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OpenAlex assigns authors to works automatically, but sometimes we get things wrong. Author curation lets you fix that: sign in, tell us what’s wrong, and we’ll make the change.
The POST /curations endpoint is live. The website UI for submitting curations is still being built.

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What you can curate

Four corrections are available. The first two correct the authors attributed to a work; the last two correct the names on an author profile.
ActionDescription
claim workAssign a misattributed authorship to your profile
remove from workDetach a work that isn’t yours
modify display_nameUpdate the display_name on your author profile
modify full_nameUpdate the full_name used to match future works to your author profile

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Submitting a curation

Submit curations to: 
POST https://user.openalex.org/curations
The endpoint accepts a single JSON object or an array of objects. Requests are JWT-protected. Pass the token either as an Authorization: Bearer <token> header or as a ?jwt=<token> query parameter. Site curators and organization owners/curators can submit; other authenticated users get a 403.

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Claim a work

“The authorship with name Smith, J. on work W4404012345 is me, author A5023888391.” 
{
  "entity": "works",
  "entity_id": "https://openalex.org/W4404012345",
  "property": "authorships[raw_author_name=\"Smith, J.\"].author.id",
  "action": "replace",
  "value": "https://openalex.org/A5023888391"
}
The property string anchors the claim to a specific raw_author_name from the authorships list in the work. Inside the brackets, the raw author name is wrapped in double quotes and sent byte-for-byte — apostrophes and inner double quotes are not escaped (so a byline like George "Vern" Yocum goes in verbatim). The downstream view extracts the name from property with this regex, where the capture group is the raw author name: 
^authorships\[raw_author_name="(.+)"\]\.author\.id$

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Remove from work

“Work W4404012345 lists author A5023888391, but that’s not me.” 
{
  "entity": "works",
  "entity_id": "https://openalex.org/W4404012345",
  "property": "authorships.author.id",
  "action": "remove",
  "value": "https://openalex.org/A5023888391"
}
The property here has no raw_author_name anchor — the removal is non-positional and sticky. Every cycle, that author ID is cleared from every authorship on that work, even if the matcher tries to re-attach it.

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Modify display_name

“My author profile A5023888391 should be displayed as John Smith, not J Smith.” 
{
  "entity": "authors",
  "entity_id": "https://openalex.org/A5023888391",
  "property": "display_name",
  "action": "replace",
  "value": "John Smith"
}
The author’s works will be re-synced so the updated name is reflected in the API.

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Modify full_name

“Match works to my profile A5023888391 using the full name John W. Smith.” 
{
  "entity": "authors",
  "entity_id": "https://openalex.org/A5023888391",
  "property": "full_name",
  "action": "replace",
  "value": "John W. Smith"
}
full_name feeds the matcher (not the displayed profile), so value should be one of the author’s existing raw author names from a work already on their profile. A successful request returns 201 with the saved curation: 
{
  "id": "cur-9Fw3RtYxQ7nLpK",
  "user_id": "usr-abc123",
  "user_name": "Casey M",
  "entity": "works",
  "entity_id": "https://openalex.org/W4404012345",
  "property": "authorships[raw_author_name=\"Smith, J.\"].author.id",
  "value": "https://openalex.org/A5023888391",
  "action": "replace",
  "created": "2026-05-13T12:34:56Z",
  "is_applied": false,
  "applied_at": null
}
Submitting the same curation twice (matching user_id, entity, entity_id, value, action) returns the existing row rather than creating a duplicate.

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Who can curate

Curation actions are recorded against the signed-in OpenAlex user account that submits them. Every curation row carries that user_id, so the audit trail of “who claimed what” is preserved in the source database even though it is not surfaced on the public API.

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When changes appear

Curations apply on the next end-to-end refresh of the pipeline, which runs once per day. So changes should appear within 24 hours.

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How it flows under the hood

The pipeline has four steps. The first two live in the OpenAlex users API (Heroku Postgres); the last two live in the OpenAlex data warehouse (Databricks / Delta).
1

Save the request to public.curations

The POST /curations request lands as one row in the public.curations Postgres table on the OpenAlex users API.
2

Split into views by curation type

Four views in the users-api Postgres database split public.curations into one view per curation type:
  • work_author_claim_curations
  • work_author_remove_curations
  • author_display_name_curations
  • author_full_name_curations
3

Sync nightly to Delta tables

A nightly Databricks job copies each view into a Delta table in the OpenAlex data warehouse:
  • openalex.works.work_author_claim_curations
  • openalex.works.work_author_remove_curations
  • openalex.authors.author_names_curations (one row per author, both name fields joined)
4

Apply curations

Each pipeline run applies the curations to the live entity tables.Work curations are applied during the works pipeline, between the MatchAuthors and UpdateWorkAuthorships steps. They modify openalex.works.work_authors:
  • A claim overwrites the author_id at the matching (work_id, raw_author_name).
  • A remove sets the author_id to NULL at (work_id, author_id).
Both run every cycle, so a removed author stays removed even if the matcher tries to re-attach it. Every curated work_id is queued in openalex.works.curated_work_ids_pending_sync so the work re-exports to the search index on the next sync.Author name curations are applied during the authors pipeline. They modify openalex.authors.authors:
  • A display_name change overwrites the profile’s display_name, then queues every work that lists the author in curated_work_ids_pending_sync so the new name appears in the API.
  • A full_name change overwrites the profile’s matching full_name.