1. Introduction#

Welcome to the Enterprise API user guide. This guide will help you get set up to use the edX Enterprise API and give you the information you need to return the results you want for your edX for Business integration.

1.1. About the edX Enterprise API#

The edX Enterprise API is part of edX for Business, which provides corporations and other enterprises the ability to provide their employees with access to the thousands of high-quality online courses on the edX platform. An enterprise uses the edX Enterprise API to retrieve its custom course catalog and display the course information in the enterprise LMS or other system. You can also use the API to enroll learners in specified courses in your course catalog.

The edX Enterprise API is a REST web services API. You must provide an API client (a program, utility, or other tool that you can use to exchange messages with an API) to make requests and receive response data about courses in your course catalog from the edX Enterprise API. The edX Enterprise API uses JavaScript object notation (JSON) as the primary format for return data, or representation. It can also return data in XML format. The enterprise’s integration must take and transform this response data and display it to learners in the enterprise LMS or other system where learners can discover available edX learning opportunities.

The Enterprise API is designed for server-to-server communication. The best practice is to develop an API client that makes requests for the course catalog data not more frequently than daily. Do not embed Enterprise API calls directly in user-facing pages. Instead, design your system to cache course catalog information, which user-facing pages then retrieve from the cache.

To access the edX Enterprise API, you must authenticate as a client. When you authenticate, the edX API verifies your identity as a client and associates your identity with a specific edx.org user. For more information about authentication, see Authenticating as an edX REST Web Service User.

After you have received your credentials and access token, to use the edx Enterprise API, you use your access token to make API requests at api.edx.org.

1.2. Using the edX Enterprise API with Your Course Catalog#

EdX works with you to create a curated course catalog for your enterprise. You then use the edX Enterprise API to retrieve information about your course catalog and display it to your learners, so that they can discover and enroll in edX learning opportunities.

EdX offers over a thousand courses covering a wide variety of subjects, from supply chain management to cybersecurity to jazz appreciation. EdX can help an enterprise curate a list of courses and programs that are most relevant to the enterprise’s learning needs. The curated list of edX courses that a learning manager selects and makes available through the enterprise portal is called the course catalog.