Seoul National University website screenshot

Seoul National University

Seoul National University (SNU) is South Korea's flagship national research university, a national university corporation in Seoul ranked in the QS World top 40 and identified by ROR as https://ror.org/04h9pn542. Like most universities it is a federation of buyers rather than a producer of APIs: it operates no developer portal, no open-data portal, no API gateway, no official GitHub organization, and no OAuth or OIDC authorization server. It publishes no API documentation of any kind, and every contract in this repository was written from live probing rather than from something SNU wrote. What it does operate — verified on its own hosts and its own address block on 2026-08-19 — is four machine-readable surfaces. Two OAI-PMH 2.0 data providers: S-Space, the SNU Open Repository and Archive (DSpace 5.5, content from 2008, twelve metadata formats, 100+ sets, three harvesting contexts including OpenAIRE and DRIVER), and KOSSDA, the Korea Social Science Data Archive (DSpace 5.6, content from 2017). An OpenSearch 1.1 search interface over S-Space. And a SAML 2.0 Identity Provider, entityID https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/idp/simplesamlphp, registered in the KAFE national federation and exported into eduGAIN with REFEDS Research & Scholarship support and a Sirtfi assurance assertion — the single most consequential programmable surface the institution runs, and one no catalog had recorded. Two honest limits belong in the same breath. The repository hosts front everything except OAI-PMH with a JavaScript bot challenge that returns HTTP 200 and an HTML shell to any machine client, so the OpenSearch interface is gated rather than open. And SNU's library discovery runs on Ex Libris Alma and Primo under institution code 82SNU — real, but a tenancy, recorded below as such and never scored as SNU's engineering.

Seoul National University publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network: S-Space OAI-PMH Repository Interface, KOSSDA OAI-PMH Repository Interface, and S-Space OpenSearch Interface. Tagged areas include University, Higher Education, Education, South Korea, and Research.

The Seoul National University catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Seoul National University’s developer surface includes support, authentication, and 22 more developer resources.

52.0/100 developing ▲ 34.9 Agent 33/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0
AccessFree
5 APIs
UniversityHigher EducationEducationSouth KoreaResearchResearch DataInstitutional RepositoryResearch RepositoryIdentity FederationOAI-PMHSAMLOpen AccessLibraryNational University

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0
Composite quality — 52.0/100 · developing
Contract Quality 13.4 / 21
Developer Ergonomics 2.8 / 17
Access Clarity 6.7 / 17
Operational Transparency 2.3 / 11
Contract Governance 6.9 / 10
Discoverability 6.3 / 9
Regulatory Posture 10.8 / 15
Agent readiness — 33/100 · agent aware
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10
Documented Reversibility 0 / 6
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 7 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Education & Research regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.
The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/snu: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 5

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

S-Space OAI-PMH Repository Interface

OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting for S-Space, the SNU Open Repository and Archive. Verified live and anonymous on 2026-08-19: repositoryName "SNU Open Repository and Archive", re...

KOSSDA OAI-PMH Repository Interface

OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting for KOSSDA (한국사회과학자료원), the Korea Social Science Data Archive at Seoul National University — SNU's social-science research data archive, listed i...

Seoul National University SAML 2.0 Identity Provider

SNU's federated identity provider, entityID https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/idp/simplesamlphp, registered by the Korea Access Federation (registrationAuthority http://kafe.kreonet.net,...

S-Space OpenSearch Interface

OpenSearch 1.1 search over the SNU Open Repository and Archive. A description document is served at /open-search/description.xml as application/opensearchdescription+xml with Lo...

SNU Library Discovery (Ex Libris Primo / Alma) — tenancy

Seoul National University Library runs library management and discovery on Ex Libris Alma and Primo, institution code 82SNU / 82SNU_INST, on the institution-specific host snu-pr...

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Snu Plans Pricing

2 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Snu Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Snu Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Snu Context

20 classes · 11 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Seoul National University API Rules

10 rules · 7 errors 3 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

SNU OAI-PMH Identify

9 properties

JSON SCHEMA

SNU OAI-PMH Record (oai_dc)

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Snu Authentication

none/saml2 · 3 schemes

SECURITY

Snu Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Snu Scopes

OAuth 2.0 · no documented scopes

0 scopes

SCOPES

Resources

Design & Contract 6

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Access & Security 3

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Learn 1

Tutorials, courses, talks, and written guidance

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Other 5

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑
aid: snu
name: Seoul National University
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
description: 'Seoul National University (SNU) is South Korea''s flagship national research university, a national university
  corporation in Seoul ranked in the QS World top 40 and identified by ROR as https://ror.org/04h9pn542. Like most universities
  it is a federation of buyers rather than a producer of APIs: it operates no developer portal, no open-data portal, no API
  gateway, no official GitHub organization, and no OAuth or OIDC authorization server. It publishes no API documentation of
  any kind, and every contract in this repository was written from live probing rather than from something SNU wrote.

