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diff --git a/guide/src/reference_graph.md b/guide/src/reference_graph.md index 26eec899..4f9f71dd 100644 --- a/guide/src/reference_graph.md +++ b/guide/src/reference_graph.md @@ -1,29 +1,159 @@ -# Reference Graph - -Since 08/2021 references are available on an "inbound" and "outbound" basis in -the web interface. - -The backend reference graph is available via the [Search Index](./search_api.md) -under the `fatcat_ref` index. - -## Background and Mode of Operation - -Release entities in fatcat have a [refs fields](./entity_release.md) which -contains citations, which in turn may be identified in different ways. Another -source of reference metadata is provided by structured data extraction from PDF -with tools such as [GROBID](https://grobid.readthedocs.io). The raw reference data combined -amounts to over 2B documents which we take as input for a batch process, that -derives the graph structure. - -Two main modes of citation matching are employed: identifier based matching and -fuzzy matching. Identifier based matching currently works with DOI, Arxiv ids, -PMID and PMCID and ISBN. Fuzzy matching employs a scalable way to cluster -documents (with pluggable clustering algorithms). For each cluster of match -candidates we run a more extensive verification process, which yields a match -confidence category, ranging from weak over strong to exact. Strong and exact -matches are included in the graph. - -The current reference search index contains both matches and yet unmatched -references. We expect this dataset to be iterated over regularly as there are -a few dimensions along which the dataset can be improved and extended. +# Reference Graph (refcat) + +In Summer 2021, the first version of a reference graph dataset, named "refcat", +was released and integrated into the fatcat.wiki web interface. The dataset +contains billions of references between papers in the fatcat catalog, as well +as partial coverage of references from papers to books, to websites, and from +Wikipedia articles to papers. This is a first step towards identifying links +and references between scholarly works of all types preserved in archive.org. + +The refcat dataset can be downloaded in JSON lines format from the archive.org +"[Fatcat Database Snapshots and Bulk Metadata Exports](https://archive.org/details/fatcat_snapshots_and_exports)" +collection, and is released under a CC-0 license for broad reuse. +Acknowledgement and attribution for both the aggregated dataset and the +original metadata sources is strongly encouraged (see below for provenance +notes). + +References can be browsed on fatcat.wiki on an "outbound" ("References") and +"inbound" ("Cited By") basis for individual release entities. There are also +special pages for Wikipedia articles ("outbound", such as +[Internet](https://fatcat.wiki/wikipedia/en:Internet/refs-out)) and Open +Library books ("inbound", such as [The +Gift](https://fatcat.wiki/openlibrary/OL2670078W/refs-in)). JSON versions of +these pages are available, but do not yet represent a stable API. The backend +reference graph is available via the [Elasticsearch API](./search_api.md) under +the `fatcat_ref` index, but these schema and semantics of this index are also +not yet stable. + + +## How It Works + +Raw reference data comes from multiple sources (see "provenance" below), but +has the common structure of a "source" entity (which could be a paper, +Wikipedia article, etc) and a list of raw references. There might be duplicate +references for a single "source" work coming from different providers (eg, both +Pubmed and Crossref reference lists). The goal is to match as many references +as possible to the "target" work being referenced, creating a link from source +to target. If a robust match is not found, the "unmatched" reference is +retained and displayed in a human readable fashion if possible. + +Depending on the source, raw references may be a simple "raw" string in an +arbitrary citation style; may have been parsed or structured in fields like +"title", "year", "volume", "issue"; might include a URL or identifier like an +arxiv.org identifier; or may have already been matched to a specific target +work by another party. It is also possible the reference is vague, malformed, +mis-parsed, or not even a reference to a specific work (eg, "personal +communication"). Based on the available structure, we might be able to do a +simple identifier lookup, or may need to parse a string, or do "fuzzy" matching +against various catalogs of known works. As a final step we take all original +and potential matches, verify the matches, and attempt to de-duplicate +references coming from different providers into a list of matched and unmatched +references as output. The refcat corpus is the output of this process. + +Two dominant modes of reference matching are employed: identifier based +matching and fuzzy matching. Identifier based matching currently works with +DOI, Arxiv ids, PMID and PMCID and ISBN. Fuzzy matching employs a scalable way +to cluster documents (with pluggable clustering algorithms). For each cluster +of match candidates we run a more extensive verification process, which yields +a match confidence category, ranging