University of Southern California

aid: usc
name: University of Southern California
x-type: university
x-category: Private Research University
description: 'The University of Southern California is a private research university in Los Angeles, ranked #59 in the QS
  World University Rankings 2025. USC operates no central developer portal, publishes no OpenAPI, AsyncAPI or apis.json anywhere
  on its public surface, and issues no self-service API keys — www.usc.edu serves neither llms.txt nor .well-known/security.txt,
  and api.usc.edu is a default IIS Windows Server placeholder page last modified in 2019, not an API. What USC does operate,
  verified live on 2026-08-30, is three genuinely institutional machine surfaces: a Shibboleth SAML 2.0 identity provider
  whose metadata is published unauthenticated at shibboleth.usc.edu and registered with InCommon as urn:mace:incommon:usc.edu;
  a DataCite direct membership under its own name that carries eleven repositories and 1.5 million minted DOIs; and the FaceBase
  craniofacial data hub, whose keyless ERMrest REST API is built and run by USC''s own Information Sciences Institute on ISI''s
  Apache-2.0 DERIVA stack. Everything else that looks like a USC API is a vendor''s contract running under USC''s name and
  is recorded here as a tenant relationship, never as USC''s engineering: Figshare, Ex Libris Primo/Alma, Orange Logic Cortex
  and Instructure Canvas. The Schedule of Classes Web Services API that this profile previously led with is gone — web-app.usc.edu
  no longer resolves at all.'
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: false
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
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: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/usc.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/usc/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- University
- Higher Education
- Education
- Research
- Private Research University
- Association of American Universities
- United States
- California
- Los Angeles
- Identity Federation
- Research Data
- Research Repository
- Library
- Course Catalog
- Research Computing
x-coverage:
  state: covered
  reason: covered
  detail: 'USC publishes no API contract of any kind — no OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, GraphQL SDL, Postman collection or apis.json
    exists on any usc.edu host, no USC GitHub organization contains one (code search over USCDataScience, isi-usc-edu, usc-its
    and uscbiostats returns 0 hits for filename:openapi), and there is no developer portal, no key issuance and no rate-limit
    documentation. Three institution-operated machine surfaces were found and verified live on 2026-08-30 and are recorded
    as USC''s: the Shibboleth/SAML 2.0 identity provider metadata at shibboleth.usc.edu plus its InCommon registration, the
    DataCite direct membership (provider id usc, 11 repositories, 1,513,793 DOIs), and the FaceBase ERMrest catalog API, which
    is keyless and returns 923,861 bytes of live JSON schema and whose own annotations are namespaced tag:isrd.isi.edu — USC
    ISI''s Informatics Systems Research Division, which authors the Apache-2.0 ERMrest server. Four vendor platforms are recorded
    as tenant relationships and NOT as USC contracts: Figshare (usc.figshare.com), Ex Libris Primo/Alma (uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com,
    view 01USC_INST:01USC), Orange Logic Cortex (digitallibrary.usc.edu/API, which is a real REST API but returns 401 "you
    must be signed in ... request a token through the Authentication" with ProviderIdentity USC-AWS-ORG-209), and Instructure
    Canvas (usc.instructure.com). The Schedule of Classes Web Services API this profile previously led with is retired: web-app.usc.edu
    returns no A record from either 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1, so both Documentation pointers it carried were dead and have been
    removed. Its successor, classes.usc.edu, is an Angular single-page application whose backend is unpublished — /api/* returns
    bare 404s from a real backend while every non-/api path soft -200s the SPA shell. State is `covered` because two institution-operated
    machine surfaces were reached keyless and read in full, not because a portal was found — there is none. The one full REST
    API on a USC-owned host, the Orange Logic Cortex API, is the single gated surface: it exists and answers, but requires
    a token nobody outside USC can request. gateway.usc.edu and registrar.usc.edu resolve but do not answer publicly; libraries.usc.edu
    returns a 403 "old-browser" challenge to every user agent tried, which is a block on us rather than a finding about USC.'
