Columbia University

aid: columbia
name: Columbia University
description: 'Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City, ranked #18 in the QS World
  University Rankings 2025. Its public developer and API footprint is modest and largely gated: the central Open Data Service
  publishes programming-friendly JSON/XML data feeds (course directory, CLIO library catalog, building access, and more) that
  require a Columbia UNI login, while Columbia University Libraries offers the CLIO catalog as open MARCXML bulk data under
  CC0. Identity and access integration is provided via CAS and a Shibboleth/SAML 2.0 Identity Provider participating in the
  InCommon Federation. Source code is published across the cul (Libraries) and columbia-it (CUIT) GitHub organizations.'
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/columbia.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/columbia/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Open Data
- Library
- Identity
- United States
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: columbia:opendata
  name: Columbia Open Data Service
  description: 'Central university service publishing data feeds to software developers in programming-friendly formats such
    as JSON and XML (including the course directory, CLIO library catalog, and building access feeds). Access is gated: any
    member of the University community may log in with their UNI to consume the feeds. Feed pages document refresh schedules,
    data diagrams, and table/element documentation.'
  humanURL: https://opendataservice.columbia.edu/
  tags:
  - Open Data
  - Data Feeds
  - JSON
  - XML
  - Gated
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://opendataservice.columbia.edu/about
- aid: columbia:clio-opendata
  name: CLIO Library Catalog Open Data
  description: Columbia University Libraries publishes its catalog (bibliographic and holdings data from the Integrated Library
    System behind CLIO) as open MARCXML bulk extracts, updated monthly and released under a CC0 1.0 Public Domain Designation.
    Covers books, serials, music, video, manuscripts and more; excludes Law Library and ReCAP partner records.
  humanURL: https://library.columbia.edu/bts/clio-data.html
  baseURL: https://lito.cul.columbia.edu/extracts/ColumbiaLibraryCatalog/full/
  tags:
  - Library
  - Catalog
  - MARCXML
  - Open Data
  - Bulk Download
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://library.columbia.edu/bts/clio-data.html
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/cul/clio-spectrum
- aid: columbia:directory-of-classes
  name: CU Directory of Classes
  description: Public web directory of Columbia University class offerings, browsable by subject, department, semester, instruction
    method, weekday and start time. No official documented API or JSON feed is published; the service points users to Vergil
    Course Search for authoritative course data. An unofficial third-party project (soid/columbia-catalog-data) crawls this
    directory and republishes it as JSON/CSV.
  humanURL: https://doc.sis.columbia.edu/
  tags:
  - Courses
  - Catalog
  - Directory
  - Unofficial
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://doc.sis.columbia.edu/
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/soid/columbia-catalog-data
- aid: columbia:identity
  name: Columbia Identity (CAS / Shibboleth SAML)
  description: Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT) provides UNI-based web authentication and federation. CAS
    (Central Authentication Service) supports browser-based single sign-on and MFA, while the Shibboleth Identity Provider
    supports SAML 2.0 single sign-on and participates in the InCommon Federation, serving roughly 50 integrated applications.
  humanURL: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/web-authentication-federation
  tags:
  - Identity
  - Authentication
  - SAML
  - CAS
  - Shibboleth
  - SSO
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/shibboleth
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/cas-authentication
  - type: Signup
    url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/cas-authentication/registration
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/columbia-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.columbia.edu/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://opendataservice.columbia.edu/
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/cul
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/columbia-it
- type: Authentication
  url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/web-authentication-federation
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/columbia-university/
- type: Plans
  url: plans/columbia-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/columbia-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/columbia-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com