King Saud University
King Saud University (جامعة الملك سعود, KSU) is Saudi Arabia's oldest public research university, founded in Riyadh in 1957. Contrary to the 2026-06-03 review of this profile, KSU does operate public, machine-readable surfaces on its own domain — they are documented only in Arabic, which is why an English-language review missed them. Its Data Management Office publishes an institutional open-data programme at data.ksu.edu.sa: 852 dataset distribution files across seven dataset families in JSON, XML, RDF/XML, CSV and XLSX, unauthenticated, under a KSU-authored open-data licence, on a declared annual cadence, with an Arabic API guide and a 13-page reference PDF. Separately, the university runs its own identity plane at iam.ksu.edu.sa, which serves a public OpenID Connect discovery document and RFC 8414 authorization-server metadata, and whose SAML 2.0 identity provider is registered in eduGAIN through the Saudi Maeen Identity Federation. What KSU does NOT publish is a developer programme: there is no developer portal, no API reference in English, no OpenAPI, no apis.json, no llms.txt, no status page and no self-service client registration — the advertised OAuth registration endpoint answers 404. The filtered open-data query API the university still documents has been withdrawn from its own router. Everything else students and staff touch — Edugate, MyKSU, the Blackboard LMS, the library catalogue — is either a gated end-user application or a vendor platform running under a KSU hostname.
King Saud University publishes 2 APIs on the APIs.io network: KSU Open Data Distribution API and KSU Identity and Access Management (OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect / SAML 2.0). Tagged areas include Education, Higher Education, University, Public Research University, and Saudi Arabia.
The King Saud University catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context.
King Saud University’s developer surface includes API reference, documentation, authentication, engineering blog, support, and 17 more developer resources.
2 APIs
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.
aid: king-saud-university
name: King Saud University
description: 'King Saud University (جامعة الملك سعود, KSU) is Saudi Arabia''s oldest public research university, founded in
Riyadh in 1957. Contrary to the 2026-06-03 review of this profile, KSU does operate public, machine-readable surfaces on
its own domain — they are documented only in Arabic, which is why an English-language review missed them. Its Data Management
Office publishes an institutional open-data programme at data.ksu.edu.sa: 852 dataset distribution files across seven dataset
families in JSON, XML, RDF/XML, CSV and XLSX, unauthenticated, under a KSU-authored open-data licence, on a declared annual
cadence, with an Arabic API guide and a 13-page reference PDF. Separately, the university runs its own identity plane at
iam.ksu.edu.sa, which serves a public OpenID Connect discovery document and RFC 8414 authorization-server metadata, and
whose SAML 2.0 identity provider is registered in eduGAIN through the Saudi Maeen Identity Federation. What KSU does NOT
publish is a developer programme: there is no developer portal, no API reference in English, no OpenAPI, no apis.json, no
llms.txt, no status page and no self-service client registration — the advertised OAuth registration endpoint answers 404.
The filtered open-data query API the university still documents has been withdrawn from its own router. Everything else
students and staff touch — Edugate, MyKSU, the Blackboard LMS, the library catalogue — is either a gated end-user application
or a vendor platform running under a KSU hostname.'
type: Index
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
deliveryModel:
model: saas
open_source: false
commercial: false
callable_host: true
label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
confidence: high
source:
- openapi
- probed
generated: '2026-09-01'
method: probed
accessModel:
pricing: free
onboarding: none
trial: false
try_now: true
public: true
label: Free · open data needs no account; identity plane is not self-service
confidence: high
source:
- probed
- plans
generated: '2026-09-01'
method: probed
position: Producing
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/king-saud-university.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/king-saud-university/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-api-posture: public-undocumented
x-api-posture-basis: observed
x-api-posture-note: Public, unauthenticated, machine-readable surfaces exist and were fetched, but the university runs no
developer programme around them — Arabic-only guidance on the open-data portal, and nothing at all for the identity plane
beyond its own discovery documents.