  generated: '2026-08-30'
  method: probed
  evidence:
  - url: https://shibboleth.usc.edu/idp/shibboleth
    status: 200
  - url: https://mdq.incommon.org/entities/%7Bsha1%7D7ea68903620195ae353c8c2b874ca3508307319a
    status: 200
  - url: https://mdq.incommon.org/entities/%7Bsha1%7D6ec63752631a031faeff5acd280a6080846b43df
    status: 404
  - url: https://my.usc.edu/
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.datacite.org/providers/usc
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.datacite.org/clients?provider-id=usc
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.datacite.org/dois?provider-id=usc
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1/schema
    status: 200
  - url: https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/API/search/v3.0/search?query=test&format=json
    status: 401
  - url: https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/oai/oai.aspx?verb=Identify
    status: 400
  - url: https://usc.figshare.com/
    status: 202
  - url: https://uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/primaws/rest/pub/configuration/vid/01USC_INST:01USC
    status: 200
  - url: https://usc.instructure.com/
    status: 200
  - url: https://na01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/oai/01USC_INST/request?verb=Identify
    status: 200
  - url: https://api.crossref.org/members?query=university+of+southern+california
    status: 200
  - url: https://classes.usc.edu/
    status: 200
  - url: https://classes.usc.edu/api/terms
    status: 404
  - url: https://web-app.usc.edu/web/soc/help
    status: 0
  - url: https://web-app.usc.edu/web/soc/docs/html/
    status: 0
  - url: https://api.usc.edu/
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.usc.edu/llms.txt
    status: 404
  - url: https://www.usc.edu/.well-known/security.txt
    status: 404
  - url: https://libraries.usc.edu/
    status: 403
  - url: https://repository.usc.edu/
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.carc.usc.edu/
    status: 200
apis:
- aid: usc:shibboleth-idp
  name: USC Shibboleth Identity Provider (SAML 2.0 Metadata)
  x-operator: institution
  description: USC's production single sign-on identity provider, operated by USC Information Technology Services on USC's
    own host, publishing its SAML 2.0 metadata unauthenticated. GET https://shibboleth.usc.edu/idp/shibboleth returns 200
    application/xml, 17,096 bytes, titled "USC Metadata" with Name="usc-idp-metadata" and validUntil 2028-04-06. The EntitiesDescriptor
    carries an IDPSSODescriptor for entityID https://shibboleth.usc.edu/shibboleth-idp supporting SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1 and Shibboleth
    1.0, with shibmd:Scope usc.edu and an X509 certificate issued to O=University of Southern California, OU=Information Technology
    Services. USC's federation registration resolves independently through InCommon's metadata query service as entityID urn:mace:incommon:usc.edu
    (200, 13,035 bytes of signed metadata), binding SSO to /idp/profile/SAML2/POST/SSO, /POST-SimpleSign/SSO and /Redirect/SSO
    on shibboleth.usc.edu and artifact resolution to shibboleth.usc.edu:8444. https://my.usc.edu/ redirects into this IdP,
    confirming it is the live login path and not a stale entry. This is machine-readable, institution-operated and unambiguously
    USC's own — it is the strongest programmable surface USC publishes.
  humanURL: https://itservices.usc.edu/
  baseURL: https://shibboleth.usc.edu/idp
  tags:
  - Identity Federation
  - Shibboleth
  - SAML
  - Single Sign-On
  - InCommon
  properties:
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://shibboleth.usc.edu/idp/shibboleth
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://itservices.usc.edu/
- aid: usc:facebase-ermrest
  name: FaceBase ERMrest Data API
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'Keyless, read-only JSON REST API of the FaceBase craniofacial data hub, an NIDCR-funded resource led from
    USC and engineered by USC''s Information Sciences Institute. GET https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1 returns 200
    application/json with the catalog root; GET https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1/schema returns 200 application/json,
    923,861 bytes, the full introspectable relational model. Attribution is settled from what the surface says about itself
    rather than from the hostname: the catalog''s own annotation keys are namespaced tag:isrd.isi.edu (USC ISI''s Informatics
    Systems Research Division), the responses carry a deriva-client-context CORS header, and the ERMrest server itself is
    USC ISI''s Apache-2.0 project at github.com/informatics-isi-edu/ermrest, actively maintained as of 2026-06-10. Its DOIs
    are minted under USC''s own DataCite provider account as client usc.facebase (1,410 DOIs). Recorded as institution rather
    than tenant on that basis, with the caveat stated plainly: facebase.org is a consortium domain, not a usc.edu registrable
    domain, so a host-only verdict would not reach this conclusion. No OpenAPI is saved — ERMrest is a generic protocol shared
    by every DERIVA deployment (gudmap.org and atlas-d2k.org answer the same paths), so the product contract belongs with
    the software, while this deployment, its data and its DOIs are USC''s.'
  humanURL: https://www.facebase.org/about
  baseURL: https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1
  tags:
  - Research Data
  - ERMrest
  - DERIVA
  - Craniofacial
  - REST
  - Open Data
  properties:
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1/schema
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/informatics-isi-edu/ermrest
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.facebase.org/
- aid: usc:datacite-membership
  name: USC DataCite DOI Registration (Provider Account)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: 'USC holds a DataCite direct membership in its own name and mints DOIs for eleven USC repositories under it.