  What it does operate — verified on its own hosts and its own address block on 2026-08-19 — is four machine-readable surfaces.
  Two OAI-PMH 2.0 data providers: S-Space, the SNU Open Repository and Archive (DSpace 5.5, content from 2008, twelve metadata
  formats, 100+ sets, three harvesting contexts including OpenAIRE and DRIVER), and KOSSDA, the Korea Social Science Data
  Archive (DSpace 5.6, content from 2017). An OpenSearch 1.1 search interface over S-Space. And a SAML 2.0 Identity Provider,
  entityID https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/idp/simplesamlphp, registered in the KAFE national federation and exported into eduGAIN
  with REFEDS Research & Scholarship support and a Sirtfi assurance assertion — the single most consequential programmable
  surface the institution runs, and one no catalog had recorded.

  Two honest limits belong in the same breath. The repository hosts front everything except OAI-PMH with a JavaScript bot
  challenge that returns HTTP 200 and an HTML shell to any machine client, so the OpenSearch interface is gated rather than
  open. And SNU''s library discovery runs on Ex Libris Alma and Primo under institution code 82SNU — real, but a tenancy,
  recorded below as such and never scored as SNU''s engineering.'
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: none
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: true
  label: Free
  confidence: high
  source:
  - probed
  generated: '2026-08-19'
  method: probed
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/snu.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/snu/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- South Korea
- Research
- Research Data
- Institutional Repository
- Research Repository
- Identity Federation
- OAI-PMH
- SAML
- Open Access
- Library
- National University
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-19'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: snu:s-space-oai-pmh
  name: S-Space OAI-PMH Repository Interface
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting for S-Space, the SNU Open Repository and Archive. Verified live and anonymous
    on 2026-08-19: repositoryName "SNU Open Repository and Archive", repositoryIdentifier s-space.snu.ac.kr, adminEmail s-space@snu.ac.kr,
    earliestDatestamp 2008-07-31T15:00:00Z, granularity YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ, deletedRecord transient. Twelve metadata formats
    (oai_dc, qdc, mods, mets, marc, rdf, didl, ore, uketd_dc, xoai, dim, etdms) and over 100 sets. Three harvesting contexts:
    the default /oai/request, DRIVER at /oai/driver, and OpenAIRE at /oai/openaire. Runs DSpace 5.5 on 147.46.181.99, inside
    SNU''s own address block. The OAI paths are deliberately exempted from the site''s JavaScript bot challenge, so a harvester
    without a browser reaches them directly. No OpenAPI is published by SNU; the contract here was probed.'
  humanURL: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/
  baseURL: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/request
  tags:
  - OAI-PMH
  - Institutional Repository
  - DSpace
  - Open Access
  - Research
  - Metadata Harvesting
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/snu-s-space-oai-pmh-openapi.yml
  - type: x-OAI-PMH-Identify
    url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=Identify
  - type: x-OAI-PMH-MetadataFormats
    url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=ListMetadataFormats
  - type: x-OAI-PMH-Sets
    url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=ListSets
  - type: x-OAI-PMH-OpenAIRE
    url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/openaire?verb=Identify
  - type: x-OAI-PMH-DRIVER
    url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/driver?verb=Identify
- aid: snu:kossda-oai-pmh
  name: KOSSDA OAI-PMH Repository Interface
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting for KOSSDA (한국사회과학자료원), the Korea Social Science Data Archive at Seoul National
    University — SNU''s social-science research data archive, listed in re3data as r3d100014654 with no API recorded there.
    Verified live and anonymous on 2026-08-19: adminEmail kossda@snu.ac.kr, earliestDatestamp 2017-04-09T11:10:50Z, same twelve
    metadata formats, handles under prefix 20.500.12236. DSpace 5.6 on 147.46.181.153, SNU''s own address block. Two defects
    are recorded rather than smoothed over: the endpoint advertises its own baseURL as plain http:// while serving over HTTPS,
    and Identify needed a read timeout above 45 seconds to complete, which will fail most default harvester settings.'
  humanURL: https://kossda.snu.ac.kr/
  baseURL: https://kossda.snu.ac.kr/oai/request
  tags:
  - OAI-PMH
  - Research Data
  - DSpace
  - Social Science
  - Data Archive
  - Metadata Harvesting
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/snu-kossda-oai-pmh-openapi.yml
  - type: x-OAI-PMH-Identify
    url: https://kossda.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=Identify
  - type: x-re3data
    url: https://doi.org/10.17616/R31NJNSU
- aid: snu:kafe-saml-idp
  name: Seoul National University SAML 2.0 Identity Provider
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'SNU''s federated identity provider, entityID https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/idp/simplesamlphp, registered by the
