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Glossary

A reference of terms and abbreviations used throughout the V4 API documentation.

Identifiers

TermMeaning
DOIDigital Object Identifier — a persistent identifier for scholarly works (e.g. 10.1038/s41586-023-06221-2)
PMIDPubMed Identifier — numeric ID assigned by PubMed/MEDLINE (e.g. 37468626)
PMC / PMCIDPubMed Central Identifier — ID for articles in the PMC open-access archive (e.g. PMC10356604)
arXivOpen-access preprint repository; arXiv IDs follow the format YYMM.NNNNN (e.g. 2301.00001)
HandleHandle System identifier — a general-purpose persistent identifier (e.g. 1234/56789)
ORCIDOpen Researcher and Contributor ID — a 16-digit persistent identifier for researchers (e.g. 0000-0002-1825-0097)
RORResearch Organization Registry — a unique identifier for research institutions (e.g. https://ror.org/052gg0110)

Open Access

TermMeaning
OAOpen Access — unrestricted online access to research outputs
OA colorClassification of open-access routes: gold (published in an OA journal), hybrid (OA article in a subscription journal), bronze (free to read on the publisher site but without an open license)
Green OAA copy of the work is available in an open-access repository (e.g. institutional repository, preprint server)
Diamond journalAn open-access journal that charges no fees to either authors or readers

Classifications

TermMeaning
SDGUnited Nations Sustainable Development Goals — 17 global goals numbered 1–17 (e.g. SDG 3 = Good Health and Well-being, SDG 13 = Climate Action)
FOSFields of Science — OECD classification of research disciplines (e.g. 0102 Computer and information sciences)

Impact indicators

TermMeaning
Impact classes (C1–C5)OpenAIRE impact indicator quintiles: C1 = top 0.01%, C2 = top 1%, C3 = top 10%, C4 = top 50%, C5 = average/below average
InfluenceMeasures how influential a work is based on citations from other influential works (recursive PageRank-style metric)
PopularityMeasures recent attention — citations weighted by recency
ImpulseMeasures citation momentum — rate of citation growth
Citation countTotal number of citations received by a research product

Funding

TermMeaning
Funder short nameAbbreviated name for funding organizations (e.g. EC = European Commission, NIH = National Institutes of Health, NSF = National Science Foundation)
Funding streamHierarchical funding programme identifier within a funder (e.g. H2020 = Horizon 2020, FP7 = Framework Programme 7)

OpenAIRE concepts

TermMeaning
CommunityAn OpenAIRE research community — a curated collection of research products around a topic or discipline
DatasourceAn OpenAIRE data provider — a repository, journal, or aggregator that contributes content to the OpenAIRE Graph
Cursor paginationA stateless pagination method using an opaque token (nextCursor) instead of page offsets; suitable for large result sets beyond 10,000 records