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Scopus Search API

We will use the Scopus Search API, provided by Elsevier, to search for articles using the Keywords and obtain their Scopus IDs. It is a search interface associated with the Scopus cluster containing Scopus abstracts.

Info

A Cluster is a group of servers/computers that act like a single system.

API Resource URL

We need to request the below URL and pass some parameters to search.

https://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scopus

Query

Since our search is based on Keywords, we are using a query parameter with Scopus Search Tip to specify our search method, which is TITLE-ABS-KEY, a combined field that will search for Keywords in the abstracts, keywords, and titles of the articles.

query=TITLE-ABS-KEY(keyword1 AND keyword2 AND ...)

Example with Python and Machine Learning as Keywords:

query=TITLE-ABS-KEY(Python+AND+Machine+Learning)

Fields

By specifying the Scopus Fields, we can filter the response and get only the Scopus IDs of the articles.

field=field1,field2,field3,...

Example with the field used:

field=dc:identifier

Date Range

The date range of interest for published articles.

date=year1-year2

Example with date range used, is automatically set to the last three years:

date=2021-2024

Request Headers

The headers included in the request. One of them specifies your API Key.

"Accept-Language": "pt-BR,pt;q=0.9,en-US;q=0.8,en;q=0.7",
"Accept-Charset": "ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3",
"Accept-Encoding": "gzip, deflate, br",
"Referer": "https://www.scopus.com/",
"Origin": "https://www.scopus.com",
"Content-Type": "application/json",
"Accept": "application/json",
"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0",
"Connection": "keep-alive",
"X-ELS-APIKey": "Your API Key"

Final URL

This is an example of a complete URL with all the parameters we requested.

https://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scopus?query=TITLE-ABS-KEY(Python+AND+Machine+Learning)&field=dc:identifier&date=2021-2024&suppressNavLinks=true

The parameter suppressNavLinks is used to suppress the inclusion of top-level navigation links in the response payload.

Response Body

Example of a response body from the Scopus Search API.

{
  "search-results": {
    "opensearch:totalResults": "1",
    "opensearch:startIndex": "0",
    "opensearch:itemsPerPage": "1",
    "opensearch:Query": {
      "@role": "request",
      "@searchTerms": "TITLE-ABS-KEY(Images, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision)",
      "@startPage": "0"
    },
    "entry": [
      {
        "@_fa": "true",
        "prism:url": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85137995729",
        "dc:identifier": "SCOPUS_ID:85137995729"
      }
    ]
  }
}
Field Description
search-results Informs some metadata of the search operation and the articles found
opensearch:totalResults Total number of articles found
opensearch:startIndex Index of the pagination from which we start to retrieve a group of articles
opensearch:itemsPerPage Number of articles divided into each page, when there are many results
opensearch:Query Some metadata about the submitted boolean search queries
entry Lists of articles with the fields specified in the search