Campus developers might want to use data from Researchers@Brown (R@B) in other websites. The R@B team has developed a JSON web service that allows for this. We think it will satisfy many uses on campus. Please give it a try and send feedback to researchers@brown.edu.
Main types/resources
- faculty
- organizational units (departments, centers, programs, institutes, etc)
- research topics
Requesting data
To request data, begin with an identifier. Let’s use Prof. Diane Lipscombe as an example:
/services/data/v1/faculty/dlipscom
Looking through the response you will notice affiliations and topics from Prof. Lipscombe’s profile. You can make additional requests for information about those types by following the “more” link in the response.
/services/data/v1/ou/org-brown-univ-dept56/
Following the affiliations links from a faculty data profile will return information about the Department of Neuroscience, which Prof. Lipscombe is a member.
/services/data/v1/topic/n49615/
Looking up this topic will return more information about the research topic “molecular biology”, including other faculty who have identified this as a research interest.
Responses
Faculty
- first name
- last name
- middle
- title
- Brown email
- url (R@B)
- thumbnail
- image – original image uploaded
- affiliations – list with lookups
- overview – this is HTML and may contain links or other formatting
- topics – list with lookups
Organizations
- name
- image (if available)
- url (to R@B)
- affiliations – list with lookups
Topics
- name
- url (to R@B)
- faculty – list with lookups
Technical Details
- Requests are cached for 18 hours.
- CORS support for embedding in other sites with JavaScript
- JSONP for use in browsers that don’t support CORs.
Example implementation
As an example, we have prepared an example of using the R@B data service with JavaScript using the React framework.