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.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
aid: university-of-aberdeen
name: University of Aberdeen
description: 'The University of Aberdeen is a public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland, founded in 1495 and one of
the four ancient universities of Scotland. Its programmable footprint is small, real, and almost entirely operated by somebody
else. The University publishes NO institution-operated API contract: there is no api.abdn.ac.uk, no developer.abdn.ac.uk,
no data.abdn.ac.uk, no open data portal, no public course, timetable or student-information-system API, no llms.txt and
no sitemap.xml, and its verified GitHub organization (github.com/uofa) holds seventeen repositories of which every single
one is a fork. What it does operate in machine-readable form is its identity estate: a Shibboleth SAML 2.0 Identity Provider,
entityID https://shibserv.abdn.ac.uk/shibboleth, scope abdn.ac.uk, registered in the Jisc UK Access Management Federation
and served as signed metadata through the federation MDQ service and directly from shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk, plus a Microsoft
Entra ID tenant (8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f) with live OIDC discovery and WS-Federation metadata. Everything else
that looks like an Aberdeen API is a tenancy. AURA, the Aberdeen University Research Archive, runs DSpace 8.1 and exposes
a HATEOAS REST API and a thirteen-format OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint — but aura.abdn.ac.uk CNAMEs to aura.abdn-lb.is.ed.ac.uk and
resolves into University of Edinburgh Information Services address space, so the deployment is Edinburgh''s and the software
is DSpace''s. The research portal at abdn.elsevierpure.com is Elsevier Pure; it serves a second OAI-PMH repository and a
publicly readable 1.3MB openapi.yaml whose own info.title is "Pure API" and whose contact is pure-support@elsevier.com —
that contract is Elsevier''s and is deliberately not held under this slug. MyAberdeen is Blackboard Learn and library discovery
is Ex Libris Primo. The University is a Crossref member (12669, prefixes 10.57064 and 10.57132) and a DataCite member (HUGZ)
operating the registered institutional repository BL.ABDN. Recorded honestly: one institution-operated surface class, five
tenancies, three registry memberships, and zero API contracts of its own.'
type: Index
deliveryModel:
model: saas
open_source: false
commercial: false
callable_host: true
label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
confidence: high
source:
- probe
generated: '2026-09-01'
method: probed
note: 'Callable hosts exist and were retrieved live on 2026-09-01, but every one of them is tenant-operated: the DSpace
REST and OAI-PMH endpoints on aura.abdn.ac.uk (Edinburgh IS infrastructure) and the Pure OAI-PMH endpoint on abdn.elsevierpure.com.
The institution''s own machine-readable surfaces are federation metadata documents, not callable APIs.'
accessModel:
pricing: free
onboarding: none
trial: false
try_now: true
public: true
label: Free · No registration (public metadata surfaces)
confidence: high
source:
- probe
generated: '2026-09-01'
method: probed
note: 'Every surface reachable without credentials on 2026-09-01 — DSpace REST, both OAI-PMH endpoints, the SAML metadata,
the Entra OIDC discovery document, the DataCite and Crossref member records — was anonymous and free. There is no signup,
no key and no plan anywhere on abdn.ac.uk. The one keyed surface is Elsevier''s Pure REST API (security: api-key), and
that onboarding is Elsevier''s, not the institution''s. The SAML IdP is free but is not self-serve: an application cannot
obtain an assertion without being registered as a service provider in the UK federation.'
position: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/university-of-aberdeen.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-aberdeen/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Research
- United Kingdom
- Scotland
- Identity Federation
- Shibboleth
- Research Data
- Open Access
- Institutional Repository
- OAI-PMH
- DSpace
- Library
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-09-01'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:shibboleth-saml-idp
name: Shibboleth SAML Identity Provider (UK Access Management Federation)
description: 'The University''s own Shibboleth Identity Provider, entityID https://shibserv.abdn.ac.uk/shibboleth, asserting
shibmd:Scope abdn.ac.uk. Its entity descriptor is published as signed, machine-readable SAML metadata through the Jisc
UK Access Management Federation MDQ service and onward into eduGAIN, and is also served directly by the institution from
shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk. Retrieved live on 2026-09-01 — 200, 14194 bytes of application/samlmetadata+xml from the federation,
200 and 15707 bytes of application/xml from Aberdeen''s own host. Advertises SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1 and the native Shibboleth
authn profile over HTTP-Redirect, HTTP-POST and HTTP-POST-SimpleSign, plus an AttributeAuthorityDescriptor. This is the
only surface in this repository that is unambiguously the institution''s own engineering, and it is the class the June
2026 profile of this repo missed entirely. It is not a public developer API: an application cannot obtain an assertion
without being registered as a service provider in the federation.'