    GET https://api.datacite.org/providers/usc returns 200 with name "University of Southern California", memberType direct_member,
    organizationType academicInstitution, joined 2017-06-02 and rorId https://ror.org/03taz7m60. The account carries 1,513,793
    DOIs across usc.dl (USC Digital Library, 1,511,764), usc.facebase (1,410), usc.ini (Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics
    Institute, 284), usc.isi (123), usc.gateway (Gateway to Global Aging Data, 105), usc.kidney (57), usc.metrans (35), usc.dataverse
    (9), usc.cesr (6), usc.pgahp and usc.test. Recorded as tenant, not institution: the REST API is DataCite''s contract and
    every DataCite member shares it, so no spec is saved here. What is USC''s is the account, the eleven repositories and
    the DOIs — a real and substantial institutional fact that this profile carried nowhere before.'
  humanURL: https://research.usc.edu/research-and-scholarship/digital-usc/
  baseURL: https://api.datacite.org
  tags:
  - Research Data
  - DataCite
  - DOI
  - Persistent Identifiers
  - Research Repository
  properties:
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://api.datacite.org/providers/usc
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://api.datacite.org/clients?provider-id=usc
- aid: usc:digital-library-cortex
  name: USC Digital Library API (Orange Logic Cortex)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: A live, token-gated REST API on USC's own host running Orange Logic's Cortex digital asset platform. GET https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/API/search/v3.0/search?query=test&format=json
    returns 401 application/json with a fully formed Cortex envelope — APIRequestInfo naming ProviderVersion PRINCETON.R6.2293U.273257,
    ProviderIdentity USC-AWS-ORG-209, Module search, APIVersion v3.0 — and the message "you must be signed in to access to
    this functionality. Please request a token through the Authentication." /API/Authentication/v1.0/Login answers 405 to
    GET, confirming the auth resource exists. The deployment, the host, the 1.5 million DOIs it mints as DataCite client usc.dl
    and the collections themselves are USC's; the contract is Orange Logic's product API, identical across every Cortex customer,
    so no spec is saved under USC. Tokens are not self-service and there is no public API documentation on any USC host, so
    this surface is recorded but not readable.
  humanURL: https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/
  baseURL: https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/API/search/v3.0/search
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - Digital Collections
  - Orange Logic
  - Cortex
  - Library
  properties:
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/API/search/v3.0/search?query=test&format=json
  - type: Website
    url: https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/
- aid: usc:figshare-repository
  name: USC Figshare Research Repository (Tenant)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: 'USC Libraries offers Figshare to USC researchers as its data-output repository for datasets, posters and presentations,
    at the institution-specific tenant usc.figshare.com. Probed 2026-08-30 the host answers 202 behind an AWS WAF JavaScript
    challenge (window.awsWafCookie), which is a block on automated clients rather than an absence — the tenant is live. Recorded
    as a relationship only. No Figshare specification is saved under USC: api.figshare.com/v2 is the generic vendor contract
    every Figshare customer shares, and attributing it to an institution is precisely the misattribution this profile exists
    to avoid — one Figshare contract was previously credited to twenty-five universities across this cohort. The data and
    the DOIs are USC''s; the contract is Figshare''s and belongs in Figshare''s own repo.'
  humanURL: https://libguides.usc.edu/resdata
  baseURL: https://usc.figshare.com
  tags:
  - Research Repository
  - Research Data
  - Figshare
  - Open Access
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://usc.figshare.com/
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://libguides.usc.edu/resdata
- aid: usc:primo-discovery
  name: USC Libraries Discovery (Ex Libris Primo VE, Tenant)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: 'USC Libraries'' catalog and discovery layer runs on Ex Libris Primo VE as institution view 01USC_INST:01USC
    at uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com. The public Primo configuration REST endpoint /primaws/rest/pub/configuration/vid/01USC_INST:01USC
    returns 200 JSON naming "Southern California" and linking libraries.usc.edu, which is how this view was disambiguated
    from 61USC_INST:61USC — that one is the University of South Carolina, a different institution whose Ex Libris code differs
    only in its numeric prefix. Recorded as a relationship: the host is Ex Libris''s, the contract is Primo''s and is shared
    by every Primo customer, and no Ex Libris specification is saved under USC. USC''s Alma institution code is not exposed
    through the generic Alma OAI-PMH gateways — na01 and na02 /view/oai/01USC_INST/request?verb=Identify both answer 200 with
    "Institution code 01USC_INST is invalid" — so USC publishes no harvestable library metadata feed.'
