Good APIs Project

Good APIs project was represented at the recent CETIS Conference 2008 when Brian Kelly and Marieke Guy co-facilitated a half-day session on Innovation in a World on Web APIs.

The session was run as an unconference and attendees were encouraged to contribute.

In the first part of the session people were asked to talk about what they are currently working on:

• Ian Ibbotson talked about the SWORD API
• Tony Hirst gave a live constructed on the fly a prototype using Google Spreadsheets to harvest data contained in a table in a Wikipedia page (lists of cities in the UK), fed this into a Yahoo Pipe (Geo locate cities and create an RSS feed) and then fed this into Google Maps.
• Sam Easterby-Smith demonstrated PROD – a directory and monitoring tool for JISC funded projects.
• John Kleeman showed Questionmark’s SOAP API

After coffee the second part of the session was spent looking at the future. This also involved exploring best practices for Web APIs.

Feedback from the session is available from the session wiki. Further resources and handouts are available from the UKOLN Web site.

Tony Hirst has also provided some useful definitions and pointers on his blog.

The ‘Good APIs’ project aims to provide JISC and the sector with information and advice on the factors that encourage use of machine interfaces, based on existing practice.

The blog will provide a central link to resources created during the project, information about the project and final deliverables.

It will also allow those interested in issues relating to the use of APIs in HE  to comment on discussion areas and findings.

If you have a question, suggestion or comment about the project please get in touch.