McGill University

aid: mcgill
name: McGill University
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
description: 'McGill University is a public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and one of Canada''s two U15
  institutions in the global top 100. Its programmable footprint is small and must be described honestly: McGill operates
  no developer portal, publishes no API key programme, and runs no OAuth authorization server. Exactly one machine-readable
  surface is operated by the institution itself — the Shibboleth SAML 2.0 identity provider at shibboleth.mcgill.ca, whose
  federation metadata is served unauthenticated at /idp/shibboleth and carries entityID and shibmd:Scope of mcgill.ca. Everything
  else that looks like a McGill API is a platform McGill is a tenant on: eScholarship@McGill runs on Scholaris (Scholars Portal
  / OCUL DSpace 7) at mcgill.scholaris.ca, which serves a DSpace REST root and a valid OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint; the McGill University
  Dataverse is a collection on Borealis (borealisdata.ca), a consortial host shared with five other institutions in this catalog;
  the course catalogue at coursecatalogue.mcgill.ca is a CourseLeaf instance CNAMEd to mcgill-ca-public.courseleaf.com. Those
  relationships are real institutional facts and are recorded as tenant surfaces — the data is McGill''s, the contracts are
  not. Registration, library discovery and HR run on Banner/Minerva, WorldCat and Workday behind authentication with no public
  interface.'
x-coverage:
  state: covered
  reason: covered
  detail: 'Probed directly on 2026-08-30 and the profile is complete for what exists. One institution-operated machine-readable
    surface was found and catalogued (the Shibboleth SAML IdP, previously recorded only as a link with no contract). Three
    tenant relationships were settled and recorded without saving the platforms'' contracts. This repo previously held five
    OpenAPI documents describing the Dataverse Native and Search APIs on borealisdata.ca — a host the cohort audit shows is
    claimed by six institutions — plus twenty-one artifacts derived from them; all were removed as vendor-operated. Nothing
    here is blocked, gated or unreadable: McGill''s footprint is genuinely this small, and the profile now says so.'
  evidence:
  - url: https://shibboleth.mcgill.ca/idp/shibboleth
    status: 200
  - url: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/server/api
    status: 200
  - url: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/mcgill
    status: 200
  - url: https://coursecatalogue.mcgill.ca/ribbit/index.cgi?page=getcourse.rjs&code=COMP+202
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.mcgill.ca/
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.mcgill.ca/llms.txt
    status: 404
  - url: https://www.mcgill.ca/.well-known/security.txt
    status: 404
  - url: https://api.mcgill.ca/
    status: 0
  - url: https://data.mcgill.ca/
    status: 0
  - url: https://opendata.mcgill.ca/
    status: 0
  - url: https://shibboleth.mcgill.ca/idp/status
    status: 403
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: self-hosted
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: true
  label: Institution-operated identity edge · federation metadata, no product
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - probe
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: probed
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: none
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: true
  label: Free · No registration · No developer programme
  confidence: high
  source:
  - probe
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: probed
position: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/mcgill.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/mcgill/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- Canada
- Quebec
- U15
- Public Research University
- Identity Federation
- Research Repository
- Research Data
- Course Catalog
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-30'
properties:
- type: x-rules
  url: rules/mcgill-rules.yml
- type: x-conformance
  url: conformance/mcgill-conformance.yml
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: mcgill:shibboleth-idp
  name: McGill University Authentication Service — Shibboleth SAML 2.0 Identity Provider
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: shibboleth.mcgill.ca is under McGill's own registrable domain and resolves to 132.216.98.81 with no
    vendor CNAME. The published SAML EntityDescriptor declares entityID="https://shibboleth.mcgill.ca/idp/shibboleth" and
    shibmd:Scope "mcgill.ca".
  description: McGill's SAML 2.0 identity provider and the only machine-readable surface in this profile that McGill itself
    operates. The federation metadata document at /idp/shibboleth is served unauthenticated (HTTP 200, application/xml, 8,995
    bytes on 2026-08-30) and publishes signing and encryption keys, bilingual mdui:UIInfo display names, the mcgill.ca scope,
    and every SingleSignOnService and SingleLogoutService binding the IdP supports. This is an identity edge, not a data API
    — and it is exactly the surface class universities operate and catalogs routinely miss.
  humanURL: https://www.mcgill.ca/it/
  baseURL: https://shibboleth.mcgill.ca
  tags:
  - Identity
  - Identity Federation
  - Authentication
  - SAML
  - SSO
  - Shibboleth
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mcgill-shibboleth-idp-openapi.yml
  - type: IdentityFederation
    url: https://shibboleth.mcgill.ca/idp/shibboleth
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/mcgill-authentication.yml
  - type: x-conformance
    url: conformance/mcgill-conformance.yml
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/mcgill-shibboleth-idp-metadata-example.xml
  - type: Website
    url: https://shibboleth.mcgill.ca/
- aid: mcgill:escholarship-scholaris
  name: eScholarship@McGill on Scholaris (tenant)
  x-operator: tenant
  x-operator-evidence: mcgill.scholaris.ca is an institution-specific subdomain on the Scholaris platform (Scholars Portal
    / OCUL) and resolves via public-proxy.scholaris.ca. escholarship.mcgill.ca, McGill's own hostname, CNAMEs to nproxy.scholarsportal.info
    and redirects here. The OAI-PMH Identify response names the repository "eScholarship@McGill" with adminEmail escholarship.library@mcgill.ca
    — McGill's content and McGill's contact on a consortial DSpace 7 deployment McGill does not engineer.
