CESSDA

This is the entry point for information about, and access to, public REST APIs for CESSDA Services.

CESSDA Data Catalogue Search API

This API is used to query the CESSDA Data Catalogue [ https://datacatalogue.cessda.eu/ ]. You can read the documentation and try it out on the CDC Search API page by selecting it from the top menu.

The main use case is:

As a CESSDA Service Provider, I want to offer my local catalogue user the opportunity to run their search query against CDC, to provide them with additional results.

Step 1: Will any results be returned by running the specified query against CDC?

-Run the user's query against CDC. The total number of results is included in the query response. Check that it is non-zero before offering to display the results.

Step 2: Offer to display the results from CDC to the user.

-The results are also in the query response and can be formatted as required for display, e.g. as a list which can be expanded to show details of each item.

CESSDA Metadata Validator API

This API is used to query the CESSDA Metadata Validator [ https://cmv.cessda.eu/ ]. You can read the documentation and try it out on the Metadata Validator API page by selecting it from the top menu.

The main use case is:

As a CESSDA Service Provider, I want to bulk validate my study level metadata records so that I can quality assure their contents.

Step 1: Create an application that calls this API repeatedly against a list of metadata records.

Step 2: Check the results to see which records contain violations, and repair as necessary.

CESSDA Vocabulary Service Search API

This API is used to query the CESSDA Vocabulary Service [ https://vocabularies.cessda.eu/ ]. You can read the documentation and try it out on the Vocabulary Service Search API page by selecting it from the top menu.

The main use case is:

As a CESSDA Service Provider, I want my study level metadata record creation tool to use relevant Controlled Vocabularies so that the metadata I get is more uniform and consistent with DDI Alliance and CESSDA metadata recommendations.

Step 1: Adapt the relevant fields of the study level metadata record creation form to read the associated vocabulary via the search API.

Step 2: The metadata creator selects values from the list to fill certain fields, rather than typing in free text. Note that a free text field might be still be useful to have in addition for more comprehensive explanation.

CESSDA ELSST Thesaurus API

This API is used to query the CESSDA ELSST Thesaurus [ https://thesauri.cessda.eu/elsst ]. You can read the documentation and try it out on the ELSST Thesaurus API page by selecting it from the top menu.

The main use case is:

As a CESSDA Service Provider, I want my study level metadata record creation tool to use relevant ELSST Thesaurus keywords so that the metadata I get is more uniform and comparable to other studies.