"Works count" link

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Ivo Bleylevens

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Sep 3, 2024, 12:30:15 PM9/3/24

to OpenAlex Community

Dear community members,

can someone please explain to me, and I realize it is maybe a very dumb question, why I end up with 118.4k publications when I click on the link "Works count: 39.070" on this page:
https://openalex.org/institutions/i51101395 ?

You'll end up at https://openalex.org/works?filter=authorships.institutions.lineage%3Ai51101395 but I would expect to see 39.070 publications instead of 118.4k publications. I saw same behaviour in the API and I guess the answer lies in the word "lineage" ... after clicking you get all the publications of Sorbonne University including its parents and children or something ?

But on the other hand: when clicking "Works count: 83.290" on https://openalex.org/institutions/i34352273 I end up with less publications instead of more: 82.720. See page: https://openalex.org/works?filter=authorships.institutions.lineage%3Ai34352273.

Its not so clear to me atm.

Looking forward to your replies !

Ivo
Maastricht University

Ivan Sterligov

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Feb 25, 2025, 12:22:52 PMFeb 25

to Ivo Bleylevens, OpenAlex Community

Hello!

Similar to Ivo Bleylevens, who asked this question here (3 Sept 2024) and did not get a response, I'm puzzled by the way OpenAlex treats institution paper counts.
As we're doing a comparison of OpenAlex institution profiles to WoS\Scopus profiles for an academic paper, the question of which counts are 'official' in OpenAlex is important for us.

Api docs clearly recommend using https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=institutions.id:I114027177 which is also used in works_api_url property of institution object. It gives 257687 docs atm.

The works_count property of exact same institution object https://api.openalex.org/institutions/I114027177 gives different count: 258428
The web interface at https://openalex.org/I114027177 also displays 258400 (due to rounding).

As Ivo also observed earlier, this exact count serves as a hyperlink using works?filter=authorships.institutions.lineage:i114027177 so when a user clicks on 258400, they see 259900 papers (259938 in API)

So, what is the correct way to count an institution's papers in OpenAlex? 257687, 258428 or 259938?

I notice that the web interface uses authorships.institutions.lineage for all breakdowns by institutions.
Does this discrepancy mean that (some?) child institution paper counts are not included in filter=institutions.id and\or institution's works_count? If yes, why?
For I114027177 there are 4 children with the largest having >9000 papers.
https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=authorships.institutions.lineage:i114027177,institutions.id:!I114027177 gives 2252, so numbers add up to the authorships.institutions.lineage totals. The 2252 papers are mostly by a child https://openalex.org/I4390039329 with proper lineage in authorships in a handful of works I have checked manually.
Switching to web interface by deleting 'api.' prefix from the url above gives zero, because filter=institutions.id seems to be disabled.

Would greatly appreciate any clarification!

Best regards,
Ivan

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