Scopus Abstract Retrieval API works not as expected

Question

Currently, Scopus Abstract Retrieval APIs don't work as expected. According to documentation I should recevice a response like this: https://dev.elsevier.com/payloads/retrieval/abstractRetrievalResp.json

I'm interested to dc:description and authors fields, but the API stopped working correctly and this is the current result of the test scopus id from the documentation website (https://dev.elsevier.com/retrieval.html#!/Abstract_Retrieval/AbstractRetrieval_0_1_2_3). I use my own apiKey.

{
  "abstracts-retrieval-response": {
    "affiliation": [
      {
        "affiliation-city": "Cambridge",
        "affilname": "University of Cambridge",
        "affiliation-country": "United Kingdom"
      },
      {
        "affiliation-city": "Singapore City",
        "affilname": "School of Biological Sciences",
        "affiliation-country": "Singapore"
      },
      {
        "affiliation-city": "Adelaide",
        "affilname": "The University of Adelaide",
        "affiliation-country": "Australia"
      }
    ],
    "coredata": {
      "srctype": "j",
      "eid": "2-s2.0-0037070197",
      "pubmed-id": "11852050",
      "prism:coverDate": "2002-02-13",
      "prism:aggregationType": "Journal",
      "prism:url": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0037070197",
      "dc:creator": {
        "author": [
          {
            "preferred-name": {
              "ce:given-name": "C. S.B.",
              "ce:initials": "C.S.B.",
              "ce:surname": "Chia",
              "ce:indexed-name": "Chia C.S.B."
            },
            "@seq": "1",
            "ce:initials": "C.S.B.",
            "@_fa": "true",
            "affiliation": {
              "@id": "60031101",
              "@href": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/affiliation/affiliation_id/60031101"
            },
            "ce:surname": "Chia",
            "@auid": "57220496113",
            "author-url": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/author/author_id/57220496113",
            "ce:indexed-name": "Chia C.S.B."
          }
        ]
      },
      "link": [
        {
          "@_fa": "true",
          "@rel": "self",
          "@href": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0037070197"
        },
        {
          "@_fa": "true",
          "@rel": "scopus",
          "@href": "https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=0037070197&origin=inward"
        },
        {
          "@_fa": "true",
          "@rel": "scopus-citedby",
          "@href": "https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=0037070197&origin=inward"
        }
      ],
      "source-id": "17481",
      "pii": "S0014579301033130",
      "citedby-count": "55",
      "prism:volume": "512",
      "subtype": "ar",
      "dc:title": "The orientation of the antibiotic peptide maculatin 1.1 in DMPG and DMPC lipid bilayers. Support for a pore-forming mechanism",
      "openaccess": "1",
      "prism:issn": "00145793",
      "prism:issueIdentifier": "1-3",
      "subtypeDescription": "Article",
      "prism:publicationName": "FEBS Letters",
      "prism:pageRange": "47-51",
      "prism:endingPage": "51",
      "openaccessFlag": "true",
      "prism:doi": "10.1016/S0014-5793(01)03313-0",
      "prism:startingPage": "47",
      "dc:identifier": "SCOPUS_ID:0037070197"
    }
  }
}

There are missing so many informations compared to the API example provided. How can I fix the issue?

Answer 1

I found that I could retrieve fields like the abstract (dc:description) ONLY if I set the &view=COMPLETE parameter in my query URL. This is not the behavior I would expect based on the phrase "Note that specifying this parameter overrides the view parameter. " in the field section of the Elsevier API Docs, but there you go.

So If you want to retrieve the title, abstract, and DOI, for a query of "dolphin flipper", it might look like this:

http://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scopus?query=TITLE-ABS-KEY%28dolphin+flipper%29&view=COMPLETE&field=dc:title,dc:description,prism:doi. Don't forget to include your API key in the header.

In summary: It seems the view param acts as a filter on search fields before the field param is applied. Applying &view=COMPLETE appears to enable each field selection by the field param.