Author - OpenAlex documentation

The Author object
id
String: The OpenAlex ID for this author.
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id: "https://openalex.org/A2208157607"
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orcid
String: The ORCID ID for this author. ORCID global and unique ID for authors.
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orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6187-6610"
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display_name
String: The name of the author as a single string.
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display_name: "Jason Priem"
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display_name_alternatives
List: Other ways that we've found this author's name displayed.
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display_name_alternatives: [
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    "Jason R Priem"
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]
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works_count
Integer: The number of 📄
 Works this this author has created.
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works_count: 38 
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cited_by_count
Integer: The total number 📄
 Works that cite a work this author has created.
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cited_by_count: 38 
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ids
Object: All the external identifiers that we know about for this author. IDs are expressed as URIs whenever possible. Possible ID types:
openalex (String: this author's OpenAlex ID. Same as Author.id)
orcid (String: this author's ORCID ID. Same as Author.orcid)
mag  (Integer: this author's Microsoft Academic Graph ID)
twitter (String: this author's Twitter handle)
wikipedia (String: this author's Wikipedia page)
scopus (String: this author's Scopus author ID)
Most authors are missing one or more ID types (either because we don't know the ID, or because it was never assigned). Keys for null IDs are not displayed.
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ids: {
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    openalex: "https://openalex.org/A2208157607",
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    orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6187-6610",
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    scopus: "http://www.scopus.com/inward/authorDetails.url?authorID=36455008000&partnerID=MN8TOARS",
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    mag: 2208157607
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},
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last_known_institution
Object: This author's last known institutional affiliation. In this context "last known" means that we took all the Works where this author has an institutional affiliation, sorted them by publication date, and selected the most recent one.
This is a dehydrated Institution object, and you can find more documentation on the Institution page.
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last_known_institution: {
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    id: "https://openalex.org/I4200000001",
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    ror: "https://ror.org/02nr0ka47",
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    display_name: "OurResearch",
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    country_code: "CA",
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    type: "nonprofit"
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},
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x_concepts
The "x" in x_concepts is because it's experimental and subject to removal with very little warning. We plan to replace it with a custom link to the Concepts API endpoint. 
List: The concepts most frequently applied to works created by this author. Each is represented as a dehydrated Concept object, with one additional attribute:
score (Float): The strength of association between this author and the listed concept, from 0-100.
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x_concepts: [
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    {
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        id: "https://openalex.org/C41008148",
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        wikidata: null,
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        display_name: "Computer science",
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        level: 0,
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        score: 97.4
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    },
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    {
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        id: "https://openalex.org/C17744445",
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        wikidata: null,
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        display_name: "Political science",
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        level: 0,
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        score: 78.9
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    }
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]
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counts_by_year
List: Author.works_count and Author.cited_by_count for each of the last ten years, binned by year. To put it another way: each year, you can see how many works this author published, and how many times they got cited. 
Any works or citations older than ten years old aren't included.
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counts_by_year: [
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    {
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        year: 2022,
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        works_count: 0,
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        cited_by_count: 8
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    },
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    {
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        year: 2021,
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        works_count: 1,
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        cited_by_count: 252
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    },
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    ...
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    {
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        year: 2012,
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        works_count: 7,
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        cited_by_count: 79
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    }
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]
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works_api_url
String: A URL that will get you a list of all this author's works.
We express this as an API URL (instead of just listing the works themselves) because sometimes an author's publication list is too long to reasonably fit into a single author object.
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works_api_url: "https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A2208157607",
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updated_date
String: The last time anything in this author object changed, expressed as an ISO 8601 date string. This date is updated for any change at all, including increases in various counts.
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updated_date: "2022-01-02T00:00:00"
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The DehydratedAuthor object
The DehydratedAuthor is stripped-down Author object, with most of its properties removed to save weight. Its only remaining properties are:
​id​
​display_name​
​orcid​