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/it/
baseURL: http://mdq.ukfederation.org.uk/entities/https%3A%2F%2Fshibserv.abdn.ac.uk%2Fshibboleth
tags:
- Identity
- SSO
- SAML
- Shibboleth
- Federation
- eduGAIN
properties:
- type: IdentityFederation
url: http://mdq.ukfederation.org.uk/entities/https%3A%2F%2Fshibserv.abdn.ac.uk%2Fshibboleth
- type: Documentation
url: https://shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-aberdeen-conformance.yml
x-operator: institution
x-operator-basis: Signed EntityDescriptor from the UK Access Management Federation names OrganizationName "University of
Aberdeen", OrganizationDisplayName "University of Aberdeen" and shibmd:Scope "abdn.ac.uk", with technical contact mailto:webmaster@abdn.ac.uk.
The SSO endpoints it advertises are all on shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk (5.101.151.154), which serves the same descriptor itself.
x-entity-id: https://shibserv.abdn.ac.uk/shibboleth
x-sso-endpoint: https://shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk/idp/profile/SAML2/Redirect/SSO
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
self_published_metadata_status: 200
sso_endpoint_bare_get_status: 400
note: baseURL is the federation MDQ location because that is the machine-readable artifact an agent can actually retrieve.
MDQ is served over HTTP only; https://mdq.ukfederation.org.uk does not answer. The SSO endpoint returns 400 to a bare
GET because it requires a SAMLRequest — that is protocol behaviour, not an outage, and it is recorded in x-sso-endpoint
rather than as a pointer. shibserv.abdn.ac.uk (the entityID host) does not resolve publicly; entityIDs are names, not
addresses.
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:entra-id-tenant
name: Microsoft Entra ID tenant (institutional identity)
description: The University's Microsoft Entra ID tenant, 8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f, resolvable from the abdn.ac.uk
domain name. It publishes a live OpenID Connect discovery document (issuer https://login.microsoftonline.com/8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f/v2.0,
tenant_region_scope EU) and a WS-Federation / SAML 2.0 federation metadata document with entityID https://sts.windows.net/8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f/.
The tenant, the domain binding and the directory behind it are the institution's; the platform is Microsoft's. Recorded
as a federation surface rather than as a contract, exactly as the Shibboleth IdP is.
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/it/
baseURL: https://login.microsoftonline.com/abdn.ac.uk/v2.0/.well-known/openid-configuration
tags:
- Identity
- SSO
- OpenID Connect
- SAML
- Entra ID
- Federation
properties:
- type: IdentityFederation
url: https://login.microsoftonline.com/abdn.ac.uk/federationmetadata/2007-06/federationmetadata.xml
- type: Documentation
url: https://login.microsoftonline.com/abdn.ac.uk/v2.0/.well-known/openid-configuration
x-operator: federation
x-operator-basis: OIDC discovery on the abdn.ac.uk domain resolves to tenant 8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f, which
proves the domain is verified into a tenant the University controls. The federation metadata for the same domain carries
entityID https://sts.windows.net/8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f/.
