University of Bern

aid: university-of-bern
name: University of Bern
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
description: 'The University of Bern (Universität Bern), founded in 1834, is a comprehensive public research university in
  the Swiss capital with around 16,000 students across eight faculties. It is a federation of buyers rather than an API producer:
  it operates no developer portal, publishes no OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, JSON Schema, apis.json, llms.txt or agent card on any host
  it controls, and offers no self-service API onboarding of any kind. What it does operate is protocol- and identity-shaped.
  Two OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting endpoints run on its own hosts — BORIS Portal, the institutional repository and CRIS on DSpace,
  and BOP Serials, the Bern Open Publishing OJS platform — and both answered verb=Identify live. The University Library publishes
  an Upptime status page whose per-service JSON is the only genuinely open, machine-readable HTTP API in this profile. The
  university runs its own Shibboleth Identity Provider inside the SWITCHaai federation (entityID https://aai-idp.unibe.ch/idp/shibboleth,
  scope unibe.ch, 52 service providers), and it is a direct DataCite member (symbol UNIBE) with five registered repositories.
  Everything transactional is closed: BORIS Portal''s DSpace REST API is not merely authenticated but deliberately suspended
  for the public — the whole host answers every anonymous request with a "Temporary Access Restriction" page citing automated-traffic
  volume and allowing only the University of Bern network, the Inselspital network and university VPN — and the OJS REST API
  returns api.403.unauthorized. Library discovery runs on a vendor platform under a Bern-specific tenant view (swisscovery
  / Ex Libris Primo VE), and the course system KSL sits behind SWITCH AAI. The library''s much-linked "APIs" page is a curated
  guide to OTHER organizations'' APIs (OpenAlex, Crossref, Scopus, Elsevier, IEEE), not to anything Bern operates.'
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: true
  label: Institution-operated endpoints · harvesting protocols only
  confidence: high
  source:
  - probed
  generated: '2026-09-01'
  method: probed
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: none
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free · no onboarding path · REST surfaces closed to the public
  confidence: high
  source:
  - probed
  generated: '2026-09-01'
  method: probed
position: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/university-of-bern.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-bern/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- Switzerland
- Public Research University
- Research
- Open Science
- Open Access
- Institutional Repository
- Library
- OAI-PMH
- Identity Federation
- Shibboleth
- Research Computing
- Scholarly Publishing
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-09-01'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
x-coverage:
  state: gated
  reason: auth_required
  detail: 'Bern''s open surfaces are harvesting protocols and registry memberships; every REST surface it operates is closed
    to anonymous callers. BORIS Portal (boris-portal.unibe.ch) serves a soft-200 "Temporary Access Restriction" HTML page
    to the entire public — root and /server/api alike — stating that access "is currently granted exclusively to" the University
    of Bern network, the Inselspital network and university VPN connections, and boristheses.unibe.ch serves the same page.
    Only /server/oai/request is exempted, and it returns real OAI-PMH XML. The Bern Open Publishing OJS REST API answers api.403.unauthorized
    without a token. There is no developer portal, no OpenAPI, and no llms.txt anywhere on a unibe.ch host. This is a correct
    thin profile, not a failed crawl: the surfaces were reached, read, and are genuinely closed.'
  evidence:
  - url: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/api
    status: 200
  - url: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/
    status: 200
  - url: https://bop.unibe.ch/index.php/index/oai?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://bop.unibe.ch/index.php/index/api/v1/contexts
    status: 403
  - url: https://www.unibe.ch/llms.txt
    status: 404
  - url: https://www.unibe.ch/sitemap.xml
    status: 500
  - url: https://www.unibe.ch/.well-known/security.txt
    status: 200
  - url: https://opendata.iwi.unibe.ch/
    status: 0
  checked: '2026-09-01'
apis:
- aid: university-of-bern:boris-oai
  name: BORIS Portal OAI-PMH Endpoint
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata-harvesting endpoint for BORIS Portal, the University of Bern''s institutional repository
    and current research information system. Runs on a Bern-operated host under the university''s own registrable domain.
