University of Sheffield

aid: university-of-sheffield
name: University of Sheffield
x-type: university
x-category: Public Research University
description: 'The University of Sheffield is a public research university in Sheffield, United Kingdom, and a member of the
  Russell Group. Its programmable footprint is small, decentralised and mostly indirect, and this profile says so rather than
  padding it. There is no central developer portal, no API gateway, no self-service key issuance and no documented course,
  timetable or student-information API. What the institution genuinely operates is one first-party research API — the Sheffield
  Solar API at api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk, which publishes its own OpenAPI 3.1 document and serves keyless PV_Live estimates
  of GB solar generation — and its own Shibboleth SAML identity provider at idp.shef.ac.uk, the authentication surface through
  which every bought platform is reached. Everything else that looks like a Sheffield API is a vendor''s contract running
  under Sheffield''s name: ORDA is figshare, White Rose Research Online and White Rose eTheses Online are EPrints instances
  shared with Leeds and York, and library discovery is Ex Libris Primo. Those are recorded here as tenant relationships, which
  they are, and not as Sheffield engineering, which they are not.'
type: Index
position: Producing
access: Public
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/university-of-sheffield.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-sheffield/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- United Kingdom
- Russell Group
- Research Data
- Open Access
- OAI-PMH
- Identity Federation
- Solar Energy
- Energy Data
- Research Computing
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-30'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
deliveryModel:
  model: self-hosted
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: true
  label: Institution-hosted research API · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - probed
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: open
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: true
  label: Free · Keyless for PV_Live reads, registration for PV_Forecast
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: probed
  confidence: high
  source:
  - authentication
  - probed
x-coverage:
  state: covered
  reason: covered
  detail: 'Sheffield does operate a real, first-party, machine-readable API surface, and it was found and verified: the Sheffield
    Solar API publishes its own OpenAPI 3.1 document at https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/openapi.json and answers keyless
    requests, and the institution''s Shibboleth IdP serves live SAML 2.0 metadata from its own domain. The footprint is nonetheless
    narrow. No central developer portal, course catalog, timetable, campus-life or open-data API was found on any Sheffield
    host after probing api., data., courses. and sis. subdomains, all of which fail to resolve. The research repositories
    are real institutional facts but vendor-operated, and are recorded as tenant. ORDA''s own OAI-PMH endpoint is live but
    returns a Cloudflare 202 bot challenge to scripted clients, so its Identify response could not be read; that is a block
    on us, not a gap in Sheffield.'
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: probed
  evidence:
  - url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/openapi.json
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/api/v4/gsp/0
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvforecast/api/v4/gsp/0
    status: 401
  - url: https://idp.shef.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
    status: 200
  - url: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/cgi/oai2?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/cgi/oai2?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://orda.shef.ac.uk/oai?verb=Identify
    status: 202
  - url: https://api.sheffield.ac.uk/
    status: 0
  - url: https://data.sheffield.ac.uk/
    status: 0
  - url: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/llms.txt
    status: 404
  - url: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/.well-known/security.txt
    status: 404
x-attribution-correction:
  date: '2026-08-30'
  pipeline: pipeline-university
  removed:
    contracts: 10
    derived_artifacts: 36
    reason: 'The 2026-06-03 profile saved figshare''s own contract under Sheffield''s slug. openapi/_original/university-of-sheffield-orda.yaml
      declared ''info.title: Figshare API'', ''contact: Figshare Support'' and ''servers: [https://api.figshare.com/v2]''.
      refine-openapis then split it into ten per-tag specs, and eleven apis[] entries were registered against it — eleven
      times the apparent footprint for one vendor document that eleven other universities in this cohort also ship. Every
      schema, structure, example, ruleset, vocabulary, context, collection, scope, authentication and capability file in the
      repo was derived from it and inherited its provenance, so all of them were removed too.'
  retained_as_tenant:
  - ORDA (figshare)
  - White Rose Research Online (EPrints)
  - White Rose eTheses Online (EPrints)
  added_as_institution:
  - Sheffield Solar API
  - University of Sheffield Shibboleth Identity Provider
apis:
- aid: university-of-sheffield:sheffield-solar-api
  name: Sheffield Solar API
  x-operator: institution
  description: The University of Sheffield's own research API, built and run by the Sheffield Solar group in the Department
    of Physics and Astronomy. It publishes PV_Live — near-real-time and historical estimates of solar photovoltaic generation
    on the GB transmission network, by Grid Supply Point and Public Electricity Supplier region — plus PV_Live_EU over European
    NUTS regions and PV_Forecast day-ahead forecasts. PV_Live read endpoints are keyless and answered 200 on probe; PV_Forecast
    returns 401 without a registered X-User-Id header. The institution publishes its own OpenAPI 3.1 document, a Swagger UI
    and a Redoc rendering. This is the one contract in this repository that Sheffield actually wrote.
