We use Elements as our research information system. We also had some existing staff profile pages (based on Sharepoint). Our ITS was grabbing content direct from the Elements database to insert on the profile pages, I said “…Have you considered using the API?” and they said “…There’s an API?” so long story short I wrote some code that took the staff member’s ID, queried the API, and returned a bunch of html listing their research outputs in beautiful APA referencing format, which the profile pages ingest by, presumably, magic.
Over the years it’s sporadically had various minor issues (eg an apparently-minor change to the API structure; or a stubborn caching issue on the ITS side) and it was often slow especially for the most prolific researchers (I only got around to adding caching functionality last year) so all in all I’m really glad we’re adding the Discovery module in Elements that will do this all properly so I don’t have to maintain the thing.
It’s so much fun coding new stuff, it’s just sad that that’s only maybe 10% of the total lifetime work… ☺
Anyway, short version: the API side of it was pretty straight-forward and even version updates weren’t too much of a hassle to resolve; the turning-it-into-APA involved some super messy code but was highly stable; the integration into the profiles was probably the hard part but fortunately not my problem.
Deborah
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Thomas San Filippo
Sent: Saturday, 18 January 2020 3:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] API feeding faculty publication profiles
We would also be very interested, even if you're not health/medical.
Thanks!
*Thomas San Filippo*
/Systems and Educational Technology Liaison/
Pronouns: he/him/his; they/them/their(s)
Madeleine Clark Wallace Library
<https://wheatoncollege.edu/academics/library/<https://wheatoncollege.edu/academics/library/>>, G34
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On 1/16/20 4:22 PM, Elizabeth Huggins wrote:
> Hello,
>
> My library is looking at platforms for faculty publication profiles. If
> you’re working at health sciences or medical library that uses an API to
> feed publications into faculty profiles, I would love to hear from you.
> Please email me directly at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Elizabeth Huggins
>
> Elizabeth Huggins
> MALIS '11
> www.linkedin.com/pub/elizabeth-huggins/43/417/172<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/elizabeth-huggins/43/417/172>
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