Publications on Jan 1

[Billy Wong]

Hello OpenAlex Community,

I have observed a significant spike in the number of works published on January 1st compared to other dates in the same year. For example, in 2024, the data shows:

2024-01-01: 1,599,000 works
2024-01-02: 22,380 works
2024-01-03: 16,480 works
2024-01-04: 20,450 works
2024-01-05: 18,630 works
2024-02-01: 75,590 works
2024-03-01: 90,330 works
2024-04-01: 90,240 works
2024-05-01: 86,630 works

I have noticed similar patterns in other years as well, with January 1st consistently showing a much higher number of published works.

Could anyone explain why this spike occurs on January 1st? Is this due to a data aggregation issue, a common publication practice, or another factor in the OpenAlex data?

Thank you for your insights!

Best regards,

Billy

[Martyn Rittman]

Hello Billy,

This is probably because some publishers deposit metadata with only the year in the publication date. At Crossref, if that happens we default the publication date to 1 January. There's also a spike of publishers registering metadata around the beginning of the year (and less so at the beginning of each quarter and half year). Without digging, I couldn't say who's responsible, but you'll probably find the spike mostly contains works from a small number of publishers.

Best regards,
Martyn

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Martyn Rittman, Ph.D.
Program Lead, Crossref
crossref.org