Unsub update: additional OpenAlex integration
Scott Chamberlain
Hi all!
We just released on Friday last week another new version of Unsub.
In a previous post here I mentioned integration of OpenAlex. This update includes additional integration of OpenAlex, including authorship and citation data, title level metadata on number of publications by open access type, and more.
This update also fixes a problem where PTA/PCA file uploads with very recent dates (e.g. Dec 2021) were not being included in forecasts. That is now fixed!
There's a number of things to notice about your changed forecasts:
- First, the average Unsub dashboard will have a lower forecasted cost. If you do not, nothing is wrong - not all forecasts change in the same way because every forecast contains different journals and parameter settings.
- Second, the average Unsub dashboard will have a higher forecasted access (fulfillment). Again, do not worry if yours does not.
- Last, your CPU values will probably have increased. This may at first seem disconcerting, but the CPU we use in Unsub is really Controlled Cost Per Use. That is, our CPU is the cost per controlled use - or cost per paywalled use. As forecasted fulfillment via free (or already paid for: PTA) methods increases, the remaining forecasted fulfillment is more likely to be via paywall, increasing CPU.
With the updated metadata in this Unsub update we are accounting for recent increases in open access availability. In addition, the PTA fix means all of those users with recent PTA dates will have greater PTA fulfillment. Both of these things mean that Unsub forecast costs should on average go down, and access should on average go up.
To quantify the changes in Unsub user dashboards, we analyzed 194 randomly selected scenarios before the update and after the update:
On average forecasted costs decreased by 9% (min 38% decrease, max 7% increase)
On average forecasted access (fulfillment) increased by 13% (min 4% decrease, max 84% increase)
Associated Github release notes: https://github.com/ourresearch/jump-api/releases/tag/v2.0
Please let me know if you have any questions about this change at sup...@unsub.org