# Massachusetts Institute of Technology Course Catalog Scraper (`misty_ravel/mit-course-catalog-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes the complete Massachusetts Institute of Technology course catalog: every course with code, title, credit hours, full description and prerequisites, straight from the official MIT catalog.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/misty\_ravel/mit-course-catalog-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Brian Webster](https://apify.com/misty_ravel) (community)
- **Categories:** Education, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Massachusetts Institute of Technology Course Catalog Scraper

Scrapes the **complete course catalog of Massachusetts Institute of Technology** — every course with its code, title, credit hours, full description and prerequisites — from the official MIT catalog at [catalog.mit.edu](https://catalog.mit.edu/subjects/).

Massachusetts Institute of Technology publishes no bulk download of its catalog. The data exists only as HTML, one subject page at a time.

### What you get

| Field | Example |
| --- | --- |
| `courseKey` | `CS 101` |
| `subject`, `catalogNumber` | `CS`, `101` |
| `title` | `Introduction to Computer Science` |
| `credits` | `3` |
| `description` | full catalog text |
| `descriptionWordCount` | `64` |
| `prerequisites` | `MATH 151 with a grade of C or better` |
| `institution`, `institutionName` | `mit`, `Massachusetts Institute of Technology` |
| `sourceUrl` | link back to the subject page |

### Input

Everything is optional — run with no input for the whole catalog.

| Field | Default | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `subjects` | all | e.g. `["CS","MATH"]` |
| `maxItems` | 0 (no limit) | cap for a trial run |
| `requestDelayMs` | 600 | politeness delay |

### Uses

- **Course search and degree-planning tools** that need the full MIT catalog
- **Prerequisite-chain analysis** — which courses gate which
- **Curriculum comparison** against other institutions
- **Tracking catalog changes** between academic years

### Notes

Only public catalog data is collected — the same pages any visitor can read. No login, no credentials, no student data. The actor self-throttles (600 ms between requests by default) and identifies itself in the `User-Agent`.

Individual subject pages that fail are logged as warnings and skipped, so one bad page cannot lose a run. A summary is written to the key-value store under `RUN_SUMMARY`.

Need several institutions at once? The **University Course Data** actor covers multiple universities in one run with an institution filter.

***

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All data is public information published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

# Actor input Schema

## `subjects` (type: `array`):

Subject codes to keep, e.g. \["CS","MATH"]. Leave empty for every subject at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many courses. 0 means no limit. Useful for a cheap trial run.

## `requestDelayMs` (type: `integer`):

Politeness delay between requests to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The default is deliberately conservative.

## `userAgent` (type: `string`):

Sent with every request. Please keep it identifying rather than impersonating a browser.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "subjects": [],
  "maxItems": 0,
  "requestDelayMs": 600,
  "userAgent": "university-catalog-scraper/1.0 (+https://apify.com/)"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `courses` (type: `string`):

One row per course: code, title, credits, description, prerequisites.

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

Per-institution course counts, plus any institution that failed or returned nothing.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("misty_ravel/mit-course-catalog-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("misty_ravel/mit-course-catalog-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call misty_ravel/mit-course-catalog-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,misty_ravel/mit-course-catalog-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/VFUzTTZgmcHhlb6rl/builds/sABnwpl612rIeJLsN/openapi.json