AI for Research Efficiency, episode 11: Map a research field with OpenAlex
Narration: an AI-generated voice (ElevenLabs).

[0:00] A field map
Who studies alternate wetting and drying in rice, where, and with whom? One request, and an agent maps the whole field from OpenAlex.
Then a second agent checks every number, before anyone sees the page.
AI for Research Efficiency. Episode 11: map a research field with OpenAlex.
Last time, an agent fetched research data through APIs, starting with OpenAlex, which needs no key.
This time, one real run, from a question to a checked map and a page: write the rules, let it estimate and fetch, and check before you share.

[0:45] The rules
The rules go in an instruction file, as in episode 3: the question, the source, and a budget.
Without a key, OpenAlex gives you 1,000 credits a day. A page of results costs 1; a search costs 10. So the file says: stay under 300, and estimate before paging through anything.
It asks for scripts that re-run, and a log of every address it calls, with what it cost.
And it lists what to make: works per year, the leading institutions and journals, and who writes with whom in Arkansas.

[1:24] The run
Then the request, and the run begins. The clock is the run's own: 7½ minutes, shown faster.
First it reads OpenAlex's guide for agents. Then it writes one small module that every script shares: it logs each call, and keeps each answer.

[1:45] One search defines the field
Then one search defines the field: alternate wetting and drying, or intermittent irrigation, or AWD, together with rice or paddy.
It finds 2,945 works. Before going on, it reads 20 of them at random.
All 20 are about rice and its water. About 13 are squarely on the practice, and about 7 sit at the edge. So the search finds the field, with a margin around it.

[2:16] Cost, as it goes
Every answer states its cost, so it counts as it goes. The counts by year, by institution and by journal are one grouped search each: 10 credits apiece.
A wrong field name was refused for free. And to confirm each institution, it fetched single records, which cost nothing.

[2:38] Three views
Works per year: 16 in 2000, 65 in 2010, and 325 last year.
The institutions that publish most: the International Rice Research Institute leads, with 138. UC Davis is the only one in the United States on the list.
And the journals: Agricultural Water Management, then Field Crops Research.

[3:07] Arkansas: who writes with whom
For Arkansas, it never filters by a name. It looks up each institution's OpenAlex number first: 11 records, from Fayetteville to Stuttgart and Jonesboro.
44 works have an author there: 1.5% of the field. 126 authors, and 501 pairs.
Each dot is an author, each line a paper written together. The agent sees two groups: the university with the USDA unit in Jonesboro, on methane and water, and the rice research center in Stuttgart.

[3:45] What looked wrong
Before any check, it writes down what looked wrong.
Some researchers have two or three OpenAlex profiles, so they appear more than once. One paper lists its four authors twice, and the author with the Arkansas address has no profile at all.
And the last few years jump. The agent notes that more datasets and repository records may be part of it, so recent years aren't comparable with earlier ones.

[4:14] The checker
Then the checker: a second agent, with its own script and its own calls, that doesn't reuse the first one's code.
Every count matched: 26 years, 16 institutions, 11 journals, the 44 works, and all 501 pairs, rebuilt from scratch.
It found one thing: the yearly counts add up to 25 fewer than the total. Most likely, those works have no year. The agent added that to its notes.

[4:45] The page
Only then the page: four figures, each with its query, the date of the data, and the addresses to check it.
It's on your computer for now. To share it, put the folder on GitHub and publish it with Vercel, as in episodes 5 and 6.

[5:04] Read it for what it is
Read the map for what it is. One search defines the field. The counts are OpenAlex's matches, not a ranking of quality. And check any name you quote.
The whole run: 7½ minutes, 47 calls, and 112 credits of the day's 1,000. A free key gives 10 times as many.

[5:26] Try it
Pause here and try it: copy the instruction file from the companion page, put in your own question and field, and read the checker's report before you make the page.

[5:38] Review and next
So: define the field with one search, estimate before you page, keep the scripts, and check every number before you share.
Next: make a narrated explainer of your paper.