University of Edinburgh

aid: university-of-edinburgh
name: University of Edinburgh
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
description: 'The University of Edinburgh is a public research university in Scotland, founded in 1582, a member of the Russell
  Group and ranked #19 in the QS World University Rankings. Its programmable footprint is real but narrow, and it is not where
  the catalog previously said it was. Re-profiled on 2026-08-19 against the operator axis, the institution genuinely operates:
  two DSpace 8.3 research repositories on its own domain (Edinburgh DataShare and the Edinburgh Research Archive) each with
  a REST API and an OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint minting DataCite DOIs under the University prefix 10.7488; a Shibboleth Identity
  Provider publishing SAML 2.0 metadata unauthenticated; a CKAN 2.11.3 open-data catalogue for the Edinburgh International
  Data Facility; and ELM (Edinburgh Language Models), an OpenAI-compatible generative-AI gateway that EDINA operates for UK
  tertiary education — the one surface here where Edinburgh is clearly a producer rather than a buyer. An Enterprise API programme
  runs on a WSO2 Choreo gateway at api.ed.ac.uk, which is live but exposes no public route, catalogue or developer portal,
  and whose own public project pages returned HTTP 500 on every probe. The library discovery layer (Ex Libris Primo) and the
  research information system (Elsevier Pure) are vendor platforms recorded here as tenant relationships, not as Edinburgh
  contracts. This profile is deliberately smaller than the June 2026 one: the seven OpenAPI documents previously held for
  this institution described the DSpace 6 legacy /rest API, which is retired and now returns 404.'
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: Provider
access: Public
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/university-of-edinburgh.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-edinburgh/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- United Kingdom
- Scotland
- Russell Group
- Research Repository
- Open Data
- Identity Federation
- Research Computing
- OAI-PMH
- Artificial Intelligence
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-19'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
x-coverage:
  state: covered
  reason: institution_operates_narrow_public_surface
  detail: 'Every surface class in the university playbook was hunted on 2026-08-19 and the result is a small but genuine institution-operated
    footprint, plus two tenant relationships and one live-but-gated gateway. What was found: research repositories (institution,
    DSpace 8.3 on ed.ac.uk), OAI-PMH (institution, both repositories), identity federation (institution, Shibboleth SAML metadata
    at idp.ed.ac.uk), open data (institution, CKAN at catalogue.eidf.ac.uk on an Edinburgh-owned domain), AI tooling (institution,
    ELM on edina.ac.uk, OpenAI-compatible and bearer-authenticated), research computing (institution, EPCC/EIDF portal). What
    was NOT found: no course catalog or timetable API — the Degree Regulations and Programmes of Study site is HTML only;
    no campus-life API of any kind; no SCIM, LTI, OneRoster, Ed-Fi, Caliper or QTI surface; no llms.txt and no security.txt
    on the main domain. What is gated: the Enterprise API gateway at api.ed.ac.uk, which resolves to a WSO2 Choreo tenant
    named `uoe` and answers every probed path with its own JSON 404 envelope. This is not a thin profile caused by our own
    visibility limits — the probes ran clean and the absences are the institution''s, not ours.'
  generated: '2026-08-19'
  method: probed
  evidence:
  - url: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/server/api
    status: 200
  - url: https://era.ed.ac.uk/server/api
    status: 200
  - url: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://era.ed.ac.uk/oai/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://idp.ed.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
    status: 200
  - url: https://catalogue.eidf.ac.uk/api/3/action/status_show
    status: 200
  - url: https://elm.edina.ac.uk/api/v1/models
    status: 401
  - url: https://api.ed.ac.uk/openapi
    status: 404
  - url: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/rest
    status: 404
  - url: https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/oai?verb=Identify
    status: 500
  - url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/digital-transformation/current-programmes-projects/enterprise-apis
    status: 500
  - url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/llms.txt
    status: 404
  - url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/.well-known/security.txt
    status: 404
apis:
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:datashare-repository-api
  name: Edinburgh DataShare REST API
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: 'datashare.ed.ac.uk is under ed.ac.uk; Nominet Domain Owner: University of Edinburgh'
  description: DSpace 8.3 REST API for Edinburgh DataShare, the University's open-access research-data repository. Anonymous
    callers may read communities (110), collections, browse indexes and the discovery search; /core/items and /core/bitstreams
    return 401. Edinburgh operates the deployment on its own domain — the API shape is DSpace open-source software rather
    than Edinburgh engineering, but the service, the data and the DOIs are the institution's. The DSpace 6 legacy /rest API
    this repository previously documented is retired and returns 404.
