Recommendations for standard data formats

[hydrosquall]

Dates: ISO 8601 (JSON friendly)

http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime

YYYY-MM-DD

Generate set of specs for formatting the various university data types and include them in the boilerplate (if that gets produced eventually)

Will make it easier to make cross-uni APIs

[AlexeyMK]

https://xkcd.com/927/

On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 4:59 PM, Cameron Yick notifications@github.com
wrote:

Dates: ISO 8601 (JSON friendly)

http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime

YYYY-MM-DD

Generate set of specs for formatting the various university data types and
include them in the boilerplate (if that gets produced eventually)

Will make it easier to make cross-uni APIs

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#20.

[hydrosquall]

haha classic- I should clarify

aim here is to make a standard set of standards to be using.

So far as I know there isn't a standard way for universities to be formatting their api responses

So if they're going from scratch/don't have a strong affinity for something in particular, might as well see if we can make it happen in a unified way

could be a useful thing to explore in a doc/at the summit

[AlexeyMK]

Sorry about that man. Trigger finger, I shouldn't have sent that email.
That was dismissive and counter-productive, and doesn't contribute to the
conversation. It's a known issue (on my end) and I'm working on it.

I like the idea! I would encourage going beyond dates and creating
higher-level API standards for university objects - Course, Professor,
Classroom, etc, so certain tools could be inter-operable between datasets
and front-end APIs.

On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 5:40 PM, Cameron Yick notifications@github.com
wrote:

haha classic- I should clarify

aim here is to make a standard set of standards to be using.

So far as I know there isn't a standard way for universities to be
formatting their api responses

So if they're going from scratch/don't have a strong affinity for
something in particular, might as well see if we can make it happen in a
unified way

could be a useful thing to explore in a doc/at the summit

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#20 (comment)
.

[hydrosquall]

No worries man, it was ambiguously worded on my end and so it was good for me to clarify it :).

Higher level API standards would definitely be a huge help. One little project that non-technical people could be invited to help with is establishing a common set of shortcodes for different class types (for example, CPSC and CS both = computer science).

There may be some areas that have overlap (some places have Computer Engineering whereas in other places that's folded into computer science/electrical engineering separately). However, those conflicts can be met and addressed on a case-by-case basis.

One big higher-level area that has a lot of potential for improvement is the athletics category. Currently Rutgers is the only uni on the list with a completely documented athletics api, and the code numbers seem somewhat random. Columbia has one posted too but it's not apparent which property refers to the sport. If the category is left as a string without a clear coding standard, things can happen when someone types "Mens Swimming" instead of "Men's Swimming". (This has been an issue when writing scrapers for the online calendars currently available).

Columbia Athletics API

  "channel" : 
            "title" : Page Title
            "link" : URL
            "description" : 
            "ttl" : 
            "category": Article Category
            "item1" : Article Item
                "title" : Article Title
                "pubDate" : Article Publication Date
                "link" : Permalink URL
                "guid" : 
                "description" : Article Description
                "category" : Article Category
                "enclosure" : 
                    "@length" :
                    "@url" : Enclosed Photo URL
                    "@type" :