The OpenAlex Work ID is a unique identifier that refers to an OpenAlex work (e.g., publication, dataset, thesis, etc). All work IDs begin with a W and are followed by numbers, like W2884670852.
To find the Work ID for a specific publication in OpenAlex, search for the publication at openalex.org using the information you know about it. For instance:
- if you have the doi, you can type in doi: and then the doi to retrieve the exact work. for instance, "doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0553"
- if you have the title of the publication, you can paste it in the main search bar and then select the work if it appears
- if the title is common and your publication doesn't appear in the first results, you can go to openalex.org/works and return all publications with that title by clicking the blue + sign near the top, selecting "title" under more, and then entering the title (example)
- if you have many DOIs and want to find the OpenAlex id for all of them, try the Open Research Converter
Whenever you select a publication from the user interface, the URL with update, ending with the Work ID.
Tip: You can view the openalex work record in the user interface by adding openalex.org/works/ before the work id (e.g., openalex.org/works/W2884670852). If you want to see more information than is available for the work record in the user interface, add api. infront of that URL to get the API response (e.g., api.openalex.org/works/W2884670852) with the record's full information. For a list of all information available about works in OpenAlex, check out our documentation here.