Zheng, M., Miao, L., Bu, Y., Larivière, V. (2025). Understanding discrepancies in the coverage of OpenAlex: the case of China. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 76(11):1591-1601.
Citations indexes play a crucial role for understanding how science is produced,disseminated, and used. However, these databases often face a critical trade-off:those offering extensive and high-quality coverage are typically proprietary,whereas publicly accessible datasets frequently exhibit fragmented coverage andinconsistent data quality. OpenAlex was developed to address this challenge, pro-viding a freely available database with broad open coverage, with a particularemphasis on non-English speaking countries. Yet, few studies have assessed thequality of the OpenAlex dataset. This paper assesses the coverage by OpenAlex ofChina’s papers, which shows an abnormal trend, and compares it with othercountries that do not have English as their main language. Our analysis revealsthat while OpenAlex increases the coverage of China’s publications, primarilythose disseminated by a national database, this coverage is incomplete and discon-tinuous when compared to other countries’ records in the database. We observesimilar issues in other non-English-speaking countries, with coverage varyingacross regions. These findings indicate that although OpenAlex expands coverageof research outputs, continuity issues persist and disproportionately affect certaincountries. We emphasize the need for researchers to use OpenAlex data cau-tiously, being mindful of its potential limitations in cross-national analyses.
Ce contenu a été mis à jour le 31 octubre 2025 à 12 h 46 min.
