Institutional Scientific Output and Citation Coverage in OpenAlex: The Case of the Czech Technical University in Prague

14 pages•Published: October 19, 2026

Jan Dvořák, Tomáš Chudlarský and Josef Špaček

Abstract

Institutional Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) increasingly need reliable, affordable data on the scientific output of their institution and on the citations that output receives.
OpenAlex, a fully open and freely accessible scholarly index launched in 2022, is a compelling candidate to complement subscription databases such as Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus for these purposes. We report a case study at the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), whose in-house CRIS (V3S) is used as a curated baseline. We describe how OpenAlex was integrated with V3S through the institution's ROR identifier and a DOI-based matching procedure, and we measure publication coverage over the period 1996–2025 together with the citations recorded against the institution's outputs. We find that OpenAlex matches 93% of the CTU outputs that carry a DOI, that for recent DOI-bearing output its coverage is competitive with the subscription databases, and that it contributes a substantial number of citations not seen in WoS or Scopus (raising the count of distinct citations to CTU output by about 21%). At the same time, problems appear beneath the surface: aggregate figures that are internally inconsistent, and individual citation counts that are grossly inflated; and even among the outputs all three databases index, none holds the whole citation record. OpenAlex is a highly valuable and freely available research information infrastructure. Institutions that get their DOIs right can expect good publication coverage, which a curated CRIS can confirm against their own records. OpenAlex's citation counts, however, should be treated with caution, and a CRIS cannot validate them on its own.

Keyphrases: citation, coverage, czech republic, institutional cris, openalex

In: Pablo de Castro and Joachim Schöpfel (editors). Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Current Research Information Systems, vol 5, pages 199-212.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/Hs6s
	https://doi.org/10.29007/tsr2

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{CRIS2026:Institutional_Scientific_Output_Citation,
  author    = {Jan Dvořák and Tomáš Chudlarský and Josef Špaček},
  title     = {Institutional Scientific Output and Citation Coverage in OpenAlex: The Case of the Czech Technical University in Prague},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Current Research Information Systems},
  editor    = {Pablo de Castro and Joachim Schöpfel},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Technology},
  volume    = {5},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2516-2322},
  url       = {/publications/paper/Hs6s},
  doi       = {10.29007/tsr2},
  pages     = {199-212},
  year      = {2026}}

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