University of Cape Town website screenshot

University of Cape Town

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is South Africa's leading public research university, ranked #96 in the QS World University Rankings 2025 and the highest-ranked university on the African continent. UCT does not operate a single consolidated developer portal, but several of its research and library units expose public, machine-readable interfaces. DataFirst runs a NADA-based microdata catalog with a public REST API, the OpenUCT institutional repository exposes a DSpace OAI-PMH metadata harvesting endpoint, and the ZivaHub open data repository is built on Figshare for Institutions and is reachable through the public Figshare API. Most operational, student-information, and identity systems remain gated behind institutional authentication.

University of Cape Town publishes 4 APIs on the APIs.io network, including articles API, catalog API, collections API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include Education, Higher Education, University, Research Data, and Open Data.

The University of Cape Town catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

University of Cape Town’s developer surface includes GitHub presence and 17 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
35.4/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 22/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
AccessFree
7 APIs
EducationHigher EducationUniversityResearch DataOpen DataInstitutional RepositoryOAI-PMHSouth AfricaAfrica

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
Composite quality — 35.4/100 · thin
Contract Quality 14.4 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 0.0 / 20
Commercial Clarity 5.8 / 20
Operational Transparency 3.4 / 13
Governance 7.0 / 12
Discoverability 7.4 / 10
Agent readiness — 22/100 · agent aware
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 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
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/university-of-cape-town: 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 7

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

DataFirst Microdata Catalog API (NADA)

DataFirst is a UCT research unit and data service providing online access to survey and administrative microdata from South Africa and other African countries. Its open data por...

OpenUCT Institutional Repository OAI-PMH

OpenUCT is the University of Cape Town's open access institutional repository, launched in 2014 and built on DSpace. It preserves and openly shares UCT scholarly outputs includi...

ZivaHub Open Data (Figshare API)

ZivaHub is UCT's institutional open data repository for research data and scholarly outputs, powered by Figshare for Institutions and certified with the CoreTrustSeal in 2025. P...

University of Cape Town articles API

Public articles (research outputs / datasets)

University of Cape Town catalog API

Browse and search the microdata catalog.

University of Cape Town collections API

Public collections

University of Cape Town projects API

Public projects

Scroll for all 7

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

University Of Cape Town Plans Pricing

2 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

University Of Cape Town Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

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

University Of Cape Town Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

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

University Of Cape Town Context

21 classes · 7 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

University of Cape Town API Rules

5 rules · 4 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

University of Cape Town API Rules

8 rules · 2 errors 6 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

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

ZivaHub Article

19 properties

JSON SCHEMA

DataFirst Catalog Study

13 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 2

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

University Of Cape Town Article Structure

15 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

University Of Cape Town Study Structure

13 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 3

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

University Of Cape Town Getarticle Example

24 fields

EXAMPLE

University Of Cape Town Listcatalog Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

University Of Cape Town Searcharticles Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 1

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

University Of Cape Town Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

University Of Cape Town Agentic Access

9 operations · 1 acting

9 operations · 1 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Documentation 4

Reference material describing how the API behaves

OpenAPI
OpenAPI
 OpenAPI
OpenAPI
 x-json-schema
x-json-schema
 x-json-schema
x-json-schema

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess
AgenticAccess

Design & Contract 3

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

x-spectral-rules
x-spectral-rules
 x-vocabulary
x-vocabulary
 x-json-ld
x-json-ld

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHub
GitHub

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits
RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans
Plans
 FinOps
FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website
Website
 LinkedIn
LinkedIn

Other 3

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Review
Review
 x-json-structure
x-json-structure
 x-json-structure
x-json-structure

