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-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/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: [email protected]