OpenAlex launched this week! (January 3rd 2022 for those reading from the future 🙂 )

As expected:

We’re now pulling in new content on our own. Until now, we’ve been getting new works, authors, and other entities from MAG. Now that MAG is gone, we’re gathering all of our own data from the big wide internet.

The new REST API is launched! This is a much faster and easier way to access the OpenAlex database than downloading and installing the snapshot. It’s completely open and free–you don’t even need a user account or token.

We’ve now got oodles of new documentation here: https://docs.openalex.org/

Slight change of plan:

The MAG Format snapshot is now hosted for free, thanks to the AWS Open Data program. This will cover the data transfer fees (which turned out to be $70!) so you don’t have to. Here are the new instructions on how to download the MAG format snapshot to your machine.

We are extending the beta period for OpenAlex; we’ll emerge from beta in February. This is mostly in response to discovering issues with the coverage and structure of existing data sources including MAG. Extending the beta reflects the fact that the data will improve significantly between now and February.

Huge exciting news:

OpenAlex was built to offer a drop-in replacement for MAG. We’re doing that. But today, we’re also unveiling some moves toward a more innovative future for Openalex:

We’ve now built around a simple new five-entity model: works, authors, venues (journals and repositories), institutions, and concepts. Everything in OpenAlex is one of these entities, or a connection between them. Each type of entity has its own API endpoint.

We’ve got a new Standard Format for the snapshot, one that’s closely tied to both the five-entity model the API. In the future, this will become the only supported format. The MAG format is now deprecated and will go away on July 1, 2022.

In conclusion:

Thanks for your support, and please send us any feedback you find! In particular, let us know about bugs…it’s early days, and there will be plenty. We’re currently fixing these very quickly. Happy New Year, and happy OpenAlexing!

Best,
Jason and Heather