  description: 'McGill''s institutional research repository, running as a tenant on Scholaris. It exposes a DSpace REST (HAL)
    root at /server/api and a conformant OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint at /server/oai/request advertising thirteen metadata prefixes
    (oai_dc, qdc, mods, mets, didl, ore, xoai, dim, rdf, marc, etdms, rioxx, uketd_dc). No contract is saved under McGill:
    the DSpace REST and OAI-PMH interfaces are the platform''s and belong to DSpace, not to this institution. Recorded because
    the repository, its records and its DOIs are genuinely McGill''s — this is one of the few programmable surfaces the university
    actually has.'
  humanURL: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/
  baseURL: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/server
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - Research Data
  - OAI-PMH
  - DSpace
  - Scholaris
  - Open Access
  properties:
  - type: ResearchRepository
    url: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/server/api
  - type: x-oai-pmh
    url: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
  - type: x-conformance
    url: conformance/mcgill-conformance.yml
- aid: mcgill:dataverse-borealis
  name: McGill University Dataverse on Borealis (tenant)
  x-operator: tenant
  x-operator-evidence: borealisdata.ca is a consortial host operated by Scholars Portal / OCUL and resolves to 142.1.121.150
    (University of Toronto address space). The cohort audit records the same host claimed by five other institutions in this
    catalog, so it cannot be McGill-specific. The McGill collection at /dataverse/mcgill is McGill's; the API serving it is
    Dataverse's.
  description: McGill's research-data collection on Borealis, the Canadian consortial Dataverse repository. The collection,
    its datasets and its DOIs are McGill's. The Dataverse Native and Search REST APIs that serve it are the Dataverse project's
    contract, deployed once by Scholars Portal and shared by every Borealis member — which is why no OpenAPI is saved under
    this institution. This repo previously held five such documents plus twenty-one derived artifacts, all attributed to McGill;
    they have been removed. Scope a Borealis search to this institution with subtree=mcgill.
  humanURL: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/mcgill
  baseURL: https://borealisdata.ca/api
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - Research Data
  - Dataverse
  - Borealis
  - Open Data
  properties:
  - type: ResearchRepository
    url: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/mcgill
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/native-api.html
- aid: mcgill:coursecatalogue-courseleaf
  name: McGill Course Catalogue on CourseLeaf (tenant)
  x-operator: tenant
  x-operator-evidence: coursecatalogue.mcgill.ca is McGill's own hostname CNAMEd to mcgill-ca-public.courseleaf.com (Leepfrog
    Technologies) — an institution-branded instance on a vendor platform, the same shape as a repository CNAMEd to a hosted
    DSpace.
  description: 'McGill''s official course catalogue, published on CourseLeaf. It carries an undocumented but live machine-readable
    course-detail endpoint — GET /ribbit/index.cgi?page=getcourse.rjs with a space-separated course code returns XML with
    a CDATA course block (verified 200, text/xml, for COMP 202 and BIOL 112 on 2026-08-30; an unknown code returns an empty
    courseinfo element, also 200). No contract is saved: the endpoint is CourseLeaf''s product surface, identical across every
    CourseLeaf customer, and saving it under McGill would credit the institution with a vendor''s design. Recorded because
    the catalogue data is McGill''s and a course catalogue is one of the surface classes a university genuinely operates.'
  humanURL: https://coursecatalogue.mcgill.ca/
  baseURL: https://coursecatalogue.mcgill.ca
  tags:
  - Course Catalog
  - Registrar
  - CourseLeaf
  - Academic
  properties:
  - type: CourseCatalog
    url: https://coursecatalogue.mcgill.ca/
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.mcgill.ca/students/courses/
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/
- type: IdentityFederation
  url: https://shibboleth.mcgill.ca/idp/shibboleth
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://mcgill.scholaris.ca/
- type: OpenData
  url: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/mcgill
- type: CourseCatalog
  url: https://coursecatalogue.mcgill.ca/
- type: LibraryCatalog
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/libraries/
- type: AITooling
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/it/ai
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/mcgill-authentication.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/mcgill-domain-security.yml
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/privacy-notice
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/secretariat/repository-university-policies-and-regulations
- type: Support
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/it/support
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/
- type: BlogRSS
  url: https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/rss.xml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/mcgill-university/
- type: Twitter
  url: https://x.com/mcgillu
- type: Plans
  url: plans/mcgill-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/mcgill-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/mcgill-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com