    Korea Access Federation (registrationAuthority http://kafe.kreonet.net, registrationInstant 2024-06-25) and exported into
    eduGAIN, where exactly one of 10,566 entities carries the snu.ac.kr scope. SimpleSAMLphp, SAML 2.0, SSO and SLO over HTTP-Redirect
    and HTTP-POST, transient NameID, separate signing and encryption certificates issued to CN=kafegw.snu.ac.kr, O=SNU, OU=Information
    Systems and Technology, valid to 2028-06-03. Declares shibmd:Scope snu.ac.kr, supports REFEDS Research & Scholarship,
    and asserts Sirtfi with a published security contact. Institution-operated by definition and machine-readable by definition
    — and not previously catalogued. Note that SNU does not serve its own metadata: the entityID URL 404s and the SimpleSAMLphp
    metadata path returns 500, so the eduGAIN aggregate is the only retrievable copy, mirrored here.'
  humanURL: https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/
  baseURL: https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/saml/module.php/saml/idp/singleSignOnService
  tags:
  - SAML
  - Identity Federation
  - Shibboleth
  - eduGAIN
  - KAFE
  - Single Sign-On
  - Authentication
  properties:
  - type: x-SAMLMetadata
    url: authentication/snu-kafe-saml-idp-metadata.xml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/snu-authentication.yml
  - type: x-FederationMetadata
    url: https://mds.edugain.org/edugain-v2.xml
- aid: snu:s-space-opensearch
  name: S-Space OpenSearch Interface
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'OpenSearch 1.1 search over the SNU Open Repository and Archive. A description document is served at /open-search/description.xml
    as application/opensearchdescription+xml with LongName "SNU Open Repository and Archive", and /open-search/ answers keyword
    queries in Atom, RSS 2.0 or HTML with opensearch: namespace annotations. GATED, not open: unlike the OAI-PMH endpoints,
    this path sits behind the site''s JavaScript interstitial, so a machine client receives HTTP 200 and a ~1 KB HTML shell
    carrying a js-challenge token rather than results. Every example in this repository was captured by replaying that token
    as a cookie. Recorded as a real surface with its real access condition attached.'
  humanURL: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/
  baseURL: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/open-search/
  tags:
  - OpenSearch
  - Search
  - Institutional Repository
  - DSpace
  - Atom
  - RSS
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/snu-s-space-opensearch-openapi.yml
  - type: x-OpenSearchDescription
    url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/open-search/description.xml
- aid: snu:library-discovery-primo
  name: SNU Library Discovery (Ex Libris Primo / Alma) — tenancy
  x-operator: tenant
  x-vendor: Ex Libris (Clarivate)
  x-tenant-identifier: 82SNU_INST
  description: Seoul National University Library runs library management and discovery on Ex Libris Alma and Primo, institution
    code 82SNU / 82SNU_INST, on the institution-specific host snu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com. Confirmed from SNU Library's
    own homepage (lib.snu.ac.kr), which links search, journal search, thesis search and full-display into that host and pulls
    cover thumbnails from ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com. This entry exists to record a real institutional fact — SNU operates
    a library discovery service — while refusing the misattribution that goes with it. The catalog data is SNU's; the API,
    the contract and the engineering are Ex Libris's, and no Ex Libris specification is saved under this institution. Score
    the contract against Ex Libris, not against SNU.
  humanURL: https://lib.snu.ac.kr/
  baseURL: https://snu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/search?vid=82SNU
  tags:
  - Library
  - Discovery
  - Primo
  - Alma
  - Ex Libris
  - Tenant
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://lib.snu.ac.kr/
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://en.snu.ac.kr/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://en.snu.ac.kr/privacy-policy
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/seoulnational-university
- type: Support
  url: https://ist.snu.ac.kr/
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://kossda.snu.ac.kr/
- type: LibraryCatalog
  url: https://lib.snu.ac.kr/
- type: CourseCatalog
  url: https://sugang.snu.ac.kr/
- type: IdentityFederation
  url: https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/
- type: AIPolicy
  url: https://www.snu.ac.kr/about/downloads?md=v&bbsidx=166508
- type: AITooling
  url: https://www.snu.ac.kr/snunow/press?md=v&bbsidx=170942
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/snu-authentication.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/snu-conformance.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/snu-lifecycle.yml
- type: Scopes
  url: scopes/snu-scopes.yml
- type: Errors
  url: errors/snu-errors.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/snu-vocabulary.yml
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/snu-context.jsonld
- type: Rules
