University of Alberta

aid: university-of-alberta
name: University of Alberta
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
description: 'The University of Alberta is a public research university in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and a member of the
  U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities. It operates no public API product. Its central developer site, api.ualberta.ca,
  is a live placeholder that says only that the university "is currently working to improve the way data is cataloged, shared,
  and governed" and gives an email address; there is no portal, no key issuance and no catalog behind it. The one machine-readable
  contract the institution itself publishes and runs is its SAML 2.0 identity provider metadata at login.ualberta.ca, which
  is institution-operated by definition and is the only surface in this profile whose operator is the university. Everything
  else that looks like a University of Alberta API is a tenancy on someone else''s platform: ERA, the institutional repository,
  migrated off the library''s own Jupiter application at era.library.ualberta.ca onto Scholaris, the OCUL/Scholars Portal
  national DSpace service, and now answers as ualberta.scholaris.ca with a DSpace REST API and an OAI-PMH endpoint; research
  data lives in the university''s collection on Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository run by the same consortium; the
  library catalogue is Ex Libris Alma and Primo VE, whose Z39.50 server the library documents in its own words; and its 90,338
  DOIs are registered through DataCite. The course catalogue and Bear Tracks are HTML only — every JSON path probed on apps.ualberta.ca
  returns 404 or 410, which is why the third-party UAlberta course APIs that exist are HTML scrapers. The university''s real
  engineering output is open source rather than hosted: the University of Alberta Library GitHub organization is active and
  substantial, and includes its own OAI-PMH implementation and DSpace and DataCite client tooling.'
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: unknown
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: true
  label: No API product · one institution-run identity endpoint plus vendor-platform tenancies
  confidence: high
  source:
  - probed
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: probed
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: none
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: true
  label: Free · No signup, no key issuance, no developer program
  confidence: high
  source:
  - probed
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: probed
position: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/university-of-alberta.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-alberta/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Canada
- U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities
- Research Data
- Research Repository
- Library
- Identity Federation
- OAI-PMH
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-30'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: university-of-alberta:identity-federation
  name: University of Alberta SAML 2.0 Identity Provider Metadata
  x-operator: institution
  description: The university's own SAML 2.0 identity provider metadata document, served from its own domain. It declares
    entityID https://login.ualberta.ca/saml2/idp/metadata.php, an IDPSSODescriptor with SingleSignOn over HTTP-Redirect and
    HTTP-POST plus SingleLogout, the Shibboleth metadata extension shibmd:Scope of ualberta.ca, mdrpi:RegistrationInfo with
    registration authority urn:mace:ualberta.ca, and OrganizationName in English and French. This is the only contract in
    this profile the University of Alberta both writes and runs — identity federation is institution-operated by definition,
    and it is the surface class this cohort most consistently fails to catalog.
  humanURL: https://login.ualberta.ca/
  baseURL: https://login.ualberta.ca/saml2/idp/metadata.php
  tags:
  - Identity Federation
  - SAML
  - Shibboleth
  - Single Sign-On
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://login.ualberta.ca/saml2/idp/metadata.php
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-alberta-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-alberta:era-scholaris
  name: ERA — Education and Research Archive (on Scholaris)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: ERA is the University of Alberta's institutional repository. It was the library's own Samvera/Hyrax application,
    Jupiter, at era.library.ualberta.ca; that host now redirects to ualberta.scholaris.ca, the university's tenancy on Scholaris,
    the national DSpace service operated by OCUL/Scholars Portal. The deployment answers as DSpace 8.4 with a HAL+JSON REST
    API at /server/api and an OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint whose Identify response names ERA and gives erahelp@ualberta.ca as the
    administrative contact. The content, the service desk and the DOIs are the university's; the contract is DSpace's and
    the platform is the consortium's, so no DSpace specification is saved under this institution.
  humanURL: https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/
  baseURL: https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/server/api
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - DSpace
  - OAI-PMH
  - Open Access
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/server/api
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-alberta-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-alberta:borealis-research-data
  name: University of Alberta Research Data Collection on Borealis
  x-operator: tenant
  description: 'The University of Alberta''s research data collection on Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository operated
    by Scholars Portal / Ontario Council of University Libraries. The collection is scoped by the dataverse alias "ualberta"
    and is reachable through the shared Dataverse Native and Search APIs and the shared OAI-PMH archive at borealisdata.ca/oai,
    whose Identify response names the consortium, not the university. Five other institutions in this cohort point at the
    same host, which is precisely why the generic Dataverse contract is not saved here: the data is the university''s, the
    API is Borealis''s.'
  humanURL: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/ualberta
  baseURL: https://borealisdata.ca/api
  tags:
  - Research Data
  - Dataverse
  - OAI-PMH
  - Repository
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/index.html
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/search.html
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/admin/discoverability.html
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/getting-started.html
- aid: university-of-alberta:library-catalogue
  name: University of Alberta Library Catalogue (Alma Z39.50 + Primo VE)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: The library's discovery and catalogue layer is Ex Libris. The library publishes its own Z39.50 production server
    details on a ualberta.ca page — host ualberta.alma.exlibrisgroup.com, port 1921, database 01UOA_INST — and states support
    for the Bath Profile v1.1 functional area A levels 0 and 1, enumerating the bib-1 attribute combinations. The public discovery
    front end is Primo VE at search.library.ualberta.ca (view 01UOA_INST:UOA_NDE), on the university's own subdomain but running
    the vendor's application. Documented by the institution, operated by Ex Libris.