  humanURL: https://libguides.usc.edu/az/databases
  baseURL: https://uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com
  tags:
  - Library
  - Library Catalog
  - Discovery
  - Ex Libris
  - Primo
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01USC_INST:01USC
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/primaws/rest/pub/configuration/vid/01USC_INST:01USC
- aid: usc:canvas-lms
  name: USC Canvas Learning Management System (Instructure, Tenant)
  x-operator: tenant
  description: USC's learning management system is an Instructure Canvas tenant at usc.instructure.com, verified live 2026-08-30
    (200, redirecting to /login/canvas). Canvas exposes a substantial REST API and is an LTI 1.3 platform, but both are Instructure's
    contract and Instructure's conformance, shared by every Canvas customer, and USC publishes no LTI registration, tool configuration,
    JWKS or Canvas API documentation on any public USC host. Recorded as a relationship only; no Canvas specification is saved
    under USC and no LTI or Caliper conformance is credited to USC on the strength of the vendor's capabilities.
  humanURL: https://itservices.usc.edu/
  baseURL: https://usc.instructure.com
  tags:
  - Learning Management System
  - Canvas
  - Instructure
  - Course Delivery
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://usc.instructure.com/
- aid: usc:schedule-of-classes
  name: USC Schedule of Classes (SOC) — Web Services API, retired
  x-operator: institution
  description: 'USC''s Schedule of Classes Web Services API, which exposed terms, departments, courses and sections and once
    powered the online schedule, is retired. Its host, web-app.usc.edu, no longer resolves at all: authoritative queries to
    8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 both return NOERROR with zero A records, while usc.edu, classes.usc.edu, shibboleth.usc.edu and api.usc.edu
    all resolve normally from the same resolvers. Both Documentation pointers this profile previously carried — /web/soc/help
    and /web/soc/docs/html/ — were therefore dead and have been removed; search engines still index them, which is exactly
    why link presence is not evidence. The schedule now runs at classes.usc.edu as an Angular single-page application, verified
    live 2026-08-30. Its backend is not published: every /api/* path returns a bare 404 from a real backend while every other
    path soft-200s the 105KB SPA shell, the compiled bundle contains no API base URL (it is injected at runtime, with an interceptor
    that stamps X-CSRF on any *.usc.edu request), and USC has announced no successor API. The entry is kept, and kept honest,
    because the retirement of a real institutional surface is itself the finding.'
  humanURL: https://classes.usc.edu/
  tags:
  - Course Catalog
  - Schedule
  - Registrar
  - Retired
  properties:
  - type: Website
    url: https://classes.usc.edu/
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://arr.usc.edu/schedule-of-classes/
common:
- type: License
  name: Apache-2.0
  url: https://github.com/informatics-isi-edu/ermrest/blob/master/LICENSE
- type: Website
  url: https://www.usc.edu/
- type: IdentityFederation
  url: https://shibboleth.usc.edu/idp/shibboleth
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://repository.usc.edu/
- type: ResearchRepository
  url: https://usc.figshare.com/
- type: LibraryCatalog
  url: https://uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01USC_INST:01USC
- type: CourseCatalog
  url: https://classes.usc.edu/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://catalogue.usc.edu/
- type: ResearchComputing
  url: https://www.carc.usc.edu/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.carc.usc.edu/user-guides
- type: AIPolicy
  url: https://ai.usc.edu/policy-and-governance/
- type: AITooling
  url: https://ai.usc.edu/tools/
- type: APIReference
  url: https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1/schema
- type: Support
  url: https://itservices.usc.edu/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/informatics-isi-edu
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/USCDataScience
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/isi-usc-edu
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/usc-its
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.usc.edu/privacy-notice/
- type: Accessibility
  url: https://accessibility.usc.edu/accessibility-at-usc/digital-accessibility/
- type: Policies
  url: https://policy.usc.edu/
- type: Blog
  url: https://news.usc.edu/
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-southern-california/
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/USC
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/usc-conformance.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/usc-domain-security.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/usc-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/usc-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/usc-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/usc-context.jsonld
- type: BlogRSS
  url: blogs/blogs.json
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-30'
specificationVersion: '0.23'