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
federation_metadata_status: 200
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:aura-dspace-rest
name: AURA DSpace REST API (tenancy on Edinburgh IS infrastructure)
description: 'The Aberdeen University Research Archive (AURA) runs DSpace 8.1-SNAPSHOT and exposes a public HATEOAS REST
API advertising 79 endpoint families — communities, collections, items, bitstreams, discovery/search, statistics, configuration,
versioning, workflow and the COAR Notify submission endpoints. Retrieved live 2026-09-01: the API root returns 200 in
0.37s with dspaceName "Aura" and 182 communities. The content, the metadata and the administration are Aberdeen''s (adminEmail
aura-manager@abdn.ac.uk), but the hosting is not: aura.abdn.ac.uk CNAMEs to aura.abdn-lb.is.ed.ac.uk and resolves to 129.215.5.66,
University of Edinburgh address space, "abdn-lb" being an Aberdeen load balancer inside Edinburgh Information Services.
The contract is DSpace''s, the deployment is Edinburgh''s, the data is Aberdeen''s. Recorded as a tenant relationship;
no DSpace specification is held under this slug. Note the Angular user interface at aura.abdn.ac.uk/ and /home was returning
503 and 502 proxy errors on 2026-09-01 while the REST and OAI backends answered in under half a second — the machine surface
is healthier than the human one.'
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/open-research/
baseURL: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api
tags:
- Research
- Open Access
- Institutional Repository
- DSpace
- REST
- Tenant
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api
- type: ResearchRepository
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/open-research/
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-aberdeen-conformance.yml
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-basis: 'DNS: aura.abdn.ac.uk CNAME aura.abdn-lb.is.ed.ac.uk, A 129.215.5.66 (University of Edinburgh). The hostname
is on Aberdeen''s own registrable domain, so a host-name verdict reads this as institution-operated; the CNAME shows it
is not. Software self-declaration: dspaceVersion "DSpace 8.1-SNAPSHOT".'
x-vendor: DSpace (LYRASIS), deployed by University of Edinburgh Information Services
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
ui_root_status: 503
ui_home_status: 502
availability: intermittent
note: Repeated back-to-back probing on 2026-09-01 returned 200 in ~0.36s on four of six attempts and degraded on the other
two — one 503 after 31s and one connection timeout after 40s. The endpoint is live and functional but not reliably so;
graded live-with-intermittent-degradation, not dead.
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:aura-oai-pmh
name: AURA OAI-PMH Metadata Harvesting (tenancy on Edinburgh IS infrastructure)
description: 'AURA''s OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint, repositoryName "Aura", repositoryIdentifier aura.abdn.ac.uk, adminEmail aura-manager@abdn.ac.uk,
earliest datestamp 2005-10-10. ListMetadataFormats offers thirteen formats — oai_dc, qdc, mods, mets, didl, ore, xoai,
dim, rdf, marc, etdms, rioxx and uketd_dc — of which rioxx (UK research outputs) and uketd_dc (UK electronic theses) are
UK-specific compliance profiles. This is the University''s research record, harvestable by anyone, and it is the strongest
reason the institution appears in aggregators at all. Same operator caveat as the REST API: the endpoint lives on Edinburgh
Information Services infrastructure via CNAME.'
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/open-research/open-access/
baseURL: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/oai/request
tags:
- Research
- Open Access
- Institutional Repository
- OAI-PMH
- Metadata
- Tenant
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-aberdeen-conformance.yml
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-basis: 'DNS: aura.abdn.ac.uk CNAME aura.abdn-lb.is.ed.ac.uk, A 129.215.5.66 (University of Edinburgh). OAI-PMH
is a protocol implemented by DSpace, not by Aberdeen.'
x-vendor: DSpace (LYRASIS), deployed by University of Edinburgh Information Services
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
identify_status: 200
listmetadataformats_status: 200
availability: intermittent
note: Same intermittency as the REST API on the same host — mostly 200 in ~0.37s, occasionally a 30-40s hang. Live, degraded,
not dead.
