I think the #1 thing that we have to do is to ask people
before we buy their product to support Open API standards. I
think, naively, that it was just a simple issue but nowadays
I'm assuming that vendors will try to get around that by
saying they support Open API via an Excel dump. I don't
think we want that.
What we want is access to all the data we enter into a
vendor's application. It's our data and we want to have
access to it in its entirety after we enter it. By access,
we don't mean screen access or text dumps but a Web Service
API that will allow us programmatic access to our data. The
requests to the API can be in REST or SOAP format but the
Web Service API must respond in XML. That Web Service API
should be considered a must-have prerequisite for purchase
and should not be passed on to the nonprofit at extra
charge.
That's the kind of request I've been making to my vendors.
By virtue of the open and extensible architecture within OSS
CMSes like Drupal, Plone and Joomla, we can easily affix
that sticker to them and other open source projects like it.
I guess we'd have to build out a Website that would list
all the Web Services APIs out there for nonprofit IT
directors to choose from. This is where NTEN and Techsoup
could come in. If they wanted to do a certification program
for vendors with Web Services API, that would be great. My
dream approach would be that at the NTEN NTC, a big
"Open Standards-safe" sticker is stuck to the
forehead of every vendor who endorses open standards. Then,
when people ask about a particular vendor in this forum or
others like it, we simply say that we didn't see that
sticker on that product. It should be clear to these vendors
that an open API is a competitive advantage over other
vendors in the long run.
Of course, this approach only works with prospective vendors
and not so well with incumbent vendors. With the incumbents,
I've been basically wheedling them and cajoling them and
telling them that they would get gobs of netfame and
recommendations from other nonprofit techies
Targeted approaches would be best -- I'd like to contact
other nonprofit IT directors in the New York area to contact
Foothold Technologies and basically request in a nice way
that this has to happen pronto. The case management vendors
will probably be the toughest nuts to crack because there's
a ton of data in those systems and people like me have paid
them a lot of money with little or no prodding towards an
API.
Of course, some APIs are less open than others just because
the technical barrier to entry is high. Witness the
difference between Amazon's, Yahoo!'s and Google's APIs.
You can literally run an Amazon store with Amazon's API but
it's tremendously difficult at first pass to program to.
Yahoo! is pretty thorough and more cutting edge than
Google's and better documented. Surprisingly, Google's
search API is a bit error-prone. Yet, Google's Mapping API
is more solid than the search API. Go figure. This is where
I feel we should still leave it up to the vendor to do the
implementation. And us nonprofit techies should do reviews
of those APIs from time to time (easy enough I would have
done it anyway).
BTW, I've started asking OSS CMS sites to start giving out
their web site statistics. Plone has already complied and
their response is at: http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/p
lone-strikes-a-blow-for-oss-cms-transparency
Plone gave out their LIVE web site statistics. They have
nothing to be ashamed about with traffic at 150k unique
visitors a month although it's been relatively stable this
quarter. I think we'll be getting Drupal's up and out.
However, I have not gotten any headway with Mambo or Joomla.
It might be a matter of figuring who to e-mail directly. If
anyone here can help out, I'd be much obliged.
=========================================
The Information Systems Forum is an opt-in, low-traffic,
flame-free distribution list for discussions of information
technology for nonprofit organizations.
To post a message, prepare a regular email and send it to
Information_Systems_Forum@yahoogroups.com
To join the Information Systems Forum, send a blank email to
Information_Systems_Forum-SUBSCRIBE@yahoogroups.com
To leave the Information System Forum, send a blank email to
Information_Systems_Forum-UNSUBSCRIBE@yahoogroups.com .
Please note that there may be a lag (of hours or days)
between the moment that you send the command and the moment
that you stop receiving messages from this group. Your list
administrator apologizes for this flaw in the YahooGroups
configuration, but has been unable to shorten the lag from
her end of things.
To send a message to the list administrator (Deborah), email
it to deborah_elizabeth_finn post.harvard.edu .
To view the message archive, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Information_Systems_Forum
To participate in the unmoderated version of this email
distribution list, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Information_Sy
stems_Forum_UNMODERATED/
To view a map of the group's membership, go to http://
www.frappr.com/informationsystemsforum
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Information_Systems_Forum/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Information_Systems_Forum-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.c
om/info/terms/
|