I’m slowly working through all my research areas, updating the news items I’ve curated, adding and removing companies, continuing to identify some of the common building blocks, and the tools that are being put to work in the space–with the latest one in the area of higher education, with my university APIs research.
With my latest look at APIs in universities, I increased the number of institutions I’m watching from 17 to 48, more than doubling the number of API efforts in higher education from 2014 to 2015. Not all the APIs I found are fully listed, but if I found a valid public API effort under a school domain, I have added the school, and will work to profile more in the future, as I have time.
Here are the 48 institutions I’m tracking on as of August 2015:
Brigham Young University Brigham Young University has the most APIs I’ve come across with any of my university research. While many are still SOAP services, they are actively working to evolve them. BYU is also leading the conversation when it comes to university API design, and holding university API conferences, bringing together other institutions together to share API knowledge.
Brown University Hey there! Brown APIs is a set of web APIs for getting useful information about Brown. In general, to form a request, pick a method from below and look at some of the sample queries to get a feel for how the API works. Also, join the Brown APIs group on Facebook for FAQs and community support!
Brown University Dining Services API
Cambridge This Cambridge University Library provides access to the APIs (or Web Services) provided by Cambridge University Library, and information systems. I’ve also lumped Cambridge University Press APIs as well. At some point I may break them out, but for now I’ll keep together.
Cambridge Lookup/Ibis Web Service
Columbia University These API’s are provided by, and maintained by the Application Development Initiative at Columbia University. They have started by providing simple authentication, courses and housing for students, in a single developer portal.
Columbia University Courses API
Columbia University Housing API
Cornell University Cornell University has a pretty interesting eBird API. I do not see much else of APIs out of the institution, but will be keeping an eye out. Starting to aggregate universities where APIs are born out of science.
Edx EdX is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider and online learning platform. It hosts online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide audience, some at no charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform. EdX differs from other MOOC platforms, such as Coursera and Udacity, in that it is nonprofit and runs on an open-source software platform.
FenixEdu FenixEdu is a modular software platform for academic and administrative management of higher education institutions. It is among the growing number of service providers targeting higher educational institutions using APIs.
Florida State University I just found the one arctic research API at Florida State University, but it is a sign there is more, and nowo they are on my radar.
Florida State University Antarctic Research Facility API
George Washington UniversityGeorge Washington University has an API out of the library, it is crude and simple, but allows for searching. There is also a rogue course API done by a student, which is always good to see.
George Washington University Course Schedule and Campus API
George Washington University Library Findit API
Georgia Tech I came across the Georgia Tech API at a gathering of Universities to talk about another project, but learned they had a pretty robust API defined used Swagger. Looks like it is still a work in progress, but a great model to look at.
Harvard You really see a diverse range of APIs coming out of Harvard. You see the core operational ones to run the school, APIs out of library, and sciences. The only thing lacking with Harvard is a central developer portal for people to find APIs, and get resources and support.
Harvard Library Cloud Item API
Harvard Library HOLLIS Usage Data API
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University provides a Hub API, opening up API access to several campus resources including articles, events, galleries, issues, divisions, locations, tags, and topics as simple API endpoints with documentation. Not much else is provide via the portal.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT provides a nice subset of campus operations via public APIs. There are still many missing that other school have, but I think what you see here represents much of the core. While you find the APIs across two separate pages, with overlap, you don’t really have a single portal for accessing everything.
North Carolina State University I only found the library API, and the dining API. I could tell there was more APIs somewhere, but will need to dig deeper. Another one to add to the list of library born programs, but dining represents the needs of students as well.
North Carolina State University Dining API
North Carolina State University Library Catalog API
Northwestern UniversityNorthwestern has a very nice set of APIs covering the core functions of university operations like terms, schools, subjects, courses, instructors, buildings and rooms. Everything is organized in a nice, centralized portal for easy access.
Northwestern University Building API
Northwestern University Courses API
Northwestern University Instructors API
Northwestern University Rooms API
Northwestern University Schools API
Northwestern University Subjects API
Northwestern University Terms API
Penn Labs There are only two basic APIs available here, but it is interesting that these were done by a university sanctioned organization, dedicated to delivering technology solution in support of the institution. Will keep an eye on what they are producing as well as other APIs to come out of the institution.
Purdue University Purdue has APIs, but it looks like they have a very resource based one in their banner API, and another attempt at making it more accessible with modern approaches using Purdue.io. I also found another student API for food court dining–these are always cool to see.
Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteRensselaer Polytechnic Institute just has an API coming out of the student union. I found evidence of other possible APIs, but nothing that student out like this student led one.
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Union API
Rutgers University Rutgers University has a nice central portal, with a sensible list of API resources that are common across university API approaches, but it is still missing much before I’d consider a viable central portal for the institution. Good start, but a definite work in progress.
Rutgers University Course Schedule API
Rutgers University Recreation API
Rutgers University Schedule API
University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw API is a very robust model for APIs in higher education. The platform is about being reused at multiple organization, and provides an interesting blueprint to compare with others.
University of Warwick The Warwick Studentsu0080u0099 Union is a non-profit, self-run student support organization for students at the University of Warwick. The API they created for membership is the only API I can find for the campus, but is definitely notable because it is done by a student group, and also hopefully will lead to more APIs.
University of Washington The University of Washington was one of the earliest higher education institutions I started tracking on with my API research. While it hasn’t changed in the last couple years, it has seemed to grow in inventory of APIs. The effort is still a very IT led, web services effort, but I think it has a lot of promise.
University of Washington Decision Support
University of Washington Financial
University of Washington HR Payroll
University of Washington Person
University of Washington R25 Classroom Scheduling
University of Washington Student
University of Washington Study Abroad
University of Waterloo The YouWaterloo Public Data API allows anyone to build their own programs and applications using data extracted from the University of Waterloo websites. The API features more than 25 methods of accessing various data across the University of Waterloo network.
University of Waterloo Open Data
Yale University Yale offers numerous web APIs, organized in a single developer portal. The portal provides many of the common resources you’d find in a public API portal, including document, tools, and other resources. API range from meta data, to messaging, and videos, providing a nice snapshot of campus operations.
York University You can tell the library is the primary API effort at York University, but there is an open data and API effort which doesn’t have all the APIs they list, but they do have some common ones for courses and people. Its a start, but still needs a lot more work.
I could spend hours looking through each university’s search, finding new APIs from student and class projects, and from research going on across campus. LIke all of my research it is a work in preogress, and I depend on my audience to help me discover what is out there.
If you know of a school who is doing interesting stuff with APIs please let me know, or if you work at one of the schools listed above, feel free to reach out anytime. I’m always looking to hear more stories out of universities about API design, deployment, maangement, evangelism or integration.
I will work harder to update my university research more frequently, and if you want to visit more of my research in detail, you can download as HTML or PDF for enjoyment later(helps put me to sleep). Once I get this round of papers updated, I’m going to provide ePub as well.
Thanks for tuning in!