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Public Research University
- Saudi Arabia
- Middle East
- Riyadh
- Open Data
- Research Data
- Identity Federation
- Single Sign-On
- Research
- Linked Data
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-09-01'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: king-saud-university:open-data
name: KSU Open Data Distribution API
x-operator: institution
x-operator-basis: data.ksu.edu.sa is under the institution's own registrable domain; the portal names its publisher as the
King Saud University Data Management Office and the licence names King Saud University as licensor.
description: 'The King Saud University Data Management Office (مكتب إدارة البيانات) publishes institutional open data as
stable, unauthenticated HTTP resources on the university''s own domain. Seven dataset families — enrolled students and
graduates, faculty, administrative and technical staff, outbound scholarships, scientific research (publications, awards
and patents, research chairs and scholarly associations, library holdings), student services and activities, and community
service including the University Medical City — each released in five formats: JSON, XML, RDF/XML, CSV and XLSX. 852 distribution
files are linked from the portal''s category pages (219 RDF, 216 XLSX, 213 CSV, 103 JSON, 101 XML); 202 dataset names
are enumerated in the university''s own reference PDF. Coverage runs from Hijri year 1430/1431 AH to 1444 AH and on into
Gregorian 2023-2025, on a declared annual cadence. Verified live 2026-09-01: 20 of 20 sampled files returned HTTP 200
with the correct content type, and the 1444 AH employee dataset returned 11,709 records. The university additionally documents
a filtered query endpoint at GET /api/views/data_api; that route is dead, returning {"message":"No route found for \"GET
/api/views/data_api\""}, and it is therefore not described in the OpenAPI.'
humanURL: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar
baseURL: https://data.ksu.edu.sa
tags:
- Open Data
- Datasets
- JSON
- RDF
- CSV
- Linked Data
- No Authentication
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/king-saud-university-open-data-openapi.yml
- type: Documentation
url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar/node/1163
- type: APIReference
url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar/api/guide
- type: TermsOfService
url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar/node/1178
- type: JSONSchema
url: json-schema/king-saud-university-open-data-datasets-schema.json
- type: Examples
url: examples/king-saud-university-open-data-examples.yml
- type: Lifecycle
url: lifecycle/king-saud-university-lifecycle.yml
- aid: king-saud-university:identity
name: KSU Identity and Access Management (OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect / SAML 2.0)
x-operator: institution
x-operator-basis: iam.ksu.edu.sa is under the institution's own registrable domain, the discovery document's issuer is https://iam.ksu.edu.sa,
and the SAML entity it fronts is registered to King Saud University with the ksu.edu.sa scope.
description: 'King Saud University operates its own authorization server and identity provider, and publishes both discovery
documents anonymously: OpenID Connect Discovery 1.0 at /.well-known/openid-configuration and RFC 8414 authorization-server
metadata at /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server, with a live JWKS at /pf/JWKS. The deployment is PingFederate and
advertises authorization code with PKCE (S256), client credentials, refresh token, JWT and SAML2 bearer, token exchange,
device code (RFC 8628), CIBA, pushed authorization requests (RFC 9126), introspection (RFC 7662), revocation (RFC 7009)
and both front- and back-channel logout. Six scopes are declared — openid, profile, email, eportalclaims, eportalWebScope
and NoClaim — and the claim set exposes the university''s directory attributes plus a StudentName claim. The same deployment
answers SP-initiated SAML SSO: requesting lms.ksu.edu.sa returns a SAML AuthnRequest posted to iam.ksu.edu.sa/idp/startSSO.ping.
Discoverable is not open: the advertised client registration endpoint returns 404 to an anonymous request, and the university
publishes no documentation for this surface at all.'
humanURL: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/openid-configuration
baseURL: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa
tags:
- Identity
- Authentication
- OAuth 2.0
- OpenID Connect
- SAML
- Single Sign-On
- Not Self-Service
properties:
- type: OpenAPI
url: openapi/king-saud-university-identity-openapi.yml
- type: OpenIDConnectDiscovery
url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/openid-configuration
- type: AuthorizationServerMetadata
url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
- type: JWKS
url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/pf/JWKS
- type: Authentication
url: authentication/king-saud-university-authentication.yml
- type: Scopes
url: scopes/king-saud-university-scopes.yml
- aid: king-saud-university:edugain-idp
name: King Saud University identity provider in eduGAIN (via Maeen)
x-operator: federation
x-operator-basis: A federation aggregate is shared by definition; the identity provider whose metadata it carries is King
Saud University's own.
