3.3: The Data.gov APIs

[Enable developers to] interact with Data.gov through multiple Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

Other Information:

Developers will interact with Data.gov through multiple Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), as shown below in Figure 11. The APIs will give programmatic access to the Data.gov catalog entries and the data within the shared data storage service. These APIs are a near‐term objective and are expected to be developed over the next six months. Specifically, the APIs will be both inbound and outbound. Inbound APIs will allow developers from within the Federal government to submit data or tools to the metadata catalog and submit actual data to the shared data storage service. These inbound APIs will be the most automated way, in the near term, to submit data to Data.gov. Outbound APIs will allow developers to leverage the data from the shared data service and the Data.gov metadata catalog to develop their solutions. Developers can build their own websites that leverage the Data.gov metadata catalog or can develop their applications using data from the shared data storage services. In these instances of developers leveraging the outbound APIs, the developers will be provided a means to submit usage statistics for their own applications and websites, as well as appropriate feedback, to help the government understand the overall usage and opportunities to improve the data being accessed via Data.gov. Additionally, the usage of the APIs will be metered and developers accessing those APIs will be required to register their use. Indeed, the metering will open opportunities for third‐party innovation and business models around un‐metered, fee‐for service, third‐party hosting and publication. As shown in the diagram above, there are three APIs developers use to access specific parts of the Data.gov architecture. The main API, called the DEV or developer API, provides read access to all records in the Data.gov catalog. This includes all components of a catalog record as discussed in the content architecture section below. For searching for datasets and other related data (like unstructured data) the developer can use the search API which will be developed to search across both Data.gov and USAsearch.gov. For accessing datasets stored in the Data.gov storage service, the developer will be able to use the data storage, or DS, API to retrieve them.

Stakeholder(s):

• Application Developers

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

Content