--- name: University of Aberdeen description: University of Aberdeen public developer/API footprint review for APIs.json cataloging. url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-aberdeen/refs/heads/main/review.yml created: '2026-06-03' modified: '2026-09-01' reviews: - date: '2026-09-01' rating: 2 summary: >- Re-profiled under pipeline-university, which settles WHO OPERATES each surface before saving anything. Finding: the University of Aberdeen publishes no institution-operated API contract at all, and none was written. Its only surfaces that are unambiguously its own engineering are identity-federation metadata — a Shibboleth SAML 2.0 IdP, entityID https://shibserv.abdn.ac.uk/shibboleth, scope abdn.ac.uk, registered in the Jisc UK Access Management Federation (signed metadata, 200, 14194 bytes via MDQ and 200, 15707 bytes served directly from shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk), plus a Microsoft Entra ID tenant 8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f with live OIDC discovery and WS-Federation metadata. Neither was in the June 2026 profile. Every callable API under Aberdeen's name is a tenancy: AURA's DSpace REST and OAI-PMH endpoints look institution-owned by hostname but aura.abdn.ac.uk CNAMEs to aura.abdn-lb.is.ed.ac.uk and resolves to 129.215.5.66, University of Edinburgh Information Services — Aberdeen's repository runs on another university's infrastructure. The Pure research portal is Elsevier's, MyAberdeen is Blackboard, discovery is Ex Libris Primo. The Pure OAI-PMH endpoint recorded as HTTP 500 in June is live now and has been added. One vendor contract was found publicly readable from Aberdeen's own tenant subdomain — https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/openapi.yaml, 1.3MB, info.title "Pure API", contact pure-support@elsevier.com, servers[0].url "/ws/api" (relative and hostless) — and was rejected, not saved. Three registry memberships were evidenced and recorded: DataCite HUGZ / repository BL.ABDN, Crossref 12669 (prefixes 10.57064, 10.57132, 795 DOIs), ROR 016476m91. Negative findings are real: no api./developer./data./opendata./timetable./hpc. host on abdn.ac.uk resolves, there is no sitemap.xml or llms.txt, the course catalogue is HTML only, and github.com/uofa holds 17 repositories of which all 17 are forks. AURA is also intermittently degraded: its Angular UI returned 503 after 31s and 502 after 60s, and six back-to-back backend probes gave four 200s at ~0.36s, one 503 and one timeout. endpoints: - url: http://mdq.ukfederation.org.uk/entities/https%3A%2F%2Fshibserv.abdn.ac.uk%2Fshibboleth status: 200 note: Signed SAML EntityDescriptor for the University's Shibboleth IdP; institution-operated. - url: https://shibserv2.abdn.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth status: 200 note: The IdP self-publishes its metadata from an abdn.ac.uk host. - url: https://login.microsoftonline.com/abdn.ac.uk/v2.0/.well-known/openid-configuration status: 200 note: Entra ID tenant 8c2b19ad-5f9c-49d4-9077-3ec3cfc52b3f, region EU. - url: https://login.microsoftonline.com/abdn.ac.uk/federationmetadata/2007-06/federationmetadata.xml status: 200 note: WS-Federation / SAML metadata for the same tenant. - url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api status: 200 note: DSpace 8.1-SNAPSHOT, 79 endpoint families, 182 communities. Tenant — Edinburgh IS hosts it. - url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/oai/request?verb=ListMetadataFormats status: 200 note: Thirteen formats including the UK-specific rioxx and uketd_dc profiles. - url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/ status: 503 note: Angular UI times out after 31s while the backend answers in 0.37s. Live but degraded. - url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/oai?verb=Identify status: 200 note: >- "University of Aberdeen Research Repository", OpenAIRE CERIF 1.2. Recorded as 500 in the June 2026 review; live now. - url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/api/openapi.yaml status: 200 note: REJECTED. Elsevier's Pure 5.36.2-1 contract, hostless servers[], vendor contact. Not saved. - url: https://abdn.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1/system/version status: 200 note: Blackboard Learn 4000.21.0 tenancy; unauthenticated version endpoint only. - url: https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1 status: 200 note: Ex Libris Primo VE tenancy, institution view 44ABE_INST. - url: https://api.datacite.org/repositories/bl.abdn status: 200 note: DataCite institutional repository BL.ABDN, created 2016-03-30. Registry membership. - url: https://api.crossref.org/members/12669 status: 200 note: Crossref member; prefixes 10.57064 and 10.57132, 795 DOIs. Registry membership. - url: https://ror.org/016476m91 status: 200 note: ROR organization record; GRID grid.7107.1, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7291. - url: https://api.github.com/orgs/uofa/repos?per_page=100 status: 200 note: 17 repositories, all forks. No original code, no API specification. - url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/.well-known/security.txt status: 200 note: Real security.txt; HackerOne embedded submissions, Expires 2027-05-01. - url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/llms.txt status: 404 note: Returns the site 404 page, not a document. - url: https://api.abdn.ac.uk/ status: 0 note: Does not resolve. No central API host, no developer portal, no open data portal. - date: '2026-06-03' rating: 2 summary: >- Verified two live public APIs on the Aberdeen University Research Archive (AURA), which runs DSpace 8.1: a HATEOAS DSpace REST API at /server/api and an OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoint at /server/oai/request (repository name "Aura", protocol version 2.0). The Elsevier Pure research portal (abdn.elsevierpure.com) is live but its OAI web service returned HTTP 500 and is not treated as public. No general developer portal, course/timetable/SIS, or library Alma/Primo API was found publicly documented; those appear internal/gated. The verified GitHub org (github.com/uofa, domain abdn.ac.uk) hosts mostly forks, not API specs. No endpoints were fabricated; all URLs below were probed live. endpoints: - url: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/ status: 200 note: Official university website. - url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/ status: 200 note: AURA open-access institutional repository (DSpace 8). - url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api status: 200 note: DSpace REST API root; reports DSpace 8.1-SNAPSHOT. - url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/api/core/communities status: 200 note: DSpace REST communities endpoint responds. - url: https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/server/oai/request?verb=Identify status: 200 note: OAI-PMH 2.0 Identify; repositoryName "Aura". - url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ status: 200 note: Elsevier Pure research portal; no public API documented. - url: https://abdn.elsevierpure.com/ws/oai?verb=Identify status: 500 note: Pure OAI web service errors; not public. - url: https://github.com/uofa status: 200 note: Verified University of Aberdeen GitHub org; mostly forks. - url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-aberdeen/ status: 999 note: LinkedIn school page exists; 999 is bot-block, not absence.