OpenAlex is a research index. JSTOR is a digital library. Nature and Science are journals. The same paper can appear in several of these places: they perform different jobs.
| Service / venue | What it does | What inclusion tells you | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAlex | Open metadata index and citation graph covering articles, books, conference papers, preprints and other research outputs. Records point to publication locations; an indexed work is not necessarily free to read. | Broad inclusion, without a source-quality threshold. Its metadata and citation matching can be incomplete or wrong. Inclusion does not establish peer review. | Reproducible discovery, citation-network analysis, and tracing authors or topics. Check the original paper before relying on a claim. |
| Google Scholar | Search engine spanning scholarly websites and publication types, often linking different versions. | A searchable record, not an endorsement. Its coverage can vary; citation counts are specific to its index. | Finding a known title, versions and citing works. This app contains a historical ten-record import, not a live Scholar search. |
| JSTOR | Digital library of journals, books, images and primary sources, with licensed and open collections. | Content selected for a library collection. Different item types have different review histories; an archival photograph is not a peer-reviewed research claim. | Reading and searching collected publications and historical materials. Access depends on the item and your access arrangements. |
| Nature / Science | Individual journals that publish research, alongside other material such as news and commentary. Their publishers also publish related journals. | Research articles undergo editorial selection and peer review. That provides scrutiny, not a guarantee of correctness or relevance; distinguish research from other article types. | Reading the publisher's version, methods, supplements, peer-review information where available, and corrections. Nature's review policy. |
| arXiv and institutional repositories | Repositories distribute manuscript versions. A preprint can precede journal or conference acceptance; an accepted manuscript can be deposited later. | arXiv moderation is not peer review. Check whether a specific work has a later reviewed publication and which version you are reading. | Accessible manuscripts and recent work, with explicit attention to version and publication status. |
| Scopus / Web of Science Core Collection | Commercial citation indexes with formal source-selection processes. | More selective source coverage than OpenAlex, not proof that each indexed finding is correct. Selection also leaves some research outside the index. | Institutional literature searches and bibliometrics, subject to access rights. Citation totals should not be assumed interchangeable across indexes. |
Distinguish metadata quality (correct title, authors, year and citation matches), coverage (which work is missing), and research quality (whether a study supports its claims). OpenAlex is useful for the first stages of discovery; it does not certify the third. Its construction process combines source metadata, classification and reference matching.
An independent comparison of OpenAlex and Scopus found support for using OpenAlex in citation analysis across most examined fields, while also questioning how citation indicators relate to quality judgments. This is evidence about a particular evaluation, not a guarantee for every topic or record.
For this app, broad coverage and accessible citation data make OpenAlex useful. The global list is only a citation-ranked sample, which favors older and heavily cited work. Read the methods and limitations; check publication type, date, versions and corrections; look for independent corroboration. Neither a high citation count, a prestigious journal, nor an open-access label settles whether a paper answers your question.
A common route is manuscript → submission to a journal or conference → editorial screening and peer review → revisions → accepted publication. A repository copy may exist before or after publication. Indexes then describe and connect the work; libraries and publisher platforms help readers access it. This is a common route, not a rule that every document follows.
A DOI identifies a research object; it is not a quality certificate. “Open access” concerns access and reuse conditions, not whether the work was peer reviewed. Evaluate the particular document, not just the website hosting it.
Source guide checked 7 September 2026. Links in the table document each service's role; the reading advice is our synthesis.