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:pure-cris-tenancy
name: Elsevier Pure CRIS tenancy (research portal, REST + OAI-PMH)
description: The University's tenancy of Elsevier Pure, its current research information system, published as "The University
of Aberdeen Research Portal" at abdn.elsevierpure.com, which CNAMEs to eu.prod.elsevierpure.com. The OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint
at /ws/oai is live — Identify returns repositoryName "University of Aberdeen Research Repository" with adminEmail pure-feedback@abdn.ac.uk,
earliest datestamp 2010-03-31, and a schemaLocation declaring the OpenAIRE CERIF 1.2 profile; ListSets returns the OpenAIRE
CRIS set family plus persons:all, publications:all and publications:withFiles. The June 2026 review of this repository
recorded this endpoint as HTTP 500 and excluded it; it is live as of 2026-09-01 and is recorded now. The REST API at /ws/api
serves a publicly readable 1,313,865-byte openapi.yaml — and that document is the exact trap this pipeline exists to keep
out. It declares info.title "Pure API", info.contact.email pure-support@elsevier.com, info.version 5.36.2-1, security
api-key, and a relative servers[] entry of "/ws/api" naming no institution at all. Hostless, vendor-titled, served from
an Aberdeen-branded subdomain. It has NOT been saved under this slug; the tenancy has.
humanURL: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/
baseURL: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/oai
tags:
- Research
- CRIS
- Pure
- OAI-PMH
- Repository
- Metadata
- Open Access
- Tenant
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api
- type: ResearchRepository
url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-aberdeen-conformance.yml
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-basis: 'DNS: abdn.elsevierpure.com CNAME eu.prod.elsevierpure.com. Spec self-declaration at https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/openapi.yaml
— title "Pure API", contact pure-support@elsevier.com, version 5.36.2-1, servers[0].url "/ws/api" (relative, hostless).
The /ws/api documentation page declares rel=canonical https://api.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/documentation/index.html.'
x-vendor: Elsevier (Pure)
x-contract-rejected: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/openapi.yaml
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
identify_status: 200
listsets_status: 200
openapi_yaml_status: 200
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:blackboard-learn-tenancy
name: MyAberdeen — Blackboard Learn tenancy
description: MyAberdeen, the University's virtual learning environment, is a Blackboard Learn tenancy at abdn.blackboard.com
(www.abdn.ac.uk/myaberdeen redirects to it). The Blackboard Learn public REST API is present and its unauthenticated version
endpoint answers — /learn/api/public/v1/system/version returns 200 with {"learn":{"major":4000,"minor":21,"patch":0,"build":"rel.28+435d029"}}
— but every data endpoint beyond it requires an OAuth2 application registered with Anthology, not with Aberdeen. Blackboard
is an LTI-certified platform; that certification is Anthology's, and no Aberdeen-published LTI registration or tool configuration
was found, so no LTI conformance is claimed for the institution.
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/myaberdeen
baseURL: https://abdn.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1
tags:
- Learning Management
- VLE
- Blackboard
- Education Technology
- Tenant
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://abdn.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1/system/version
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-basis: Host abdn.blackboard.com is an institution-specific subdomain on Anthology's blackboard.com platform.
The version endpoint self-declares Blackboard Learn 4000.21.0; the contract, the OAuth2 authorization server and the release
train are Anthology's.
x-vendor: Anthology (Blackboard Learn)
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 400
version_endpoint_status: 200
note: The collection root /learn/api/public/v1 returns 400 to a bare GET because it names no resource; that is protocol
behaviour, not an outage. The unauthenticated /system/version endpoint under it returns 200.
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:primo-discovery-tenancy
name: Library discovery — Ex Libris Primo tenancy
description: 'Library discovery runs on Ex Libris Primo VE at abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com with institution view 44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1.
The Primo and Alma REST APIs are Ex Libris products gated behind developer.exlibrisgroup.com keys issued to the institution,
not published by it. Recorded as a tenancy; no Ex Libris contract is held under this slug. A stale artefact of this move
is visible in the UK federation: Aberdeen still has an SP registered under entityID https://primo.abdn.ac.uk/shib whose
ACS endpoints all point at primo.abdn.ac.uk, a hostname that no longer resolves. The federation record is live (MDQ returns
200, 6590 bytes); the service behind it is not.'