  humanURL: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/server/api
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - Research Data
  - DSpace
  - Open Access
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-edinburgh-datashare-repository-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/research-data-service
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/university-of-edinburgh-dspace-community-schema.json
  - type: x-examples
    url: examples/university-of-edinburgh-datashare-communities-example.json
  - type: x-spectral-rules
    url: rules/university-of-edinburgh-rules.yml
  - type: x-vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/university-of-edinburgh-vocabulary.yml
  - type: x-json-ld-context
    url: json-ld/university-of-edinburgh-context.jsonld
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-edinburgh-authentication.yml
  - type: Errors
    url: errors/university-of-edinburgh-errors.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/university-of-edinburgh-lifecycle.yml
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-edinburgh-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:datashare-oai
  name: Edinburgh DataShare OAI-PMH
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: datashare.ed.ac.uk is under ed.ac.uk; Identify self-reports baseURL on the same host
  description: OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting endpoint for Edinburgh DataShare. Fully anonymous, no key, twelve metadata
    prefixes including the UK research formats rioxx and uketd_dc. Records carry DataCite DOIs under prefix 10.7488/ds. Earliest
    datestamp 2008-01-29. This is the most open machine-readable surface the institution operates.
  humanURL: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/server/oai
  tags:
  - OAI-PMH
  - Metadata
  - Harvesting
  - Research Data
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-edinburgh-datashare-oai-pmh-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/oai/request?verb=Identify
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-edinburgh-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:era-repository-api
  name: Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA) REST API
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: 'era.ed.ac.uk is under ed.ac.uk; Nominet Domain Owner: University of Edinburgh'
  description: DSpace 8.3 REST API for the Edinburgh Research Archive, the University's institutional repository of theses,
    dissertations and research publications. 54 communities readable anonymously; items return 401. Distinct from DataShare
    and not previously catalogued.
  humanURL: https://era.ed.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://era.ed.ac.uk/server/api
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - Institutional Repository
  - Theses
  - DSpace
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-edinburgh-era-repository-api-openapi.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/university-of-edinburgh-dspace-community-schema.json
  - type: x-examples
    url: examples/university-of-edinburgh-era-communities-example.json
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-edinburgh-authentication.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/university-of-edinburgh-lifecycle.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:era-oai
  name: Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA) OAI-PMH
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: era.ed.ac.uk is under ed.ac.uk; Identify self-reports baseURL on the same host
  description: OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint for the Edinburgh Research Archive. Thirteen metadata prefixes including etdms for electronic
    theses alongside rioxx and uketd_dc. DOIs under 10.7488/era. Earliest datestamp 2003-10-21.
  humanURL: https://era.ed.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://era.ed.ac.uk/server/oai
  tags:
  - OAI-PMH
  - Metadata
  - Theses
  - Harvesting
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-edinburgh-era-oai-pmh-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://era.ed.ac.uk/oai/request?verb=Identify
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-edinburgh-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:eidf-data-catalogue-api
  name: EIDF Data Catalogue API
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: 'eidf.ac.uk Nominet Domain Owner: University of Edinburgh, Registered For: Edinburgh International
    Data Facility (EIDF)'
  description: CKAN 2.11.3 Action API for the Edinburgh International Data Facility Data Catalogue, operated by EPCC at the
    University of Edinburgh. 14 public datasets across 13 EIDF project organisations, readable anonymously with no key. The
    deployment carries a custom eidf_oidc_auth extension written for it, so this is an institution-configured platform rather
    than a hosted tenancy.
  humanURL: https://catalogue.eidf.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://catalogue.eidf.ac.uk/api/3/action
  tags:
  - Open Data
  - CKAN
  - Research Computing
  - Data Catalog
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-edinburgh-eidf-data-catalogue-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://catalogue.eidf.ac.uk/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/university-of-edinburgh-ckan-package-schema.json
  - type: x-examples
    url: examples/university-of-edinburgh-eidf-package-show-example.json
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-edinburgh-authentication.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:elm-api
  name: ELM — Edinburgh Language Models API
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: 'edina.ac.uk Nominet Domain Owner: University of Edinburgh, Registered For: EDINA National Data Centre'
  description: OpenAI-compatible generative-AI gateway built and run by EDINA at the University of Edinburgh, described by
    its own metadata as delivering generative AI to UK tertiary education. /api/v1/models and /api/v1/chat/completions both
    answer 401 with an OpenAI-shaped error envelope without a bearer token, which is what establishes the routes and the auth
    scheme; /health returns 200. No public self-service registration and no published OpenAPI (/openapi.json returns the SPA
    shell). This is the clearest case in the profile of Edinburgh acting as an API producer rather than a buyer.
  humanURL: https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/computing/comms-and-collab/elm
  baseURL: https://elm.edina.ac.uk/api/v1
  tags:
  - Artificial Intelligence
  - LLM
  - Gateway
  - Gated
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-edinburgh-elm-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/computing/comms-and-collab/elm
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-edinburgh-authentication.yml
  - type: Errors
    url: errors/university-of-edinburgh-errors.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:identity-federation
  name: University of Edinburgh Shibboleth Identity Provider
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: idp.ed.ac.uk is under ed.ac.uk; metadata OrganizationName is "University of Edinburgh"
  description: Shibboleth Identity Provider publishing SAML 2.0 entity metadata unauthenticated at a stable URL, entityID
    https://idp.ed.ac.uk/shibboleth. Advertises the full SAML 2.0 binding set for SSO and Single Logout plus SAML 1 artifact
    resolution and attribute query. Institution-operated by definition and machine-readable. Note the IdP web root returns
    403 by design — the metadata path is the machine surface and it answers 200.
