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bcgov / api-guidelines

BC Government API Guidelines
https://developer.gov.bc.ca/Data-and-APIs/BC-Government-API-Guidelines
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Please add best practices for API terms of use to guidelines #10

Open cnewallbcgov opened 5 years ago

cnewallbcgov commented 5 years ago

It would be helpful for the guidelines to communicate best practices about API terms of use.

Specifically, the following terms of use are expected to be used for APIs that provide output under the Open Government License - British Columbia: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/data/open-data/api-terms-of-use-for-ogl-information

Guidance might fit in the API Encoding and Metadata section and could stand alone, or perhaps be a bullet of “Publish to the BC Data Catalogue?”

Some examples of APIs that reference these terms of use are:

Related to this, it is also a general best practice for externally accessible APIs to output open data so that API users do not need to ask the Intellectual Property Office for permission to use the outputs in other works. API outputs not published under OGL-BC are "Access Only", as described in B.C. government standard copyright. e.g., the Geocoder outputs the coordinates of a civic address as well as other information - all released under OGL-BC.

Thanks

jeff-card commented 5 years ago

Thank you for your comment! A peer review was held on August 9th and we have the following feedback:

This generated some great discussion for the focus group on how and where to make terms of use most accessible. The agreed upon path forward is to build out publishing instructions in the Lifecycle Management section of the guidelines, of which best practices for terms of use will be one element.