generated: '2026-09-06'
method: searched
source: https://dev.elsevier.com/release_notes.html
supporting_sources:
- https://dev.elsevier.com/api_docs.html
- https://dev.elsevier.com/policy.html
- https://dev.elsevier.com/support.html
- wadl/ (37 first-party WADL contracts, each carrying its own dated revision history)
provider: Elsevier
providerId: elsevier
description: >-
  Elsevier has a real versioning mechanism, a real dated release-notes archive, and a real
  history of retiring APIs on notice. What it does not have is anything current. The
  release-notes page stopped on 2019-09-12 and the newest revision-history entry inside the
  WADL contracts is from the same era, which leaves a caller with no way to learn what changed
  in the last seven years except by watching responses.
versioning:
  scheme: per-resource, negotiated
  mechanism:
    request_header: X-ELS-ResourceVersion
    request_parameter: ver
    response_header: X-ELS-ResourceVersion
    default_value: default
  path_versioning: false
  version_list_published: false
  note: >-
    62 of 138 WADL methods accept a `ver` parameter, but Elsevier publishes no enumeration of
    acceptable values anywhere on the developer portal. The mechanism is usable only by a
    caller who was given a version string out of band.
  product_versioning_observed:
  - ScienceDirect Search V2 (the v2 is in the product name and the tag, not in the path)
  - SUSHI COP5 and SUSHI COP5.1 shipped as separate contracts and separate paths (/sushi/, /sushi/r51/)
deprecation:
  policy_published: false
  sunset_header: false
  deprecation_header: false
  rfc8594: false
  practice_observed: true
  detail: >-
    There is no deprecation policy document and no RFC 8594 Sunset/Deprecation header. Elsevier
    has nonetheless retired APIs in the open and announced it in the release notes — the
    clearest example being the original ScienceDirect Search API, marked "(deprecated)" and
    then given "Final retirement" in the 2018-12-13 notes, with callers directed to ScienceDirect
    Search V2 or the Article Metadata API. Individual parameters have been withdrawn the same
    way (cdnRedirect, 2019-05-15). The practice existed; the policy never did, and the channel
    that carried the announcements has been silent since 2019.
  historical_retirements:
  - name: ScienceDirect Search API (v1)
    announced: '2018-12-13'
    action: final retirement
    replacement: ScienceDirect Search V2 API, Article Metadata API
  - name: cdnRedirect parameter (Article Retrieval API)
    announced: '2019-05-15'
    action: no longer supported; parameter ignored
  - name: ArticlesReviewsEditorials / ArticlesReviewsEditorialsShortSurveys metrics (SciVal API)
    announced: '2019-09-12'
    action: removed from most metric operations
  - name: Complementary Metrics API
    announced: '2018-12-06'
    action: renamed to PlumX Metrics API; resource URL moved from /analytics/compmetrics to /analytics/plumx
change_log:
  published: true
  url: https://dev.elsevier.com/release_notes.html
  format: dated HTML sections
  entry_count: 93
  first_entry: '2014-12-16'
  last_entry: '2019-09-12'
  stale: true
  stale_by_days_at_capture: 2551
  detail: see changelog/elsevier-changelog.yml
status_page:
  published: false
  probed:
  - url: https://status.elsevier.com
    result: DNS does not resolve
  - url: https://status.scopus.com
    result: DNS does not resolve
  - url: https://elsevier.statuspage.io
    result: 302 to a Microsoft Entra SAML sign-in — an internal Statuspage, not a public one
  detail: >-
    There is no public status page for the Research Products APIs. Incidents are handled
    through the support centre case queue.
sla:
  published: false
  detail: >-
    The API Service Agreement (dev.elsevier.com/api_service_agreement.html) governs permitted
    use, not availability. No uptime commitment, no credit schedule, no support response target
    is published for the free non-commercial tier.
support:
  channel: case queue
  url: https://service.elsevier.com/app/contact/supporthub/researchproductsapis/
  detail: >-
    A single contact form is the channel for quota increases, access-controlled API enablement,
    Institutional Tokens, commercial licensing and incidents. There is no forum, no public
    issue tracker, and the one first-party SDK repository is archived and read-only.
deprecated_operations_in_contracts: []
deprecated_operations_note: >-
  None of the 153 operations in the harvested Swagger documents and none of the 138 WADL
  methods carries a deprecation marker. Retirements were announced in prose and then removed,
  never flagged in the contract first.