  humanURL: https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/api/
  baseURL: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk
  tags:
  - Solar Energy
  - Energy Data
  - Research Data
  - Open Data
  - Time Series
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-sheffield-sheffield-solar-api-openapi.yml
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/openapi.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/redoc
  - type: InteractiveDocumentation
    url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/docs
  - type: Portal
    url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/docs
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/tandc
  - type: Status
    url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/uptime
  - type: Support
    url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/contact
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/SheffieldSolar/PV_Live-API
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/university-of-sheffield-pvlive-response-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/university-of-sheffield-pvlive-generation-row-schema.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/university-of-sheffield-pvlive-gsp-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/university-of-sheffield-pvlive-peakgeneration-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/university-of-sheffield-pvlive-pes-list-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/university-of-sheffield-pvforecast-auth-required-example.json
  - type: Rules
    url: rules/university-of-sheffield-rules.yml
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/university-of-sheffield-vocabulary.yml
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/university-of-sheffield-context.jsonld
  - type: Errors
    url: errors/university-of-sheffield-errors.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/university-of-sheffield-lifecycle.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-sheffield-authentication.yml
  - type: OAuthScopes
    url: scopes/university-of-sheffield-scopes.yml
- aid: university-of-sheffield:shibboleth-idp
  name: University of Sheffield Shibboleth Identity Provider
  x-operator: institution
  description: The institution's own SAML 2.0 identity provider, entityID https://idp.shef.ac.uk/shibboleth, serving live
    Shibboleth metadata from Sheffield's own domain. Machine-readable, institution-operated by definition, and the access
    path through which Sheffield affiliates reach every vendor-tenanted service the university buys. Declares HTTP-POST, HTTP-POST-SimpleSign,
    HTTP-Redirect and SOAP bindings for SAML 2.0 SSO and single logout, plus legacy SAML 1.1 endpoints. Verified live 2026-08-30,
    HTTP 200, application/xml.
  humanURL: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/it-services
  baseURL: https://idp.shef.ac.uk/idp
  tags:
  - Identity Federation
  - SAML
  - Shibboleth
  - Single Sign-On
  - Authentication
  properties:
  - type: Metadata
    url: https://idp.shef.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-sheffield-conformance.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/university-of-sheffield-authentication.yml
- aid: university-of-sheffield:orda
  name: ORDA — Online Research Data (figshare tenant)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: ORDA is the University of Sheffield's research data repository at orda.shef.ac.uk. The records, the DOIs and
    the curation are Sheffield's; the platform and the API contract are figshare's. Sheffield is a registered DataCite provider
    (id ooki) and ORDA is a registered DataCite repository client (id bl.shef), so deposits mint DataCite DOIs. NO SPEC IS
    SAVED HERE ON PURPOSE — the figshare contract belongs in figshare's own repository, and attributing it to Sheffield is
    the specific defect this profile was re-run to correct. The relationship is real and is recorded; the engineering is not
    Sheffield's. ORDA's OAI-PMH endpoint is live but returns a Cloudflare 202 challenge to scripted clients.
  humanURL: https://orda.shef.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://orda.shef.ac.uk/oai
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - Research Data
  - OAI-PMH
  - DataCite
  - Figshare
  tags_raw:
  - Research Repository
  - Research Data
  - OAI-PMH
  - DataCite
  - figshare
  properties:
  - type: Portal
    url: https://orda.shef.ac.uk/
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/rdm/orda
  - type: VendorProfile
    url: https://api.datacite.org/clients/bl.shef
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-sheffield-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-sheffield:wrro-oai
  name: White Rose Research Online OAI-PMH
  x-operator: tenant
  description: White Rose Research Online is the shared open-access outputs repository of the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield
    and York, running on EPrints and administered by the White Rose consortium rather than by Sheffield alone. Its OAI-PMH
    2.0 interface Identifies as "White Rose Research Online" and offers thirteen metadata formats including oai_dc, rioxx,
    oai_openaire, uketd_dc and oai_dc_orcid — the last of which is where this profile's ORCID conformance evidence comes from.
    Sheffield co-owns the deployment; EPrints wrote the protocol implementation.
  humanURL: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/cgi/oai2
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - OAI-PMH
  - EPrints
  - Open Access
  - ORCID
  - Consortium
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/information.html
  - type: Portal
    url: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-sheffield-conformance.yml
- aid: university-of-sheffield:wreo-oai
  name: White Rose eTheses Online OAI-PMH
  x-operator: tenant
  description: White Rose eTheses Online is the shared electronic theses repository of the same three universities, running
    on EPrints. Its OAI-PMH 2.0 interface Identifies as "White Rose eTheses Online" and harvests University of Sheffield thesis
    metadata. Consortium-operated on a vendor platform; recorded as a tenant relationship.
  humanURL: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/
  baseURL: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/cgi/oai2
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - OAI-PMH
  - EPrints
  - Theses
  - Open Access
  - Consortium
  properties:
  - type: Portal
    url: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/university-of-sheffield-conformance.yml
common:
- type: License
  name: GPL-3.0
  url: https://github.com/SheffieldSolar/PV_Live-API/blob/main/LICENSE
- type: Website
  url: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/
- type: APIReference
  url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/redoc
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/api/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/terms-and-conditions
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/privacy
- type: IdentityFederation
  url: https://idp.shef.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://orda.shef.ac.uk/
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/
- type: LibraryCatalog
  url: https://find.shef.ac.uk/
- type: ResearchComputing
  url: https://docs.hpc.shef.ac.uk/en/latest/
- type: ResearchComputing
  url: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/it-services/research/hpc
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/SheffieldUni
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/rcgsheffield
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/RSE-Sheffield
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/SheffieldSolar
- type: Support
  url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/contact
- type: Status
  url: https://api.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/uptime
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-sheffield/
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/sheffielduni
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/university-of-sheffield-conformance.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/university-of-sheffield-lifecycle.yml
- type: Errors
  url: errors/university-of-sheffield-errors.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/university-of-sheffield-authentication.yml
- type: OAuthScopes
  url: scopes/university-of-sheffield-scopes.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/university-of-sheffield-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/university-of-sheffield-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/university-of-sheffield-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/university-of-sheffield-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com