Hi Tristan
In terms of concrete examples, we are providing UK schools with access
to creative re-use of cultural assets through the Magic Studio web app.
It's pretty simple: we take a content feed from the collection and
make it available as a 'channel' through MS for teachers and students
to build their own educational resources for use on their learning
platform. In return, we provide very detailed evaluative/usage data
(at individual asset level) back to the collection so that they can
see who is using their content, in what educational context (e.g. Key
Stage/Subject) and for what purpose. We can also pass back the UGC
(tags, etc) to the institution if they want it. It's free of charge
for the institution and for access by individual teachers and students.
In the absence of a sector-wide 'open API', we are doing it collection-
by-collection at the moment (prioritising in response to demand!),
dealing with each one's specific requirements/scope for exposing the
appropriate data. And learning a lot about requirements for API's
along the way ...
Hope this helps
Martyn
On 19 Aug 2008, at 11:11, Tristan Roddis wrote:
> We are discussing the merit of adding an open API to the Online
> Collection part of one of our museum client's sites, and I am
> wondering if anyone can think of possible reasons to do this beyond
> "it just feels right"?
>
> Off the top of my head, systems that access an API can do various
> things:
>
> - aggregate information
> - provide alternative representations
> - provide alternative interfaces
> - syndicate information
> - other (please state)
>
> Of these, some examples I can think of are:
>
> - aggregators: e.g. National Museums Online Learning Project[1],
> ArtStor and others via OAI-PMH[2]
> - other representations: e.g. mashups (which?), creating tag clouds,
> etc.
> - alternative interfaces: e.g. more accessible versions, desktop
> application versions, iphone/mobile versions
> - syndicating information: blog 'widgets' (which?), ArtShare
> Facebook app.[3]
>
> However, all of these are fairly generic or fairly sparse! Can
> anybody think of other concrete examples of how information is being
> re-purposed from cultural institutions? Or, any ways in which an API
> could be used that I have missed from the list above?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Tristan.
>
> [1] http://www.vam.ac.uk/about_va/online_learning/index.html
> [2] http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/
> [3] http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=7723691927&ref=pr
>
> --
> Tristan Roddis ~ Head of Web Development
>
> Cogapp
>
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>
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>
> blog.cogapp.com <http://blog.cogapp.com>/ -- "the art and science of
> engagement"/
>
>
>
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