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/
baseURL: https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1
tags:
- Library
- Discovery
- Primo
- Ex Libris
- Catalog
- Tenant
properties:
- type: LibraryCatalog
url: https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1
- type: Documentation
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/
x-operator: tenant
x-operator-basis: Host abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com is an institution-specific view (44ABE_INST) on Ex Libris's shared Primo
VE platform.
x-vendor: Ex Libris (Clarivate) — Primo VE
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
stale_sp_mdq_status: 200
stale_sp_host_status: 0
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:datacite-membership
name: DataCite membership and registered repository
description: The University of Aberdeen is a DataCite member — provider symbol HUGZ, memberType consortium_organization,
organizationType academicInstitution, country GB, region EMEA — and operates one registered DataCite repository, BL.ABDN,
of repositoryType "institutional", created 2016-03-30 and pointed at https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/home. The BL. prefix places
the membership inside the British Library DataCite consortium. This is a fact about the institution recorded in a shared
registry, not a contract the institution publishes; api.datacite.org is DataCite's and is never held under a university
slug.
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/open-research/open-data/
baseURL: https://api.datacite.org/providers/hugz
tags:
- Research Data
- DOI
- Persistent Identifiers
- DataCite
- Registry
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://api.datacite.org/repositories/bl.abdn
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-aberdeen-conformance.yml
x-operator: registry
x-operator-basis: api.datacite.org is an identifier registry shared by every DataCite member. The membership record (HUGZ)
and the repository record (BL.ABDN) are Aberdeen's; the API is DataCite's.
x-registrant-id: HUGZ
x-repository-id: BL.ABDN
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
repository_record_status: 200
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:crossref-membership
name: Crossref membership and DOI prefixes
description: 'The University of Aberdeen is Crossref member 12669, located "Aberdeen, United Kingdom", holding DOI prefixes
10.57064 and 10.57132 with 795 DOIs deposited as of 2026-09-01. Recorded as a registry membership: the member record describes
the institution, the API belongs to Crossref.'
humanURL: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/open-research/
baseURL: https://api.crossref.org/members/12669
tags:
- Research
- DOI
- Persistent Identifiers
- Crossref
- Registry
- Scholarly Metadata
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://api.crossref.org/members/12669
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-aberdeen-conformance.yml
x-operator: registry
x-operator-basis: api.crossref.org is an identifier registry shared by every Crossref member. Member id 12669 and prefixes
10.57064 / 10.57132 are Aberdeen's; the API is Crossref's.
x-registrant-id: '12669'
x-doi-prefixes:
- '10.57064'
- '10.57132'
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
probed: '2026-09-01'
- aid: university-of-aberdeen:ror-registration
name: ROR organization registration
description: The University of Aberdeen is registered in the Research Organization Registry as https://ror.org/016476m91,
cross-walked to GRID grid.7107.1, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7291, Wikidata Q270532 and Crossref Funder IDs 501100000882 and
501100007874. This is the canonical machine identifier for the institution as an organization and it is what every research-metadata
aggregator resolves it by. Registry membership, not a published contract.
humanURL: https://ror.org/016476m91
baseURL: https://api.ror.org/organizations/https%3A%2F%2Fror.org%2F016476m91
tags:
- Research
- Persistent Identifiers
- ROR
- Registry
- Organization Identity
properties:
- type: Documentation
url: https://ror.org/016476m91
x-operator: registry
x-operator-basis: api.ror.org is a shared organization registry. The record 016476m91 is Aberdeen's; the API is ROR's.