description: 'King Saud University''s SAML 2.0 identity provider is published into the eduGAIN interfederation metadata
by the Maeen Identity Federation (https://www.maeen.sa, federation code SA-MIF, an eduGAIN member since 2019-07-02). The
entity is entityID http://SSO.ksu.edu.sa/adfs/services/trust, role IDPSSODescriptor, English display name "King Saud University",
scope ksu.edu.sa, first seen in eduGAIN on 2020-02-02. The metadata itself lives in the eduGAIN aggregate at https://mds.edugain.org/edugain-v2.xml,
served as application/samlmetadata+xml. This is a machine-readable, institution-owned identity surface — one of the strongest
a university has, and the class this cohort was most completely missing. The entityID retains an ADFS-shaped identifier
from before the university''s migration to PingFederate, which is correct practice: a SAML entityID is a name, not a location.'
humanURL: https://technical.edugain.org/entities?id=671188
tags:
- Identity Federation
- eduGAIN
- SAML
- Shibboleth Metadata
- Maeen
- Saudi Arabia
properties:
- type: IdentityFederation
url: https://technical.edugain.org/entities?id=671188
- type: Metadata
url: https://mds.edugain.org/edugain-v2.xml
- type: RegistrationAuthority
url: https://www.maeen.sa/
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/king-saud-university-conformance.yml
- aid: king-saud-university:crossref
name: Crossref membership and DOI prefix
x-operator: registry
x-operator-basis: Crossref is an identifier registry the institution is registered in. The registry's own contract is not
King Saud University's; the membership is.
description: King Saud University is Crossref member 19827 and owns DOI prefix 10.33948, under which Crossref reports 1,521
registered DOIs (354 current, 1,167 backfile) as of 2026-09-01. The university's scholarly journals are administered by
its Scientific Journals Department at journals.ksu.edu.sa; the flagship Journal of King Saud University series is published
through Elsevier, so the hosting platform is a vendor's while the registrant is the institution.
humanURL: https://api.crossref.org/members/19827
tags:
- Crossref
- DOI
- Scholarly Publishing
- Registry Membership
properties:
- type: RegistryRecord
url: https://api.crossref.org/members/19827
- type: Prefix
url: https://api.crossref.org/prefixes/10.33948
- type: Website
url: https://journals.ksu.edu.sa/ar
- aid: king-saud-university:ror
name: Research Organization Registry identifier
x-operator: registry
x-operator-basis: ROR is an identifier registry the institution is registered in; the ROR API belongs to ROR, the record
belongs to King Saud University.
description: King Saud University is registered in the Research Organization Registry as https://ror.org/02f81g417, the
canonical machine-readable identifier for the institution in scholarly infrastructure. Confirmed against the ROR v2 API
on 2026-09-01.
humanURL: https://ror.org/02f81g417
tags:
- ROR
- Persistent Identifier
- Registry Membership
- Research Infrastructure
properties:
- type: RegistryRecord
url: https://api.ror.org/v2/organizations/02f81g417
- type: Identifier
url: https://ror.org/02f81g417
- aid: king-saud-university:blackboard-lms
name: KSU learning management system (Blackboard Learn SaaS tenancy)
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-basis: lms.ksu.edu.sa is a CNAME to ksu.blackboard.com, which resolves onward into Anthology's Blackboard Learn
SaaS estate (learn.6933129eab8d1.euc1.prod-01.core.blackboard.com). The hostname is the university's; the platform and
its contract are Anthology's.
description: 'King Saud University''s learning management system is a Blackboard Learn SaaS tenancy fronted by a university
hostname. Requesting it returns a SAML AuthnRequest to the university''s own identity provider, which makes the tenancy
genuine and the identity institution-operated. No contract is saved here: any API, LTI capability or specification for
this platform is Anthology''s engineering, not KSU''s, and belongs to Anthology''s own profile. Recorded because a tenancy
is a real institutional fact and one of the few programmable surfaces most universities have.'
