University of the Witwatersrand

aid: university-of-the-witwatersrand
name: University of the Witwatersrand
description: 'The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) is a leading public research university in Johannesburg, South Africa,
  ranked #268 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Wits does not operate a central, branded developer portal, but it
  exposes standards-based machine-readable interfaces through its library and open-research infrastructure. The most clearly
  public surfaces are the WIReDSpace institutional repository (DSpace 9.2), which offers both a REST API and an OAI-PMH metadata
  harvesting endpoint, and the Wits Open Data Vault, a Figshare-powered research data repository carrying DOIs for datasets.
  Other systems (Springshare LibGuides/LibCal, identity/SSO, and student services) are vendor-hosted and generally gated rather
  than openly documented.'
type: Index
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-the-witwatersrand/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Research
- Open Data
- Library
- Institutional Repository
- South Africa
- Africa
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: university-of-the-witwatersrand:wiredspace-rest
  name: WIReDSpace DSpace REST API
  description: WIReDSpace is the Wits institutional repository, running DSpace 9.2. Its REST API exposes a HAL/JSON root document
    at /server/api with endpoints for communities, collections, items, bundles, bitstreams, discovery/browse, and more. Verified
    live returning a DSpace 9.2 root document.
  humanURL: https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/
  baseURL: https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/server/api
  tags:
  - Institutional Repository
  - DSpace
  - Open Access
  - Research
  - Library
  - REST
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/server/api
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-the-witwatersrand-wiredspace-rest.yaml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/university-of-the-witwatersrand-community-schema.json
  - type: x-json-structure
    url: json-structure/university-of-the-witwatersrand-community-structure.json
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/university-of-the-witwatersrand-getCommunity-example.json
- aid: university-of-the-witwatersrand:wiredspace-oai
  name: WIReDSpace OAI-PMH
  description: OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting interface for the WIReDSpace institutional repository. Verified live with an
    Identify response naming the repository "WIReDSpace" and protocol version 2.0.
  humanURL: https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/
  baseURL: https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/server/oai/request
  tags:
  - OAI-PMH
  - Metadata Harvesting
  - Institutional Repository
  - Open Access
  - Library
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/server/oai/request?verb=Identify
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-the-witwatersrand-wiredspace-oai.yaml
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/university-of-the-witwatersrand-oai-identify-example.json
- aid: university-of-the-witwatersrand:open-data-vault
  name: Wits Open Data Vault (Figshare)
  description: The Wits Open Data Vault is the university's research data repository, launched in 2025 on the Figshare platform
    and integrated with Altmetric and Dimensions. Datasets are assigned DOIs. Programmatic access is available via the standard
    Figshare public REST API (api.figshare.com/v2); the institutional portal itself is bot-restricted.
  humanURL: https://info.figshare.com/university-of-the-witwatersrand-chooses-figshare-to-support-its-open-data-goals/
  baseURL: https://api.figshare.com/v2
  tags:
  - Research Data
  - Open Data
  - Figshare
  - DOI
  - Repository
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.figshare.com/
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/university-of-the-witwatersrand-open-data-vault.yaml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/university-of-the-witwatersrand-article-schema.json
  - type: x-json-structure
    url: json-structure/university-of-the-witwatersrand-article-structure.json
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/university-of-the-witwatersrand-getArticle-example.json
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://www.wits.ac.za/
- type: Library
  url: https://www.wits.ac.za/library/
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/WitsSoftDev
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-the-witwatersrand/
- type: Plans
  url: plans/university-of-the-witwatersrand-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/university-of-the-witwatersrand-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/university-of-the-witwatersrand-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
- type: Rules
  url: rules/university-of-the-witwatersrand-rules.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/university-of-the-witwatersrand-vocabulary.yml
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/university-of-the-witwatersrand-context.jsonld
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com