x-registrant-id: https://ror.org/016476m91
x-probe:
baseURL_status: 200
human_record_status: 200
probed: '2026-09-01'
common:
- type: Website
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/
- type: Blog
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/
- type: Support
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/contact/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/privacy
- type: Accessibility
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/accessibility
- type: GitHub
url: https://github.com/uofa
- type: LinkedIn
url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-aberdeen/
- type: IdentityFederation
url: http://mdq.ukfederation.org.uk/entities/https%3A%2F%2Fshibserv.abdn.ac.uk%2Fshibboleth
- type: ResearchRepository
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/open-research/
- type: LibraryCatalog
url: https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1
- type: CourseCatalog
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/study/courses/
- type: AIPolicy
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/staffnet/education/generative-ai-in-education/university-of-aberdeen-ai-principles/
- type: AITooling
url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/staffnet/education/generative-ai-in-education/guidance-and-resources-on-genai/
- type: Conformance
url: conformance/university-of-aberdeen-conformance.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
url: security/university-of-aberdeen-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
url: security/university-of-aberdeen-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
url: plans/university-of-aberdeen-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
url: rate-limits/university-of-aberdeen-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
url: finops/university-of-aberdeen-finops.yml
- type: Review
url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
email: kin@apievangelist.com
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
x-coverage:
state: covered
reason: tenant_only
detail: 'Probed live on 2026-09-01 under pipeline-university. The University of Aberdeen operates ONE institution-owned
machine-readable surface class and it is not an API: its Shibboleth SAML 2.0 Identity Provider, entityID https://shibserv.abdn.ac.uk/shibboleth,
scope abdn.ac.uk, published as signed metadata through the Jisc UK Access Management Federation MDQ service (200, 14194
bytes) and served directly from the University''s own host shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk (200, 15707 bytes), alongside a Microsoft
Entra ID tenant (8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f) with live OIDC discovery and WS-Federation metadata. Zero institution-operated
API contracts were found and none were written. Five surfaces are real but tenant-operated and are recorded as relationships
without holding the supplier''s specification: AURA DSpace REST and OAI-PMH (aura.abdn.ac.uk CNAMEs to aura.abdn-lb.is.ed.ac.uk,
129.215.5.66, University of Edinburgh Information Services — a host-name verdict reads this as institution-operated and
is wrong), Elsevier Pure REST and OAI-PMH (abdn.elsevierpure.com CNAME eu.prod.elsevierpure.com), Blackboard Learn, and
Ex Libris Primo VE. Three registry memberships are recorded as facts about the institution: DataCite HUGZ / BL.ABDN, Crossref
12669, ROR 016476m91. One vendor contract was found and deliberately rejected: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/openapi.yaml,
1,313,865 bytes, info.title "Pure API", info.contact.email pure-support@elsevier.com, servers[0].url "/ws/api" (relative
and hostless) — served from an Aberdeen-branded host and exactly the shape that got 36 Pure documents attributed to Manchester.
The profile is thin because the institution is thin, not because the probe was: no api.abdn.ac.uk, developer.abdn.ac.uk,
developers.abdn.ac.uk, data.abdn.ac.uk, opendata.abdn.ac.uk, timetable.abdn.ac.uk or hpc.abdn.ac.uk resolves at all; www.abdn.ac.uk
has no sitemap.xml and no llms.txt; the course catalogue and registry pages are HTML only with no JSON behind them; and
the verified GitHub organization github.com/uofa holds 17 repositories of which 17 are forks and 0 are original work.
One genuine degradation was observed and is not a probe artefact: AURA''s Angular user interface returned 503 after 31
seconds and 502 after 60 seconds while its REST API and OAI-PMH backend answered 200 in 0.37 seconds — the machine surface
is healthier than the human one, which is why the AURA humanURL now points at the library''s open-research page rather
than at aura.abdn.ac.uk. A stale UK federation SP registration also survives: entityID https://primo.abdn.ac.uk/shib is
served by MDQ (200) but primo.abdn.ac.uk no longer resolves.'
assessed: '2026-09-01'
method: pipeline-university + live probe
institution_surfaces: 2
tenant_surfaces: 5
registry_surfaces: 3
contracts_saved: 0
vendor_contracts_rejected: 1
cname_tenancies_recorded: 2
evidence:
- url: http://mdq.ukfederation.org.uk/entities/https%3A%2F%2Fshibserv.abdn.ac.uk%2Fshibboleth
status: 200
note: Signed SAML EntityDescriptor, application/samlmetadata+xml, 14194 bytes.
- url: https://shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
status: 200
note: The IdP self-publishes its entity descriptor from an abdn.ac.uk host, 15707 bytes.
- url: https://shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk/idp/profile/SAML2/Redirect/SSO
status: 400
note: Requires a SAMLRequest; protocol behaviour, not an outage.