  url: rules/snu-rules.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/snu-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/snu-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/snu-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/snu-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
x-coverage:
  state: covered
  reason: institution_operates_limited_public_surface
  detail: 'Not blocked and not thin by accident. Seventy-plus URLs across snu.ac.kr and its subdomains were probed on 2026-08-19,
    in Korean as well as English, and four institution-operated machine-readable surfaces were found and verified: two OAI-PMH
    2.0 repositories, one OpenSearch 1.1 interface, one SAML 2.0 identity provider in eduGAIN. The negatives are as load-bearing
    as the positives. api.snu.ac.kr exists and resolves to SNU''s block but answers 403 at the root and 404 on every path,
    so it is not a gateway. There is no open-data portal — data.snu.ac.kr is a research lab''s website, not CKAN or Socrata.
    The LMS at etl.snu.ac.kr is neither Moodle nor Canvas and exposes no LTI. dcollection.snu.ac.kr runs KERIS dCollection
    on SNU''s own network but serves no OAI-PMH. There is no official SNU GitHub organization, only lab-level ones, so no
    GitHubOrganization pointer is claimed. Two access conditions shape what a machine can actually reach: s-space and kossda
    front everything except OAI-PMH with a JavaScript challenge returning HTTP 200 and an HTML shell, and lib.snu.ac.kr locks
    its WordPress REST API behind a 401. One correction to the 2026-06-03 profile is recorded in errors/snu-errors.yml — the
    DSpace REST API previously reported as "present but 403" does not exist at all; behind the challenge cookie those paths
    404.'
  evidence:
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
    note: OAI-PMH 2.0 Identify, anonymous, no challenge. repositoryName "SNU Open Repository and Archive".
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=ListMetadataFormats
    status: 200
    note: Twelve metadata formats.
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=ListSets
    status: 200
    note: Over 100 sets (com_10371_*, col_10371_*).
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/openaire?verb=Identify
    status: 200
    note: OpenAIRE harvesting context, live.
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/oai/driver?verb=Identify
    status: 200
    note: DRIVER harvesting context, live.
  - url: https://kossda.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
    note: KOSSDA OAI-PMH live; required a 120s read timeout, failed at 30s and 45s.
  - url: https://mds.edugain.org/edugain-v2.xml
    status: 200
    note: eduGAIN aggregate, 92.9 MB, 10,566 entities. Exactly one carries scope snu.ac.kr — SNU's SAML 2.0 IdP. Mirrored
      to authentication/snu-kafe-saml-idp-metadata.xml.
  - url: https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/
    status: 200
    note: IdP host live on 147.46.10.201, SNU's own address block.
  - url: https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/saml/module.php/saml/idp/metadata.php
    status: 500
    note: SNU does not serve its own SAML metadata; only the federation aggregate has it.
  - url: https://kafegw.snu.ac.kr/idp/simplesamlphp
    status: 404
    note: The published entityID is not dereferenceable.
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/open-search/description.xml
    status: 200
    note: OpenSearch 1.1 description — but only with the js-challenge cookie replayed. Cold, this same 200 returns a 1,004-byte
      HTML challenge shell. Soft-200.
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/rest
    status: 404
    note: Behind the challenge cookie. Corrects the 2026-06-03 finding of 403 — no DSpace REST API is deployed, and the 403
      was the bot challenge, not an access control.
  - url: https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/server/api
    status: 404
    note: DSpace 7 REST path absent; this is DSpace 5.5.
  - url: https://api.snu.ac.kr/
    status: 403
    note: Host exists on SNU's block; 404 on /v1, /api, /docs, /swagger, /health, /openapi.json, /status. Not a gateway.
  - url: https://data.snu.ac.kr/
    status: 200
    note: Data Science & AI Laboratory website. Not an open-data portal — do not read the hostname as one.
  - url: https://etl.snu.ac.kr/mod/lti/token.php
    status: 404
    note: LMS is not Moodle and exposes no LTI; /theme/ and /local/ return soft-404s with the same 850-byte body.
  - url: https://dcollection.snu.ac.kr/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
    note: Soft-404 — returns the dCollection HTML page, not OAI-PMH XML. No harvesting surface here.
  - url: https://lib.snu.ac.kr/wp-json/
    status: 401
    note: WordPress REST API present but locked (rest_not_logged_in). Gated, not public.
  - url: https://www.snu.ac.kr/robots.txt
    status: 200
    note: Blocks 20+ named crawlers including Applebot and Amazonbot; no llms.txt (404) and no security.txt (404).
  - url: https://api.datacite.org/providers?query=Seoul%20National%20University
    status: 200
    note: Zero results. SNU is not a DataCite member; repositories mint Handles, not DOIs.
  - url: https://api.github.com/orgs/snu
    status: 404
    note: No official SNU GitHub organization; only lab-level orgs exist.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com