: 20184 

x_concepts

score (Float): The strength of association between this source and the listed concept, from 0-100.

x_concepts: [
    {
        id: "https://openalex.org/C86803240",
        wikidata: null,
        display_name: "Biology",
        level: 0,
        score: 86.7
    },
    {
        id: "https://openalex.org/C185592680",
        wikidata: null,
        display_name: "Chemistry",
        level: 0,
        score: 51.4
    },
    
    // and so forth
]

The DehydratedSource object

The DehydratedSource is stripped-down Source object, with most of its properties removed to save weight. Its only remaining properties are:

Integer: The source's article processing charge in US Dollars, if available from .

The apc_usd value is calculated by taking the APC price (see ) with a currency of USD if it is available. If it's not available, we convert the first available value from apc_prices into USD, using recent exchange rates.

Integer: The total number of that cite a Work hosted in this source.

String: The country that this source is associated with, represented as an .

List: and for each of the last ten years, binned by year. To put it another way: each year, you can see how many new works this source started hosting, and how many times any work in this source got cited.

String: The date this Source object was created in the OpenAlex dataset, expressed as an date string.

String: The host organization for this source as an . This will be an if the source is a repository, and a if the source is a journal, conference, or eBook platform (based on the field).

List: — See . This will only be included if the is a publisher (and not if the host_organization is an institution).

String: The display_name from the , shown for convenience.

String: The for this source.

fatcat (String: this source's ID)

issn (List: a list of this source's ISSNs. Same as )

issn_l (String: this source's ISSN-L. Same as )

mag (Integer: this source's ID)

openalex (String: this source's . Same as )

wikidata (String: this source's ID)

Boolean: Whether this source is identified as a "core source" by , used in the of universities around the world. The list of core sources can be found .

Boolean: Whether this is a journal listed in the (DOAJ).

Boolean: Whether this is currently fully-open-access source. This could be true for a preprint repository where everything uploaded is free to read, or for a or open access journal, where all newly published Works are available for free under an open license.

List: The used by this source. Many publications have multiple ISSNs , so should be used when possible.

String: The identifying this source. This is the for sources.

Array: Societies on whose behalf the source is published and maintained, obtained from our . Thanks!

2yr_mean_citedness Float: The 2-year mean citedness for this source. Also known as . We use the year prior to the current year for the citations (the numerator) and the two years prior to that for the citation-receiving publications (the denominator).

h_index Integer: The for this source.

i10_index Integer: The for this source.

String: The last time anything in this Source object changed, expressed as an date string. This date is updated for any change at all, including increases in various counts.

Integer: The number of this source hosts.

x_concepts will be deprecated and removed soon. We will be replacing this functionality with instead.

List: The Concepts most frequently applied to works hosted by this source. Each is represented as a object, with one additional attribute:

📚
ISSN Centre
ISSN Centre
DOAJ
DOAJ
Works
ISO two-letter country code
ISO 8601
Fatcat
Microsoft Academic Graph
Wikidata
CWTS
Open Leiden Ranking
here
Directory of Open Access Journals
Gold
Diamond
crowdsourced list
impact factor
h-index
i-10 index
ISO 8601
Works
Topics
apc_prices
works_count
cited_by_count
host_organization
Source.issn
Source.issn_l
ISSNs
ISSN-L
display_name
host_organization
host_organization_lineage
host_organization_name
id
is_core
is_in_doaj
is_oa
issn
issn_l
type
ISSN-L
type
host_organization
Source.id
OpenAlex ID
OpenAlex ID
Canonical External ID
OpenAlex ID
OpenAlex IDs
Publisher.lineage
Publisher.id
dehydrated Concept
Institution.id