  humanURL: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/computing/computing-infrastructure/authentication-authorisation
  baseURL: https://idp.ed.ac.uk/idp
  tags:
  - Identity Federation
  - SAML
  - Shibboleth
  - Authentication
  properties:
  - type: x-metadata
    url: https://idp.ed.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-edinburgh-conformance.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-edinburgh-authentication.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:enterprise-api-gateway
  name: Enterprise API Gateway (gated)
  x-operator: institution
  x-operator-evidence: api.ed.ac.uk is under ed.ac.uk and resolves to a WSO2 Choreo tenant named uoe (f5aad5f4-...-prod.prod.uoe.choreoapis.dev)
  description: The University's Enterprise APIs programme — Student Records, Timetabling and Staff APIs — runs on a WSO2 Choreo
    gateway at api.ed.ac.uk. The gateway is live and Edinburgh-operated, but every probed path returns its own JSON 404 envelope,
    including /openapi, /api-docs, /services and /.well-known/openid-configuration. No route, no catalogue, no developer portal,
    no scopes. Recorded as a gated surface rather than an absent one. The programme's own public project pages returned HTTP
    500 on both digital-strategy.ed.ac.uk and www.ed.ac.uk when probed on 2026-08-19, so the institution's public account
    of its API programme is currently broken.
  humanURL: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/enterprise-architecture/application-integration/apis-and-connectors
  baseURL: https://api.ed.ac.uk
  tags:
  - Enterprise
  - Integration
  - Gated
  - Internal
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/enterprise-architecture/application-integration/apis-and-connectors
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-edinburgh-authentication.yml
  - type: Scopes
    url: scopes/university-of-edinburgh-scopes.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/university-of-edinburgh-lifecycle.yml
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:pure-research-explorer
  name: Edinburgh Research Explorer (Elsevier Pure) — tenant
  x-operator: tenant
  x-operator-evidence: www.pure.ed.ac.uk is an Edinburgh-branded subdomain running Elsevier Pure; https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/api
    canonicalises to https://api.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/index.html, so the contract is Elsevier's and is not saved under
    this institution.
  description: Edinburgh Research Explorer is the University's public research information portal, running on Elsevier Pure.
    The research outputs, the people and the DOIs are Edinburgh's; the API contract is Elsevier's and belongs on Elsevier's
    own record. Recorded here as a real tenant relationship rather than deleted or credited. The Pure OAI-PMH endpoint returned
    HTTP 500 on both www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/oai and www.research.ed.ac.uk/ws/oai when probed on 2026-08-19, so the harvesting
    surface is currently broken; the previous dead pointer to it has been removed.
  humanURL: https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/
  tags:
  - Research Outputs
  - CRIS
  - Tenant
  - Vendor Platform
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/
- aid: university-of-edinburgh:discovered-primo
  name: DiscoverEd Library Discovery (Ex Libris Primo) — tenant
  x-operator: tenant
  x-operator-evidence: discovered.ed.ac.uk serves an Ex Libris Primo application (primoExploreRoot); the Primo API contract
    is Ex Libris's and shared across every Primo customer
  description: DiscoverEd is the University Library's discovery layer, an Ex Libris Primo tenancy on an Edinburgh subdomain.
    The holdings are Edinburgh's; the search API is Ex Libris's product and is not saved under this institution.
  humanURL: https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/
  tags:
  - Library
  - Discovery
  - Tenant
  - Vendor Platform
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/enterprise-architecture/application-integration/apis-and-connectors
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/uoe-is-apps
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-edinburgh/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/about/website/website-terms-conditions
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/data-protection
- type: Support
  url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/help-consultancy
- type: Blog
  url: https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/datablog/
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://era.ed.ac.uk/
- type: OpenData
  url: https://catalogue.eidf.ac.uk/
- type: IdentityFederation
  url: https://idp.ed.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
- type: CourseCatalog
  url: https://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/
- type: LibraryCatalog
  url: https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/
- type: ResearchComputing
  url: https://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/
- type: ResearchComputing
  url: https://portal.eidf.ac.uk/
- type: AIPolicy
  url: https://www.ed.ac.uk/ai/guidance
- type: AITooling
  url: https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/computing/comms-and-collab/elm
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/university-of-edinburgh-authentication.yml
- type: Scopes
  url: scopes/university-of-edinburgh-scopes.yml
- type: Errors
  url: errors/university-of-edinburgh-errors.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/university-of-edinburgh-lifecycle.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/university-of-edinburgh-conformance.yml
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/university-of-edinburgh-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/university-of-edinburgh-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/university-of-edinburgh-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/university-of-edinburgh-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/university-of-edinburgh-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com