- url: https://login.microsoftonline.com/abdn.ac.uk/v2.0/.well-known/openid-configuration
status: 200
note: Resolves abdn.ac.uk to Entra tenant 8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f, region EU.
- url: https://login.microsoftonline.com/abdn.ac.uk/federationmetadata/2007-06/federationmetadata.xml
status: 200
note: WS-Federation / SAML metadata, entityID https://sts.windows.net/8c2b19ad-.../.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api
status: 200
note: DSpace 8.1-SNAPSHOT root, 8611 bytes, 79 endpoint families, 0.37s.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api/core/communities
status: 200
note: 182 communities.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api/discover/search/objects?query=oil
status: 200
note: Discovery search returns 254066 bytes of real results.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
status: 200
note: repositoryName "Aura", earliest datestamp 2005-10-10.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/oai/request?verb=ListMetadataFormats
status: 200
note: Thirteen formats including rioxx and uketd_dc.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/
status: 503
note: Angular UI times out after 31s. LIVE-but-degraded, not dead; the backend on the same host is 200 in 0.37s. Removed
as a humanURL pointer.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api
status: 503
note: Second reading of the same endpoint. Six back-to-back probes returned 200 in ~0.36s four times, 503 after 31s once
and a 40s timeout once. AURA is live with intermittent degradation across both its UI and its backend; recorded as availability,
not as a dead pointer.
- url: https://abdn.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1
status: 400
note: Collection root with no resource named; protocol behaviour, not an outage.
- url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/home
status: 502
note: Apache proxy error after 60s. This is the URL DataCite's BL.ABDN record points at.
- url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/oai?verb=Identify
status: 200
note: repositoryName "University of Aberdeen Research Repository", OpenAIRE CERIF 1.2. The June 2026 review recorded this
as 500 and excluded it; it is live now.
- url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/oai?verb=ListSets
status: 200
note: OpenAIRE CRIS sets plus persons:all, publications:all, publications:withFiles.
- url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/openapi.yaml
status: 200
note: REJECTED. 1313865 bytes, info.title "Pure API", contact pure-support@elsevier.com, version 5.36.2-1, servers[0].url
"/ws/api" — hostless and vendor-titled. Not saved.
- url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api
status: 200
note: Documentation page declares rel=canonical https://api.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/documentation/index.html.
- url: https://abdn.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1/system/version
status: 200
note: Blackboard Learn 4000.21.0, unauthenticated version endpoint.
- url: https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1
status: 200
note: Primo VE institution view 44ABE_INST.
- url: http://mdq.ukfederation.org.uk/entities/https%3A%2F%2Fprimo.abdn.ac.uk%2Fshib
status: 200
note: Stale SP registration, 6590 bytes; ACS endpoints all on primo.abdn.ac.uk, which no longer resolves. Federation record
live, service behind it gone.
- url: https://api.datacite.org/providers/hugz
status: 200
note: Provider HUGZ, consortium_organization, GB.
- url: https://api.datacite.org/repositories/bl.abdn
status: 200
note: Repository BL.ABDN, institutional, created 2016-03-30.
- url: https://api.crossref.org/members/12669
status: 200
note: Prefixes 10.57064 and 10.57132, 795 DOIs.
- url: https://ror.org/016476m91
status: 200
note: ROR record; GRID grid.7107.1, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7291.
- url: https://api.github.com/orgs/uofa/repos?per_page=100
status: 200
note: 17 repositories, all 17 forks, zero original repositories, no API specification.
- url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/.well-known/security.txt
status: 200
note: Real security.txt; HackerOne embedded submission form, Expires 2027-05-01.
- url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/robots.txt
status: 200
note: Disallows /testing/ and /search/ only.
- url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/llms.txt
status: 404
note: Returns the site 404 page (43834 bytes), not a document.
- url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sitemap.xml
status: 404
note: No sitemap.
- url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/study/courses/
status: 200
note: Course catalogue is HTML only; no JSON or feed behind it.
- url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/st
# --- truncated at 32 KB (34 KB total) ---
# Full source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-aberdeen/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
Every provider here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.
Kin Score
How this is scored →