    Verified live 2026-09-01: verb=Identify returns repositoryName "BORIS Portal", protocolVersion 2.0, adminEmail borisportal@unibe.ch,
    earliestDatestamp 2026-08-10T07:16:15Z, granularity YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ, deletedRecord transient; verb=ListMetadataFormats
    also answers. This path is the ONE exception to the access restriction currently applied to the whole boris-portal.unibe.ch
    host. The OAI-PMH protocol is OAI''s, not Bern''s — the deployment and the metadata are Bern''s.'
  humanURL: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
  baseURL: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/oai/request
  tags:
  - OAI-PMH
  - Harvesting
  - Metadata
  - Repository
  - Open Access
  - Research
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/oai/request
- aid: university-of-bern:boris-rest
  name: BORIS Portal DSpace REST API (public access suspended)
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'BORIS Portal runs DSpace with the DSpace-CRIS extension and, by design, exposes a HAL/JSON REST API at /server/api
    covering communities, collections, items, bitstreams and CRIS research entities. It is NOT publicly callable. As of 2026-09-01
    every anonymous request to boris-portal.unibe.ch — the site root, /server/api and /server/api/core/communities alike —
    returns HTTP 200 carrying a 2,920-byte "Temporary Access Restriction" HTML page: "Due to an exceptionally high volume
    of automated traffic, public access to boris-portal has been temporarily suspended... Access is currently granted exclusively
    to the following networks: University of Bern Network, Inselspital Network, University VPN Connections." An Accept: application/json
    request gets the same HTML. The previous profile recorded this surface as "confirmed live returning HTTP 200" — that was
    a soft-200 false credit and is corrected here. The REST contract itself is DSpace''s, not Bern-authored; no spec is saved
    to this repo.'
  humanURL: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
  baseURL: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/api
  tags:
  - DSpace
  - Repository
  - REST
  - Research
  - Access Restricted
  - CRIS
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/api
- aid: university-of-bern:bop-oai
  name: Bern Open Publishing (BOP Serials) OAI-PMH Endpoint
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint for Bern Open Publishing, the University Library''s diamond open-access journal platform,
    self-hosted on bop.unibe.ch on Open Journal Systems 3.4.0.6. Verified live 2026-09-01: repositoryName "BOP Serials", protocolVersion
    2.0, adminEmail bop-admin@ub.unibe.ch, earliestDatestamp 2015-08-25T12:26:22Z, deletedRecord persistent. Registered with
    DataCite as repository unibe.bop-serials. OJS is PKP''s open-source software; the deployment, the host and the content
    are the University Library''s.'
  humanURL: https://bop.unibe.ch/
  baseURL: https://bop.unibe.ch/index.php/index/oai
  tags:
  - OAI-PMH
  - Open Journal Systems
  - Scholarly Publishing
  - Open Access
  - Harvesting
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://bop.unibe.ch/
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://bop.unibe.ch/index.php/index/oai
- aid: university-of-bern:bop-rest
  name: Bern Open Publishing OJS REST API (token required)
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'The Open Journal Systems REST API v1 on the University Library''s Bern Open Publishing platform. Present and
    responding, but closed: an anonymous GET of /index.php/index/api/v1/contexts returns HTTP 403 {"error":"api.403.unauthorized","errorMessage":"You
    are not authorized to access the requested resource."} — an authenticated, real API response rather than a wall, which
    is why it is recorded. The API root /index.php/index/api/v1 itself returns 404 and per-journal paths (/index.php/BOP/api/v1/contexts)
    404, so the baseURL below names the verified collection endpoint. Access requires an OJS API token issued by the library;
    there is no public onboarding path and no published specification. The contract is PKP''s OJS API, not Bern-authored.'
  humanURL: https://bop.unibe.ch/
  baseURL: https://bop.unibe.ch/index.php/index/api/v1/contexts
  tags:
  - Open Journal Systems
  - REST
  - Scholarly Publishing
  - Authenticated
  properties:
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://bop.unibe.ch/index.php/index/api/v1/contexts
- aid: university-of-bern:ub-services-status
  name: University Library Public Services Status API
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'The University Library of Bern runs an Upptime uptime monitor over the 15 public applications it operates,
    publishing a live status site plus per-service JSON endpoints (uptime.json, response-time.json in the Shields.io endpoint
    shape) and a commit-log history (the api/ path itself is a directory, so the baseURL below names a verified per-service
    endpoint rather than an index). Authored and operated by the library''s own GitHub organization ub-unibe-ch — a code host
    is not a vendor and the .upptimerc.yml, theme, logo and monitored-service list are all Bern''s. Verified live 2026-09-01:
    the status site returns 200 and api/iiif-server/uptime.json returns {"schemaVersion":1,"label":"uptime","message":"99.93%","color":"brightgreen"}.
