Disambiguating text about author names into the correct authors is foundational to most bibliometric and research intelligence use case. And yet, it remains very difficult to do at the scale of the global research ecosystem (e.g., hundreds of millions of publications with ~100M authors). Our approach is to use the information available us from records on research outputs and then algorithmically assign the author names in publications to author profiles. Algorithmic approaches have gotten really good recently, but they aren't perfect.
In early 2025, we're planning some slick upgrades to OpenAlex to facilitate curation requests at scale. In the meantime, we've created a google form to help user provide us information to help fix errors in OpenAlex author profiles that we can ingest to improve the database.
Use this form users can:
- update the preferred name for OpenAlex author profiles;
- merge multiple author profiles into one, when duplicate profiles exist for a single individual;
- remove publications from an author profile that were incorrectly matched to that profile; and
- add publications to a profile that are missing but should be linked to it
Users are able to suggest changes to their profile or on behalf of others. Once we received curation requests, our team will validate those requests and fix in the OpenAlex database. Fixes typically takes 3-4 weeks go be live in our system, but may take longer if we are unable to verify the changes suggested.
Other attributes about author profiles (e.g., alternative names, institutions, metrics, topics) cannot be directly edited in an author profile because they are derived from the publications linked to that author profile. However, when changes are made to the publications linked to that author profile (3 & 4 above), those fields will get updated in the author profile.
Looking for more help? Check out our tutorial video on how to fix author profile errors using this form: https://youtu.be/p0RqOj129b8
note: In 2025, we'll be moving towards a system where authors can claim their profile and must be signed in to submit changes with all curation requests openly viewable and trackable on github.