Towards an Open Research Information Ecosystem: Synergies with Open Software and Open Metadata Providers

VIVO and OpenAlex are complementary initiatives in the realm of open research information. VIVO, an open-source software, focuses on the aggregation of profiles of actors in science to enable visualization of an institution’s scholarly activities through comprehensive profiles of researchers, their publications, projects, and aQiliations.

OpenAlex serves as a global index of scholarly publications with a massive database of scholarly works, authors, institutions, and accompanying metadata. In this presentation, we will highlight the power and benefit to all involved stakeholders of connecting opensource software, built with open standards, to open research information. These benefits include sovereignity over the metadata of an institution’s research activities and output, plus improved and enriched metadata for OpenAlex, the institution using VIVO, and all potential consumers of that data across the global research community.

VIVO can utilize OpenAlex’s vast metadata to fill its profiles, ensuring that researchers’ outputs are more accurately represented and more easily discoverable. At the same time, OpenAlex can benefit from the rich, structured data provided by VIVO, such as affiliation details and project specifics, to deepen the context and accuracy of its records.