CIS - Data Explorer App - Documentation

The Data Explorer App allows you to browse courses without having to fully construct an HTTP request. Your application issues HTTP GET requests to the Explorer using ordinary URLs with file extensions. The Explorer will retrieve the data for you. If the data contains links to other resources (subjects, courses or sections), these links will be URLs to the Explorer using the file extension you had specified on previous requests.

Example Links

Document Conventions

This document describes how to request data from an HTTP source and it will use URL templates to describe how to construct requests. The parts of the URL that will be different from request to request will be preceded by a : (colon) character. For example, a URL such as http://servername/path/:variable1/:variable2 names variable1 and variable2 as variables while servername and path are always the same. All URLs should end with a . and a file extension. These are implied in the templates listed below.

File Extensions

XML (.xml) suffixes are supported by the Explorer. If the file extension is omitted, XML is assumed.

XML Schema

The XML schema used by this application can be found here: cisapi.xsd.

Schedule

The schedule module shows the subjects, courses and sections that are scheduled for the given year and semester. The root URL for schedule data in the Explorer is

http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/schedule.xml

This will return a list of the years available as shown below:

The URLs for schedule data in the Explorer are defined using this hierarchy:

The variables in the URL mean:

For example, the link

http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/schedule/2012.xml

shows all the semesters scheduled for 2012 and

http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/schedule/2012/spring/AAS/100.xml

shows all AAS 100 sections scheduled for Spring 2012.

Catalog

The root URL for the catalog data in the Explorer is

http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/catalog.xml

This will return a list of the years available as shown below:

The URLs for schedule data in the explorer are defined using this hierarchy:

The variables in the URL mean:

For example, the link

http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/catalog/2012.xml

shows all the semesters in the catalog for 2012 and

http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/catalog/2012/spring/AAS/100.xml

shows all semesters the course AAS 100 is offered, even if it is not offered in Spring 2012.

Using the "mode" parameter

For selected browse URLs, there is an optional parameter that allows the client to specify the level of detail to return for any specific object document. They are as follows:

If mode is not specified, the default mode is mode=summary.

Example Links using modes:

http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/schedule/2012/spring/AAS.xml?mode=cascade http://courses.illinois.edu/cisapp/explorer/schedule/2012/spring/AAS/100.xml?mode=detail