University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara is a public land-grant research university in the University of California system and an Association of American Universities member. Unusually for this cohort, UCSB runs a real, institution-operated API programme rather than a shelf of vendor contracts: a Campus API Gateway at api.ucsb.edu, a developer portal at developer.ucsb.edu cataloging 37 campus APIs across Academics, Administration, Dining, Employees, Housing and Students, a written and binding API design standard for campus publishers, and 21 downloadable first-party OpenAPI documents — every one of which declares a ucsb.edu host, so none of it is misattributed vendor engineering. The programme is real but it is closed: portal accounts are approved by hand, 25 of the 37 APIs sit above the Auto-Approved tier, and no endpoint is callable without an approved consumer key (an unauthenticated probe returns 401). UCSB also operates its own Shibboleth identity provider registered in InCommon, whose SAML metadata is openly machine-readable, and the Alexandria Digital Research Library, which is institution-run but has no API. Its library discovery layer and its open-access scholarship are vendor and UC-system tenancies and are recorded as such. There is no open-data portal, no OAuth authorization server, no llms.txt and no changelog.
Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.
API Evangelist profiles University of California, Santa Barbara the way a machine reads it — 53 machine-readable artifacts across 21 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — University of California, Santa Barbara scores 53.4/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 24/100 (agent aware). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Why this profile is thin
UCSB is one of the genuinely programmable institutions in this cohort, but nothing it publishes is callable without a manually approved account. The CONTRACTS are open: 21 first-party OpenAPI documents download anonymously from developer.ucsb.edu and every one declares a ucsb.edu host, so the estate is fully readable and fully attributable. The ENDPOINTS are not: api.ucsb.edu returns 401 to any request without a ucsb-api-key, portal registration is approved by hand, 25 of 37 catalogued APIs sit above the Auto-Approved tier, and 16 of the 37 do not expose a contract publicly at all — their portal pages return an Access-denied body under HTTP 200. No response bodies, rate-limit headers or live schemas could therefore be captured. The gap is authorization, not absence.
An API exists — we simply could not reach the contract without credentials or a sales conversation. This one is University of California, Santa Barbara's to change: publishing the reference and a machine-readable spec at a public URL, while keeping key issuance behind whatever gate they like, would let an integrator evaluate the API before committing to a call.
What we probed
https://developer.ucsb.edu/apis/all→ HTTP 200https://developer.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/openapi/quartercalendar-v1-api.ucsb_.edu_.yaml→ HTTP 200https://api.ucsb.edu/academics/quartercalendar/v1/quarters/current→ HTTP 401https://developer.ucsb.edu/content/dining-commons→ HTTP 200https://developer.ucsb.edu/docs/getting-started→ HTTP 200https://mdq.incommon.org/entities/urn%3Amace%3Aincommon%3Aucsb.edu→ HTTP 200https://digital.library.ucsb.edu/oai-pmh?verb=Identify→ HTTP 403https://developer.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/openapi/curriculums-v1.out_.api_.yml→ HTTP 404https://www.ucsb.edu/llms.txt→ HTTP 404https://developer.ucsb.edu/.well-known/security.txt→ HTTP 404
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance. Every facet and dimension name is a link: it opens that measurement's page on APIs.io, where the rating runs across the whole catalog — the exact checks that feed it, how every profiled provider distributes on it, and who is at the top of it.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0
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How we profile University of California, Santa Barbara
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for University of California, Santa Barbara. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 27
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
UCSB API Developer Portal
Central campus API developer portal. Catalogs 37 campus APIs across six categories, renders each published contract with Swagger UI, and runs registration, App/consumer-key crea...
UCSB Campus API Gateway
The single API front door for the campus, at api.ucsb.edu. Every campus API is published as a proxy on it and it enforces the ucsb-api-key application entitlement before a reque...
UCSB Academic Curriculums
Search and retrieve the UCSB schedule of classes for a quarter — classes, sections, final exams, space availability and general-education codes. The most substantial public acad...
UCSB Academic Graduate Programs
List UCSB graduate degree programs and retrieve one by id, with department, degree types and application detail, from the Graduate Division. Published as Swagger 2.0, 2 paths, b...
UCSB Academic Quarter Calendar
The Office of the Registrar's quarter calendar — first/last day of classes and finals, the three registration passes, fee deadline and add/drop deadlines. The keystone contract ...
UCSB BARC Quarter Calendar
Quarter and term calendar as the BARC student billing system sees it, which is deliberately distinct from the Registrar calendar. Private tier. Published as Swagger 2.0, 2 paths...
UCSB BARC Students API
Student records as held by BARC, the campus Billing, Accounts Receivable and Collections system. Private tier; the contract is public, the data is not. Published as Swagger 2.0,...
UCSB CLAS Schedules
Subjects and skills workshops offered by Campus Learning Assistance Services. One of only two UCSB contracts published as OpenAPI 3.0.1, and the only one that requires the ucsb-...
UCSB ClassCode Lookup Service
Lookup of BARC class codes, which determine a student billing category. Access Approval Required. Published as Swagger 2.0, 2 paths, base https://api.ucsb.edu/administration/fin...
UCSB Department Chartfield
Department, cost centre, cost type and project-code chartfields from the campus financial system. Published as OpenAPI 3.0.1 and the only contract that declares test and dev env...
UCSB Department Course Extract
Registrar extract of a department course list with sections, time/locations, instructors and concurrent courses. Private tier. Published as Swagger 2.0, 1 path, base https://api...
