Systemic Altruism
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Justice & public goodsPreliminary editorial review

OpenAlex / OurResearch

Provides open scholarly discovery infrastructure, with publicly reusable software supporting access to research information.

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Systemic Altruism practice potential: 83–93/100
90% of weighted axes reviewed. A mechanism hypothesis, not proven effectiveness or a donation recommendation.

Who this work enables

Tools & support for charities: Open scholarly discovery software and information infrastructure usable by nonprofit researchers, libraries and evidence teams.

Open-source evidence · license checked

  • OpenAlex GUI — MIT license file. Organization’s role: maintainer.
    Named repository license inspected on the review date; dependencies, data, content, trademarks and hosted services have separate terms. License-file snapshot: 03734ba49c17ec838620505d342ed4f1303e0693.

License checked 2026-10-27. This is not a security audit, proof of current support or effectiveness, or a promise of free hosting. A sponsor or steward is not necessarily the sole developer. Unchecked profiles are not evidence of closed code. No extra score points are added.

Humanity’s Checklist source match

Gatekeepers — editorial, partial alignment.

Open research discovery reduces an information-access and software-dependence gate. This is a partial mechanism match, not evidence that users can access every underlying paper or that research decisions improve.

Explicit checklist adoption: not verified. A mechanism match is not an affiliation, endorsement, evidence of effectiveness or a scoring bonus. Read the practice.

Focus classification: 2026-10-27. Based on the organization’s dated official sources below; earlier axis-review dates are unchanged.

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The proposed pathway

Open scholarly-information infrastructure for researchers and public-interest users

Six dimensions, with rationale

Structural depth

4 / 4

An openly reusable alternative to closed scholarly-information infrastructure changes access and dependence on proprietary discovery systems.

Institutional reach

4 / 4

Research information infrastructure can serve institutions internationally across many fields; this does not certify complete or equitable coverage.

Durability

2 / 4

Open data and code permit continuation and reuse, but indexing quality, hosting and ongoing curation still require durable resources.

Scalability

4 / 4

MIT-licensed interface code supports low-cost copying and adaptation; operating a current scholarly index remains computationally and operationally expensive.

Funding additionality

Unreviewed

Unknown: current marginal funding, restricted allocations, delivery capacity and the counterfactual have not been audited.

Community agency

Unreviewed

Unknown: open licenses, participation or contributor governance do not establish audited consequential rights for affected communities.

Evidence and selection

Organization reported; primary mechanism and named repository license inspected

Illustrative inclusion to examine this mechanism. Inclusion is not an external recommendation or a verified comparative ranking.

A testable next question

Do public-interest users obtain more complete, accurate and affordable evidence for consequential decisions than with available alternatives, without increasing bibliometric bias?

Review confidence: Moderate for documented design and license; low for systemic attribution. OpenAlex discovery infrastructure associated with OurResearch/Impactstory; license check covers the named GUI repository only, not every component or service.

What remains uncertain

Coverage, attribution errors and field/language biases can distort research assessment. Software, database licensing and hosted/API access conditions are separate. Neither openness nor record totals establish better nonprofit decisions or welfare outcomes.

Sources to inspect

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Axis review: 2026-10-27 · weighting method v0.2 (2026-10-26) · Method, conflicts and coverage