from weak over strong to exact. Strong and +exact matches are included in the graph. + +All the code for this process is available open source: + +- [cgraph](https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/cgraph): batch processing and matching pipeline, in Python and Go +- [fuzzycat](https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/fuzzycat): Python verification code and "live" fuzzy matching + + +## Metadata Provenance + +The provenance for each reference in the index is tracked and exposed via the +`match_provenance` field. A `fatcat-` prefix to the field means that the +reference came through the `refs` metadata field stored in the fatcat catalog, +but originally came from the indicated source. In the absence of `fatcat-`, the +reference was found, updated, or extracted at indexing time and is not recorded +in the `release` entity metadata. + +Specific sources: + +* `crossref` (and `fatcat-crossref`): citations deposited by publishers as part + of DOI registration. Crossref is the largest single source of citation + metadata in refcat. These references may be linked to a specific DOI; contain + structured metadata fields; or be in the form of a raw citation string. + Sometimes they are "complete" for the given work, and sometimes they only + include references which could be matched/linked to a target work with a DOI. +* `fatcat-datacite`: same as `crossref`, but for the Datacite DOI registrar. +* `fatcat-pubmed`: references, linked or not linked, from Pubmed/MEDLINE + metadata +* `fatcat`: references in fatcat where the original provenance can't be infered + (but could be manually found by inspecting the release edit history) +* `grobid`: references parsed out of full-text PDFs using + [GROBID](https://github.com/kermitt2/grobid) +* `wikipedia`: citations extracted from Wikipedia (see below for details) + +Note that sources of reference metadata which have formal licensing +restrictions, even CC-BY or ODC-BY licenses as used by several similar +datasets, are not included in refcat. + + +## Current Limitations and Known Issues + +The initial Summer 2021 version of the index has a number of limitations. +Feedback on features and coverage are welcome! We expect this dataset to be +iterated over regularly as there are a few +dimensions along which the dataset can be improved and extended. + +The reference matching process is designed to eventually operate in both +"batch" and "live" modes, but currently only "batch" output is in the index. +This means that references from newly published papers are not added to the +index in an ongoing fashion. + +Fatcat "release" entities (eg, papers) are matched from a Spring 2021 snapshot. +References to papers published after this time will not be linked. + +Wikipedia citations come from the dataset [Wikipedia Citations: A comprehensive +dataset of citations with identifiers extracted from English +Wikipedia](https://zenodo.org/record/3940692), by Singh, West, and Colavizza. +This is a one-time corpus based on a May 2020 snapshot of English Wikipedia +only, and is missing many current references and citations. Additionally, only +direct identifier lookups (eg, DOI matches) are used, not fuzzy metadata +matching. + +Open Library "target" matches are based on a snapshot of Open Library works, +and are matched either ISBN (extracted from citation string) or fuzzy metadata +matching. + +Crossref references are extracted from a January 2021 +[snapshot](https://archive.org/details/crossref_doi_dump_2021-01) of Crossref +metadata, and do not include many updates to existing works. + +Hundreds of millions of raw citation strings ("unstructured") have not been +parsed into a structured for for fuzzy matching. We plan to use GROBID to parse +these citation strings, in addition to the current use of GROBID parsing for +references from fulltext documents. + +The current GROBID parsing used version v0.6.0. Newer versions of GROBID have +improved citation parsing accuracy, and we intend to re-parse all PDFs over +time. Additional manually-tagged training datasets could improve GROBID +performance even further. + +In a future update, we intend to add Wayback (web archive) capture status and +access links for references to websites (distinct from references to online +journal articles or books). For example, references to an online news article +or blog post would indicate the closest (in time, to the "source" publication +date) Wayback captures to that web page, if available. + +References are only displayed on fatcat.wiki, not yet on scholar.archive.org. + +There is no current or planned mechanism for searching, sorting, or filtering +article search results by (inbound) citation count. This would require +resource-intensive transformations and continuous re-indexing of search +indexes. + +It is unclear how the batch-generated refcat dataset and API-editable release +refs metadata will interact in the future. The original refs may eventually be +dropped from the fatcat API, or at some point the refcat corpus may stabilize +and be imported in to fatcat refs instead of being maintained as a separate +dataset and index. It would be good to retain a mechanism for human corrections +and overrides to the machine-generated reference graph. + |