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FAQ
Yes!* The work associated with ID W1234 will keep the ID W1234.
When we find duplicated works, authors, etc that already have assigned IDs, we merge them. Merged entities will redirect to the proper entity in the API. In the data snapshot, there is a directory which lists the IDs that have been merged.
*In July 2023, OpenAlex switched to a new, more accurate, author identification system, replaced all OpenAlex Author IDs with new ones. This is a very rare case in which we violate the rule of having stable IDs, which is needed to make the improvements. Old IDs and their connections to works remain available in the historical OpenAlex data.
We automatically index new journals and articles so there is nothing you need to do. We primarily retrieve new records from Crossref. So if you are not seeing your journal or article in OpenAlex, it is best to check if it is in Crossref with a query like
https://api.crossref.org/works/<doi>
(example). We do not curate journals or limit which journals will be included in OpenAlex. So any discoverable journals will be added to the data set.If your example DOI is in Crossref but not in OpenAlex, please send us a support request so we can look into it further!
Yes. Using coauthors, references, and other features of the data, we can tell that the same Jane Smith wrote both "Frog behavior" and "Frogs: A retrospective," but it's a different Jane Smith who wrote "Oats before boats: The breakfast customs of 17th-Century Dutch bargemen." For more details on this, see the page on Author disambiguation.
Yes. We automatically gather and normalize author affiliations from both structured and unstructured sources.