Open citation data improves author name disambiguation benchmarks
OC-AND: A Citation-Enriched Benchmark for Author Name Disambiguation
Digital Libraries
Summary
It is hard to tell which authors wrote which papers when different authors have similar or identical names. The authors of this work created a new open dataset called OC-AND to test how well computer programs can solve this problem. They combined existing author name data with freely available citation information, making it more like the messy real world of open research data. This new dataset lets people test their author-matching methods under realistic conditions where some information is missing. The dataset and method to create it are fully open, so others can reproduce and build on their work.
What this means in practice
- •For digital library developers: Evaluate and improve author name matching tools using a dataset that reflects real-world open citation data conditions.
- •For academic publishing teams: Develop citation-aware author identity systems that improve author record accuracy using openly available citation metadata.
Authors
Francesca Cappelli, Giovanni Colavizza, Silvio Peroni
Abstract
Author Name Disambiguation benchmarks are predominantly derived from closed infrastructures that may not reflect conditions in open bibliographic environments. We present OC-AND, an open citation-enriched benchmark for AND constructed by remapping the WhoIsWho dataset with bibliographic and citation metadata from OpenCitations. The dataset is produced through a reproducible five-stage pipeline involving DOI verification, metadata validation, OpenCitations enrichment, and author-centric transformation. OC-AND retains the WhoIsWho ground-truth files and partition structure unchanged, while its publication files are restricted to publications that could be matched to a validated DOI and an OpenCitations record. It introduces realistic characteristics of open environments: heterogeneous metadata completeness, absent abstracts and affiliations, asymmetric citation coverage, and sparse graph connectivity. The dataset contains author records with associated citations, enabling evaluation of AND methods in settings closer to real-world open scholarly infrastructure scenarios. OC-AND is released as open data with complete provenance documentation and pipeline code, supporting reproducible research and the development of citation-aware disambiguation approaches.