  humanURL: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/library/research-support/open-data/z3950.html
  baseURL: z3950://ualberta.alma.exlibrisgroup.com:1921/01UOA_INST
  tags:
  - Library
  - Library Catalog
  - Z39.50
  - Discovery
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/library/research-support/open-data/z3950.html
  - type: Website
    url: https://search.library.ualberta.ca/
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-alberta-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-alberta:datacite-registration
  name: University of Alberta Library DOI Registration (DataCite)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: The University of Alberta Library is a registered DataCite repository — client id ualberta.library, symbol
    UALBERTA.LIBRARY, a member since 2020 — with 90,338 DOIs registered under that client as of 2026-08-30. Its own DataCite
    record documents that in March 2025 the library shared its credentials with Scholaris for ERA and dropped the shoulder
    it had used for Jupiter, which is the same migration the repository entry above records. The registrations are the institution's;
    the registry API is DataCite's.
  humanURL: https://api.datacite.org/repositories/ualberta.library
  baseURL: https://api.datacite.org
  tags:
  - DataCite
  - DOI
  - Persistent Identifiers
  - Research Data
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://api.datacite.org/repositories/ualberta.library
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-alberta-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-alberta:library-open-source
  name: University of Alberta Library Open Source (GitHub)
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'The University of Alberta Library''s GitHub organization, ualbertalib, holds 138 public repositories and is
    actively maintained. Judged by what the code says about itself rather than by the host it sits on, it is the institution''s
    own engineering: oaisys implements OAI-PMH for the library''s Jupiter repository, jupiter is the repository application
    itself, dspace_api_tools and datacite-client are its integration clients, and library-cms, NDE-Customization-Package and
    ual_ojs_stats run library services. This is source code and operational tooling, not a hosted public API, and it is the
    university''s most substantial programmable output.'
  humanURL: https://github.com/ualbertalib
  tags:
  - Library
  - Open-Source
  - Repository
  - Tooling
  tags_raw:
  - Library
  - Open Source
  - Repository
  - Tooling
  properties:
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/ualbertalib
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/library/research-support/open-data/index.html
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://api.ualberta.ca/
  title: Placeholder — no portal, no catalog, no key issuance
- type: IdentityFederation
  url: https://login.ualberta.ca/saml2/idp/metadata.php
  title: SAML 2.0 identity provider metadata (institution-operated)
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/
  title: ERA on Scholaris (OCUL/Scholars Portal DSpace tenancy)
- type: OpenData
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/library/research-support/open-data/index.html
- type: LibraryCatalog
  url: https://search.library.ualberta.ca/
- type: CourseCatalog
  url: https://apps.ualberta.ca/catalogue
  title: HTML only — no JSON or API surface
- type: AIPolicy
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-framework.html
  title: Framework for the Responsible Use of AI at the University of Alberta
- type: AITooling
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/artificial-intelligence/index.html
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/university-of-alberta-conformance.yml
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/ualbertalib
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/information-services-and-technology/services/application-development/index.html
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/policies-procedures/index.html
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/privacy.html
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/the-quad/index.html
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-alberta/
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/university-of-alberta-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/university-of-alberta-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/university-of-alberta-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/university-of-alberta-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
x-coverage:
  state: none
  reason: tenant_only
  detail: 'Probed 2026-08-30. The University of Alberta publishes exactly one machine-readable contract it also operates:
    its SAML 2.0 identity provider metadata at login.ualberta.ca, which returns 200 application/samlmetadata+xml. There is
    no institution-operated REST API. api.ualberta.ca returns 200 but the body is a placeholder saying the university is still
    working out how data is cataloged, shared and governed, and offers only an email address; data.ualberta.ca serves the
    same byte-identical page. Every other apparent surface is a tenancy: ERA on Scholaris (OCUL DSpace), the research data
    collection on Borealis (Canadian Dataverse, a host five other institutions in this cohort also claim), the Alma Z39.50
    server and Primo VE discovery layer from Ex Libris, and DOI registration through DataCite. The course catalogue is HTML
    only — apps.ualberta.ca returns 404 for /api and 410 for every .json path tried, so the third-party UAlberta course APIs
    in the wild are scrapers. The library''s Open Journal Systems installation is gone: journals.library.ualberta.ca now 302s
    to a library publishing page, so there is no Crossref depositing surface either. Twenty files were removed from this repository
    in this pass — two Borealis-derived OpenAPI documents, the pristine original and its refine report, and the sixteen collections,
    schemas, structures, examples, rulesets, vocabulary, JSON-LD context, authentication and agentic-access artifacts derived
    from them. They described the Dataverse software''s contract, not the university''s.'
  evidence:
  - url: https://login.ualberta.ca/saml2/idp/metadata.php
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.ualberta.ca/
    status: 200
  - url: https://data.ualberta.ca/
    status: 200
  - url: https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/server/api
    status: 200
  - url: https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://era.library.ualberta.ca/oai?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://borealisdata.ca/oai?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/ualberta
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/library/research-support/open-data/z3950.html
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.datacite.org/repositories?query=alberta
    status: 200
  - url: https://apps.ualberta.ca/catalogue
    status: 200
  - url: https://apps.ualberta.ca/api
    status: 404
  - url: https://apps.ualberta.ca/catalogue/course/cmput.json
    status: 410
  - url: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/index/oai?verb=Identify
    status: 302
  - url: https://library.ualberta.ca/peel/api
    status: 200
  - url: https://login.ualberta.ca/idp/shibboleth
    status: 404
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com