Our APIs are changing

At Patient Opinion we like sharing, as you probably know. And since 2008 we've shared all the stories and responses we've published, via an API (which is essentially just a pure data feed of the posts on Patient Opinion).

We've always made this data available via a Creative Commons licence allowing free access for non-commercial use.

With increasing interest in the stories and responses on Patient Opinion, we’re making some changes to API access to make it easier to manage, a bit more secure, and clearly distinguish people who are using the data non-commercially from those who actually need a commercial licence.

We also have plans to add some additional richness to the data we share, in the form of additional metadata and, in due course, semantic data too.

Access to the new APIs will be authenticated using Oauth2.

In brief, we envisage three different groups of API users.

Non-commercial access for no charge

We will enable access without charge for research students and unfunded research projects, provided there is open access to the outputs of the research.

We will also enable short-term access without charge for those wishing to experiment.

Non-commercial access as part of a subscription

We’ll include access to our APIs as a standard part of our subscriptions (for example, for healthcare providers, commissioners, healthwatch, universities and others). Again, the licence terms will be non-commercial.

Funded research projects also fall into this group.

As we develop our APIs, we’ll add in richer data for those on higher level subscriptions.

Commercial access

A small number of users require access to our APIs for commercial purposes, which will be available via a paid-for commercial licence. If you are interested in this, please get in touch and let us know what you might need.

Timescale

We've already started work on these changes, and aim to have the new APIs available for use by 30 June 2016. We will retire our existing APIs on or after 31 July 2016.

If you currently rely on our APIs and need to migrate to the new APIs when available, please contact us.