UCSB Employee Job
Employment and job data drawn from UCPath — employee records, job codes, job class codes and employment status. Private tier; the most sensitive contract UCSB publishes a spec f...
UCSB Events
Campus academic events list. The smallest contract in the estate — one GET, no declared schema. Published as Swagger 2.0, 1 path, base https://api.ucsb.edu/academics/.
UCSB Grad Application Verifications
Graduate Division application verification service. The one published contract that does NOT run on the Campus API Gateway — it is served directly from gradpoint.ucsb.edu, which...
UCSB MTD Access
Registrar service backing student access to Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District bus service. Private tier; the campus-life corner of the estate. Published as Swagger 2.0...
UCSB PeopleSoft FAU (Functional Accounting Unit) Combination Service
Validation of PeopleSoft Functional Accounting Unit chartstring combinations. A POST-based validation service and one of only three write-bearing contracts UCSB publishes. Publi...
UCSB Student Academic Programs (Majors / Minors)
A student’s declared majors and minors. Access Approval Required; FERPA-governed. Published as Swagger 2.0, 3 paths, base https://api.ucsb.edu/students.
UCSB Student Basic Student Info
Basic and extended student demographic and enrollment records. Access Approval Required; FERPA-governed. Published as Swagger 2.0, 2 paths, base https://api.ucsb.edu/students.
UCSB Student Courses
The courses a student is enrolled in for a quarter. Access Approval Required; FERPA-governed. Its base path /students/courses is the exact nesting UCSB’s own published design st...
UCSB Student Record Code Lookups
Thirty-nine reference tables from the Student Information System — majors, minors, colleges, departments, divisions, grades, grading options, classifications, pronouns, gender i...
UCSB Student Registrations
Student registration records and registration blocks for a quarter. Access Approval Required; one of three write-bearing contracts. Published as Swagger 2.0, 3 paths, base https...
UCSB Student Rosters
The roster of students enrolled in a course section. Access Approval Required; FERPA-governed. Published as Swagger 2.0, 1 path, base https://api.ucsb.edu/students.
UCSB Student Schedules
A student’s class schedule with meeting times, locations and instructors. Access Approval Required; FERPA-governed. Published as Swagger 2.0, 1 path, base https://api.ucsb.edu/s...
UCSB Identity Federation (Passport / InCommon)
UCSB operates its own Shibboleth identity provider, "Passport", at passport.identity.ucsb.edu, registered in InCommon as entityID urn:mace:incommon:ucsb.edu. Its SAML 2.0 metada...
Alexandria Digital Research Library (ADRL)
UCSB Library's institutional research repository, moved from alexandria.ucsb.edu to digital.library.ucsb.edu and served through CloudFront. The host is UCSB's and the front end ...
UCSB Library Discovery (Ex Libris Primo VE)
UCSB Library’s catalog and discovery layer. The host search.library.ucsb.edu is a UCSB CNAME onto ucsb.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, and the service resolves to Ex Libris tenancy 01U...
UCSB on eScholarship
UCSB’s open-access scholarship collection inside eScholarship, the University of California’s systemwide repository operated by the California Digital Library. It IS OAI-PMH har...
Scroll within the panel for all 27 ·
Pricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the things the Kin Score reads for access clarity — renamed from commercial clarity in rubric 0.12, because a free statutory interface has access terms and no commercial ones.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Ucsb Plans Pricing
PLANSRate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Ucsb Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Ucsb Finops
FINOPSSemantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Ucsb Context
JSON-LDSpectral Rules 1
Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.
JSON Schema 13
Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
Schedule
JSON SCHEMAClass
JSON SCHEMAClassSection
JSON SCHEMAClassCodeItem
JSON SCHEMARoster
JSON SCHEMADepartmentModel
JSON SCHEMAEmployeeJobModel
JSON SCHEMAGraduateProgramDetail
JSON SCHEMAQuarterCalendar
JSON SCHEMACourse
JSON SCHEMARegistration
JSON SCHEMAStudentScheduleCourse
JSON SCHEMAStudentExtended
JSON SCHEMAScroll within the panel for all 13 ·
Examples 5
Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.
Example request and response payloads for these APIs.
Security Posture 2
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Scopes 1
OAuth scopes are the vocabulary of least-privilege access. Profiling them shows exactly what an integration — or an agent acting on a user's behalf — is allowed to do.
OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.
Resources
Every other property we hold for University of California, Santa Barbara — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Get Started 3
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Documentation 2
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Design & Contract 1
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Build 3
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Access & Security 1
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Learn 1
Tutorials, courses, talks, and written guidance
Operate 4
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Commercial 3
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 4
The organization behind the API
Other 6
Properties that don't map to a standard resource type
← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/ucsb · machine-readable index on apis.io
This is an independent, third-party profile of University of California, Santa Barbara, published by API Evangelist. We do not operate, host, resell, or support these APIs, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the company unless stated above. Everything here is built from publicly available information — the company's own site, developer portal, documentation, public repositories, and the specifications it publishes for public use. Nothing is obtained by breaching a system, defeating an access control, or using credentials.
The Kin Score and Agent Readiness rating are independently calculated assessments of a company's public API artifacts, scored against a published rubric. They are not certifications, endorsements, security assessments, or audits.
Corrections, re-scores, and removal are free — no partnership or purchase required, and you do not need to justify the request. A removed company is recorded as unrated, never scored zero for having asked. Acknowledgement within one business day; removal within two.
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