    This is the only fully open, machine-readable HTTP API in this profile. The monitored set names further Bern-operated
    services: Agenda, Berner Ortsgeschichten, BERNHIST, Biblio, Billing, Collection Ryhiner, DigiBern, IIIF Server, Literapedia
    Bern, MetaEQ, PHBern Teacher, Research Databases, Room Reservation, URN Resolver and the ZMS publication list.'
  humanURL: https://ub-unibe-ch.github.io/ub-public-services-status/
  baseURL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ub-unibe-ch/ub-public-services-status/master/api/iiif-server/uptime.json
  tags:
  - Status
  - Uptime
  - Monitoring
  - Library
  - JSON
  - Upptime
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://github.com/ub-unibe-ch/ub-public-services-status
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ub-unibe-ch/ub-public-services-status/master/api/iiif-server/uptime.json
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/ub-unibe-ch/ub-public-services-status
- aid: university-of-bern:ub-iiif
  name: University Library IIIF Image Server
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'A IIIF server operated by the University Library of Bern at iiif.ub.unibe.ch, serving images for its digitized
    collections (Collection Ryhiner, DigiBern, Berner Ortsgeschichten and others) and monitored on the library''s own status
    page at 99.93% uptime. Verified live 2026-09-01 (200, "IIIF Server", Symfony application). Recorded with an honest limit:
    the public entry point is a management console requiring sign-in, and no IIIF Presentation manifest or Image API info.json
    could be resolved without an object identifier, so the IIIF API level and version are NOT asserted here.'
  humanURL: https://iiif.ub.unibe.ch/
  baseURL: https://iiif.ub.unibe.ch/
  tags:
  - IIIF
  - Images
  - Digital Collections
  - Library
  - Cultural Heritage
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/digital_scholarship/index_eng.html
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://iiif.ub.unibe.ch/
- aid: university-of-bern:switchaai-idp
  name: SWITCHaai Identity Federation — University of Bern IdP
  x-operator: federation
  description: 'The University of Bern operates its own SAML 2.0 / Shibboleth Identity Provider, published as machine-readable
    metadata in the SWITCHaai federation aggregate (the Swiss national research-and-education identity federation, part of
    eduGAIN). entityID https://aai-idp.unibe.ch/idp/shibboleth, mdui:DisplayName "Universität Bern", shibmd:Scope unibe.ch;
    SSO is delegated to SWITCH edu-ID at unibe.login.eduid.ch over the HTTP-Redirect and HTTP-POST SAML 2.0 bindings. Verified
    2026-09-01 against the 21.3 MB aggregate (1,957 EntityDescriptors): 53 entityIDs sit under unibe.ch — one IdP and 52 service
    providers, including boris-portal.unibe.ch, boristheses.unibe.ch, exam.unibe.ch, the KSL course-system SPs and the ADFS
    trust at fs.campus.unibe.ch. Observed in the wild: https://www.ksl.unibe.ch/ redirects anonymous callers to the SWITCH
    WAYF carrying entityID=https://id-kslprod2.id-sys.unibe.ch/shibboleth. A federation is shared by definition; the IdP entity,
    its scope and its 52 SPs are Bern''s. The federation''s own metadata contract belongs to SWITCH and is not saved here.'
  humanURL: https://www.switch.ch/aai/
  baseURL: https://metadata.aai.switch.ch/metadata.switchaai.xml
  tags:
  - Identity Federation
  - Shibboleth
  - SAML
  - SWITCHaai
  - eduGAIN
  - Single Sign-On
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.switch.ch/aai/
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://metadata.aai.switch.ch/metadata.switchaai.xml
- aid: university-of-bern:datacite-member
  name: DataCite Membership — University of Bern (UNIBE)
  x-operator: registry
  description: 'The University of Bern is a DataCite direct member, registering DOIs for its research outputs. Verified 2026-09-01
    at https://api.datacite.org/providers/unibe (200): symbol UNIBE, memberType direct_member, organizationType academicInstitution,
    country CH, member since 2020-04-06, rorId https://ror.org/02k7v4d05. Five repositories are registered under the membership:
    unibe.boris-portal ("Open Access CRIS of the University of Bern"), unibe.bop-serials (Bern Open Publishing), unibe.cssl
    (Corpus of Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant), unibe.dhkg (digitale Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe Jeremias Gotthelf)
    and unibe.repo-phbern. This is a MEMBERSHIP — a fact about Bern — not a Bern-operated API; DataCite''s contract is DataCite''s.'
