Resources API: Desktop Availability

A UCL Lab Cluster featuring Microsoft’s latest and greatest OS: Windows XP (photo credit: http://www.paulmurphyarchitects.co.uk/projects/ucl-foster-court-cluster-rooms/)

You may have seen recently that we launched a new API, ominously named Resources. This is the beginning of a series of APIs we hope to be launching in the coming months providing analytics and information about general resources around the UCL Campus.

The first resource we have data for is the availability of cluster desktop computers (provided by ISD) around campus. If you need to work in the library, why not check with UCL API first to see if there’ll be a computer for you to work at?

Tutorial

This is probably our easiest API to use, so this section will be pretty short. Firstly, note that the endpoint is:

https://uclapi.com/resources/desktops?token=uclapi-your-token-here

You will get back a JSON object that looks like the following:

{
    "ok": true,
    "data": [
        {
            "room_status": "Room available all day. For accurate Library opening times, please check the Library Opening hours website http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/opening",
            "location": {
                "latitude": "51.523481",
                "postcode": "WC1E 6BT",
                "room_id": "C14",
                "roomname": "Ground-Ground floor - Public",
                "address": "Malet Place, Gower Street",
                "longitude": "-0.132571",
                "building_name": "DMS Watson Science Library"
            },
            "total_seats": "35",
            "free_seats": "24"
        },
        ...
    ]
}

Each room within the data region has the following properties:

• Room Status
  A status message provided by the room’s administators with any pertinent notices, such as opening hours.
• Location
  The latitude/longitude position of the building with the computers in (for apps which utilise a map), along with the name and address of the building.
• Total Seats
  The number of computers available in total.
• Free Seats
  The number of computers available for student use. Free computers are ones with nobody logged in.

Possible Uses

Many app ideas have been proposed that help students to find places to study, such as UCL Room Buddy, so adding in whether desktop workstations are available too could help to complete this experience.

How has the API been for you? Feel free to give us feedback via Twitter, Facebook or Email ❤

Enjoy!