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: university-of-cape-town
name: University of Cape Town
description: 'The University of Cape Town (UCT) is South Africa''s leading public research university, ranked #96 in the QS
  World University Rankings 2025 and the highest-ranked university on the African continent. UCT does not operate a single
  consolidated developer portal, but several of its research and library units expose public, machine-readable interfaces.
  DataFirst runs a NADA-based microdata catalog with a public REST API, the OpenUCT institutional repository exposes a DSpace
  OAI-PMH metadata harvesting endpoint, and the ZivaHub open data repository is built on Figshare for Institutions and is
  reachable through the public Figshare API. Most operational, student-information, and identity systems remain gated behind
  institutional authentication.'
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/university-of-cape-town.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-cape-town/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Research Data
- Open Data
- Institutional Repository
- OAI-PMH
- South Africa
- Africa
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: university-of-cape-town:datafirst-nada
  name: DataFirst Microdata Catalog API (NADA)
  description: DataFirst is a UCT research unit and data service providing online access to survey and administrative microdata
    from South Africa and other African countries. Its open data portal is built on the NADA (National Data Archive) cataloging
    tool, which exposes a public REST/JSON API for browsing the catalog of studies. The catalog endpoint returns survey metadata
    (hundreds of confirmed surveys) in JSON.
  humanURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog
  baseURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/api
  tags:
  - Microdata
  - Open Data
  - Research Data
  - NADA
  - Catalog
  - Surveys
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/
- aid: university-of-cape-town:openuct-oai-pmh
  name: OpenUCT Institutional Repository OAI-PMH
  description: OpenUCT is the University of Cape Town's open access institutional repository, launched in 2014 and built on
    DSpace. It preserves and openly shares UCT scholarly outputs including theses, dissertations, journal articles, reports,
    and open educational resources. The repository exposes a standards-compliant OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting interface
    supporting verbs such as Identify, ListRecords, and ListMetadataFormats.
  humanURL: https://open.uct.ac.za/
  baseURL: https://open.uct.ac.za/server/oai/request
  tags:
  - Institutional Repository
  - OAI-PMH
  - DSpace
  - Metadata
  - Open Access
  - Scholarly
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://open.uct.ac.za/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://open.uct.ac.za/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
- aid: university-of-cape-town:zivahub-figshare
  name: ZivaHub Open Data (Figshare API)
  description: ZivaHub is UCT's institutional open data repository for research data and scholarly outputs, powered by Figshare
    for Institutions and certified with the CoreTrustSeal in 2025. Public ZivaHub content is accessible programmatically through
    the public Figshare REST API, which provides article, collection, and project metadata in JSON.
  humanURL: https://zivahub.uct.ac.za/
  baseURL: https://api.figshare.com/v2
  tags:
  - Open Data
  - Research Data
  - Figshare
  - Repository
  - Metadata
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.figshare.com/
  - type: Website
    url: https://zivahub.uct.ac.za/
- aid: university-of-cape-town:university-of-cape-town-articles-api
  name: University of Cape Town articles API
  description: Public articles (research outputs / datasets)
  humanURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog
  baseURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/api
  tags:
  - articles
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-cape-town-articles-api-openapi.yml
- aid: university-of-cape-town:university-of-cape-town-catalog-api
  name: University of Cape Town catalog API
  description: Browse and search the microdata catalog.
  humanURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog
  baseURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/api
  tags:
  - catalog
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-cape-town-catalog-api-openapi.yml
- aid: university-of-cape-town:university-of-cape-town-collections-api
  name: University of Cape Town collections API
  description: Public collections
  humanURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog
  baseURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/api
  tags:
  - collections
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-cape-town-collections-api-openapi.yml
- aid: university-of-cape-town:university-of-cape-town-projects-api
  name: University of Cape Town projects API
  description: Public projects
  humanURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog
  baseURL: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/api
  tags:
  - projects
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-cape-town-projects-api-openapi.yml
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/university-of-cape-town-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/university-of-cape-town-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.uct.ac.za/
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/uct-cbio
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://za.linkedin.com/school/university-of-cape-town/
- type: Plans
  url: plans/university-of-cape-town-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/university-of-cape-town-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/university-of-cape-town-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
- type: OpenAPI
  url: openapi/university-of-cape-town-zivahub-figshare.yaml
- type: OpenAPI
  url: openapi/university-of-cape-town-datafirst-nada.yaml
- type: x-json-schema
  url: json-schema/university-of-cape-town-article-schema.json
- type: x-json-schema
  url: json-schema/university-of-cape-town-study-schema.json
- type: x-json-structure
  url: json-structure/university-of-cape-town-article-structure.json
- type: x-json-structure
  url: json-structure/university-of-cape-town-study-structure.json
- type: x-spectral-rules
  url: rules/university-of-cape-town-rules.yml
- type: x-vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/university-of-cape-town-vocabulary.yml
- type: x-json-ld
  url: json-ld/university-of-cape-town-context.jsonld
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com