  humanURL: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
  baseURL: https://api.datacite.org/providers/unibe
  tags:
  - DataCite
  - DOI
  - Persistent Identifiers
  - Registry
  - Research Data
  properties:
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://api.datacite.org/providers/unibe
- aid: university-of-bern:ror-record
  name: ROR Registry Record — University of Bern
  x-operator: registry
  description: The University of Bern's Research Organization Registry identifier, https://ror.org/02k7v4d05, verified live
    2026-09-01. Domain unibe.ch, established 1834, located in Bern, Switzerland; cross-referenced to GRID grid.5734.5, ISNI
    0000 0001 0726 5157, Wikidata Q659080 and six Crossref Funder IDs. This identifier is what binds Bern's DataCite membership
    and its repository records together. A registry record the institution is REGISTERED IN, not a contract it operates.
  humanURL: https://ror.org/02k7v4d05
  baseURL: https://api.ror.org/organizations/02k7v4d05
  tags:
  - ROR
  - Persistent Identifiers
  - Registry
  - Research Organization
  properties:
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://api.ror.org/organizations/02k7v4d05
- aid: university-of-bern:swisscovery-tenant
  name: swisscovery — University Library of Bern tenant view
  x-operator: tenant
  description: 'Library discovery for the University of Bern runs on swisscovery, the Swiss Library Service Platform''s shared
    Ex Libris Alma / Primo VE installation. Bern has an institution-specific tenant view at https://ubbern.swisscovery.slsp.ch
    (verified 2026-09-01: 200, redirects to /discovery/search?vid=41SLSP_UBE:UBE, Primo VE application), and DNS confirms
    the tenancy — ubbern.swisscovery.slsp.ch CNAMEs to slsp-ube.primo.exlibrisgroup.com then eu03.primo.exlibrisgroup.com.
    The collection, the holdings and the tenant view are Bern''s; the platform, the API and the contract are Ex Libris''s,
    so NO Ex Libris specification is saved under this institution. The relationship is recorded because it is a real institutional
    fact and one of the few programmable library surfaces Bern has.'
  humanURL: https://ubbern.swisscovery.slsp.ch
  tags:
  - Library
  - Discovery
  - Ex Libris
  - Primo
  - Alma
  - SLSP
  - Tenant
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://ubbern.swisscovery.slsp.ch
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://www.unibe.ch/index_eng.html
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/digital_scholarship/apis/index_eng.html
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
- type: LibraryCatalog
  url: https://ubbern.swisscovery.slsp.ch
- type: CourseCatalog
  url: https://www.unibe.ch/studies/student_starter_kit/tools/cts/index_eng.html
- type: IdentityFederation
  url: https://metadata.aai.switch.ch/metadata.switchaai.xml
- type: ResearchComputing
  url: https://hpc-unibe-ch.github.io/
- type: AIPolicy
  url: https://www.unibe.ch/universitaet/organisation/leitung_und_zentralbereich/vizerektorat_lehre/startseite_vizerektorat_lehre/faq_zur_verwendung_von_ki_gestuetzten_hilfsmitteln_in_der_lehre__vizerektorat_lehre_universitaet_bern/index_ger.html
- type: AITooling
  url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/service/ki_im_wissenschaftlichen_arbeiten/index_ger.html
- type: Status
  url: https://ub-unibe-ch.github.io/ub-public-services-status/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/id-unibe-ch
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/ub-unibe-ch
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/hpc-unibe-ch
- type: Support
  url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/about_us/contacts/index_eng.html
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.unibe.ch/legal_notice/index_eng.html
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.unibe.ch/news/index_eng.html
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-bern/
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/university-of-bern-conformance.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/university-of-bern-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/university-of-bern-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/university-of-bern-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/university-of-bern-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/university-of-bern-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com