University of Alberta

aid: university-of-alberta
name: University of Alberta
description: >-
  The University of Alberta is a public research university in Edmonton, Alberta,
  Canada, ranked #67 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Its public,
  documented developer/API footprint is modest and decentralized: the central
  api.ualberta.ca site is a placeholder noting that the institution is "currently
  working to improve the way data is cataloged, shared, and governed," with no
  self-service developer portal yet. The strongest confirmed programmatic access
  is research data via the Borealis (Canadian Dataverse) repository, which exposes
  the University of Alberta research data collection through a REST Native/Search
  API and an OAI-PMH metadata endpoint. The University of Alberta Library also
  maintains an active open-source GitHub organization (ualbertalib). Course
  catalogue and Bear Tracks remain web-only with no official public API.
type: Index
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-alberta/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
  - Education
  - Higher Education
  - University
  - Research Data
  - Open Data
  - Library
  - Canada
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
  - aid: university-of-alberta:borealis-dataverse
    name: University of Alberta Research Data (Borealis Dataverse) API
    description: >-
      The University of Alberta research data collection is hosted on Borealis,
      the Canadian Dataverse Repository (operated by Scholars Portal / Ontario
      Council of University Libraries). The underlying Dataverse software exposes
      a REST-based Native API and a Search API supporting the same search, sort,
      and faceting operations as the web interface. The University of Alberta
      collection (subtree "ualberta") and its many sub-dataverses are publicly
      queryable. API tokens (X-Dataverse-key header) are required only for
      account-scoped or write operations; public searching is open.
    humanURL: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/ualberta
    baseURL: https://borealisdata.ca/api
    tags:
      - Research Data
      - Dataverse
      - Open Data
      - Repository
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/index.html
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/native-api.html
        title: Native API Guide
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/search.html
        title: Search API Guide
      - type: Authentication
        url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/api/getting-started.html
        title: API Token (X-Dataverse-key) for scoped/write operations
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: openapi/university-of-alberta-borealis-dataverse.yaml
        title: Scoped OpenAPI 3.0 (public Search and Info operations)
      - type: x-json-schema
        url: json-schema/university-of-alberta-search-item-schema.json
        title: JSON Schema for Borealis search result item
      - type: x-vocabulary
        url: vocabulary/university-of-alberta-vocabulary.yml
      - type: x-rules
        url: rules/university-of-alberta-rules.yml
      - type: x-json-ld
        url: json-ld/university-of-alberta-context.jsonld
  - aid: university-of-alberta:borealis-oai-pmh
    name: University of Alberta Borealis OAI-PMH Metadata Harvesting
    description: >-
      Published University of Alberta collections and datasets on Borealis are
      harvestable via the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata
      Harvesting (OAI-PMH), allowing other repositories and discovery systems to
      harvest dataset metadata. The Identify verb resolves live at the Borealis
      OAI endpoint.
    humanURL: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/admin/discoverability.html
    baseURL: https://borealisdata.ca/oai
    tags:
      - OAI-PMH
      - Metadata Harvesting
      - Research Data
      - Repository
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://borealisdata.ca/guides/en/latest/admin/discoverability.html
  - aid: university-of-alberta:library-open-source
    name: University of Alberta Library Open Source (GitHub)
    description: >-
      The University of Alberta Library publishes open-source code through its
      GitHub organization (ualbertalib), including tools that interact with
      repository and digital-asset platform APIs (for example DSpace API tooling
      and AVP Aviary API interaction scripts). This is source code and tooling
      rather than a single hosted public API, but it documents the library's
      programmatic integrations.
    humanURL: https://github.com/ualbertalib
    tags:
      - Library
      - Open Source
      - Repository
      - Tooling
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.library.ualberta.ca/about/open-data
      - type: GitHub
        url: https://github.com/ualbertalib
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.ualberta.ca/
  - type: DeveloperPortal
    url: https://api.ualberta.ca/
    title: Placeholder / pre-launch API site
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/ualbertalib
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-alberta/
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/university-of-alberta-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/university-of-alberta-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/university-of-alberta-finops.yml
  - type: Review
    url: review.yml
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]