humanURL: https://lms.ksu.edu.sa/
tags:
- Learning Management System
- Blackboard
- Anthology
- Tenant
- SAML
properties:
- type: Website
url: https://lms.ksu.edu.sa/
common:
- type: Website
url: https://ksu.edu.sa/en
- type: OpenData
url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar
- type: APIReference
url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar/api/guide
- type: Documentation
url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar/node/1163
- type: TermsOfService
url: https://ksu.edu.sa/ar/terms
- type: PrivacyPolicy
url: https://ksu.edu.sa/ar/privacy
- type: IdentityFederation
url: https://technical.edugain.org/entities?id=671188
- type: Authentication
url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/openid-configuration
- type: AIPolicy
url: https://aio.ksu.edu.sa/ar/node/2976
- type: AITooling
url: https://thakaa.ksu.edu.sa/en
- type: LibraryCatalog
url: https://library.ksu.edu.sa/en
- type: Blog
url: https://news.ksu.edu.sa/ar
- type: Support
url: https://ksu.edu.sa/en/apps
- type: LinkedIn
url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/king-saud-university/
- type: Twitter
url: https://x.com/_KSU
- type: DomainSecurity
url: security/king-saud-university-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
url: plans/king-saud-university-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
url: rate-limits/king-saud-university-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
url: finops/king-saud-university-finops.yml
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/king-saud-university-conformance.yml
- type: Lifecycle
url: lifecycle/king-saud-university-lifecycle.yml
- type: Review
url: review.yml
x-coverage:
state: covered
reason: covered
detail: 'Two institution-operated, machine-readable surfaces were found, fetched and described: the KSU Open Data distribution
programme at data.ksu.edu.sa (852 files, five formats, unauthenticated, 20 of 20 sampled files live) and the university''s
own OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect / SAML identity plane at iam.ksu.edu.sa (discovery documents and JWKS all served anonymously).
Both were missed by the 2026-06-03 review because every piece of guidance for them is Arabic-only — data.ksu.edu.sa/en/api/guide
is a 404 while data.ksu.edu.sa/ar/api/guide is a 200. Three relationships were recorded rather than credited as contracts:
eduGAIN/Maeen federation membership, Crossref membership with prefix 10.33948, and a ROR identifier. One tenancy was recorded
and its contract deliberately not saved: lms.ksu.edu.sa is a CNAME to ksu.blackboard.com (Anthology Blackboard Learn SaaS).
Three claimed surfaces are dead and are not carried as pointers: the DSpace repository and its OAI-PMH endpoint at repository.ksu.edu.sa
(NXDOMAIN, though ROAR still lists it), the library catalogue at catalog.library.ksu.edu.sa (resolves, TCP connection
fails), and edugate.ksu.edu.sa (timed out on three consecutive attempts, having returned 200 in June). One Figshare false
positive was tested and rejected: ksu.figshare.com answers HTTP 202 with an AWS WAF challenge, but so does a control request
to a deliberately nonexistent subdomain, so it is not evidence of a KSU tenancy and none is recorded. What the university
genuinely lacks is a developer programme — no portal, no English documentation, no OpenAPI, no apis.json, no llms.txt,
no agent card, no status page, and an advertised OAuth client-registration endpoint that answers 404.'
evidence:
- url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/ar/api/guide
status: 200
- url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/en/api/guide
status: 404
- url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/sites/data.ksu.edu.sa/files/users/user976/KSU-DMO-OD-DATASET-Employees-1444-AH.json
status: 200
- url: https://data.ksu.edu.sa/api/views/data_api?display_id=employees&limit=3&_format=json
status: 404
- url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/openid-configuration
status: 200
- url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
status: 200
- url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/pf/JWKS
status: 200
- url: https://iam.ksu.edu.sa/as/clients.oauth2
status: 404
- url: https://mds.edugain.org/edugain-v2.xml
status: 200
- url: https://api.crossref.org/members/19827
status: 200
- url: https://ror.org/02f81g417
status: 200
- url: https://lms.ksu.edu.sa/
status: 200
- url: https://repository.ksu.edu.sa/
status: 0
- url: https://catalog.library.ksu.edu.sa/
status: 0
- url: https://edugate.ksu.edu.sa/ksu/init
status: 0
- url: https://ksu.edu.sa/apis.json
status: 404
- url: https://ksu.edu.sa/llms.txt
status: 404
- url: https://ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/agent-card.json
status: 404
- url: https://ksu.edu.sa/.well-known/security.txt
status: 404
checked: '2026-09-01'
x-enrichment:
pipeline: pipeline-university
run: '2026-09-01'
note: Re-profiled under the university pipeline's operator axis. The 2026-06-03 profile recorded a single "No Public Documented
API" entry; that entry is withdrawn as factually wrong. No vendor contract was added to this repo and none was found in
it.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
email: kin@apievangelist.com
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