{
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    "title" : "Case Study: How DOL Created Software Development Kits (SDKs) |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Case Study: How DOL Created Software Development Kits (SDKs)",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2012/11/19/case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Case Study: How DOL Created Software Development Kits (SDKs)","summary" : "What It Is The U.S. Department of Labor sought to go beyond merely making data available to developers and take ease of use of the data to the next level by giving developers tools that would make using DOL’s data easier. The target audience was not just experienced developers, but even those who may be","date" : "2012-11-19T01:16:23-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"michael-pulsifer" : "Michael Pulsifer","gray-brooks" : "Gray Brooks"},"topics" : {
        
            "software-engineering" : "Software engineering"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2012-11-19-case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2012/11/2012-11-19-case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2012/11/2012-11-19-case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2012/11/2012-11-19-case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks.md","slug" : "case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2012/11/19/case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks/","content" :"\u003ch2 id=\"what-it-is\"\u003eWhat It Is\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe U.S. Department of Labor sought to go beyond merely making data available to developers and take ease of use of the data to the next level by giving developers tools that would make using DOL’s data easier. The target audience was not just experienced developers, but even those who may be just starting out with a how-to book and a great idea. The developer should not necessarily know what JSON or XML are.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis requirement led DOL to create software development kits (SDKs), which are downloadable code packages that developers can drop into their apps, making access to DOL’s data easy for even the most novice developer. Not content with just providing the tools, DOL provides sample projects that the developers can use to help them get started even quicker. These SDKs have even been published as open source projects with the aim of speeding up their conversion to SDKs that will eventually support all federal APIs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-challenge\"\u003eThe Challenge\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.data.gov/\"\u003eData.gov\u003c/a\u003e has been a tremendous asset to those who wish to download government datasets, large and small. Experts on the data can extract a wealth of data from one or more dataset and publish their findings for everyone else to consume. However, it’s those large datasets that can pose a particular challenge for developers of mobile apps.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2012/11/19/case-study-how-dol-created-software-development-kits-sdks/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-103422\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2014/01/apis-user-cost-whole-dataset-apps-250x187.png\"\n    alt=\"apis-user-cost-whole-dataset-apps\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost cell phone companies nowadays impose limits of one form or another on their customers’ data usage. Using one provider as an example, the basic data plan, targeted at the typical smartphone user, has a limit of 200 megabytes (MB) per month. Once this limit is exceeded, the user can face additional charges. One smartphone platform even limits over-the-air app downloads to 20 MB to protect the users’ data caps.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Department of Labor has many datasets published on Data.gov that, if included in a mobile app, would consume at least a half of a typical user’s monthly data limit, assuming they could download it over the air at all. One, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Net Impact Evaluation Dataset, measures in at a hefty 321 MB.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-solution\"\u003eThe Solution\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur solution was to create an application programming interface (API) that would allow developers of Web or mobile apps to download only what their app needs when it needs it. Rather than include the entire dataset, the app would send a request to DOL’s API asking for a much smaller subset of that data. The response would be typically much smaller than an average Web page, reducing the impact on the user. DOL’s API is not a replacement for the datasets published to Data.gov. However, it provides instant, light-weight, and easy to access data for developers of Web and mobile apps.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInitially, \u003ca href=\"http://developer.dol.gov/\"\u003edeveloper.dol.gov\u003c/a\u003e launched with just three datasets. Today, the API provides access to 32 datasets containing a total of 175 individual tables across four categories. One of the visions of our API effort is to ensure all of the department’s publicly available data is also available through the API, so expect this number to grow as time goes on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThough we could have released the API without the need for developers to provide an API key, we chose to include this requirement to give us the ability to generate detailed metrics and throttle (or shut off) requests from rogue apps.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDOL was not the first federal department or agency to make an API available to developers, but we were the first to provide software development kits (SDKs) and sample code to developers to make use of our API even easier. Our SDKs contain code that they can include in their apps that take care of the connection to the API as well as making requests and retrieving data. This particular innovation lowers the barrier to entry to the point where even someone with a great idea and basic programming skills can start developing apps with DOL data.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"results\"\u003eResults\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the end of FY 2012, DOL has 293 registered API keys. The top 10% of API-using developers have generated 7,259,407 requests. The SDKs have proven to be popular, especially among challenge participants. DOL even “eats its own dog food,” using the SDKs in its own projects, including the “Labor Stats” mobile app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince the release of the API \u0026amp; SDKs, DOL has published the SDKs as open source projects and has begun modifying them to work with other federal agency APIs. The first of these that now support APIs other than just DOL’s is the iOS SDK. Since they are open source projects, DOL is open to code contributions by the public and other agencies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"lessons-learned\"\u003eLessons Learned\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDevelopers like tools, such as SDKs, that make app development, and government data use, easier.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDevelopers like to use data from multiple sources. Making the SDKs compatible with other agency APIs, rather than producing multiple SDKs for each individual API, will make app development even easier.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSample code makes your API, and by extension, your data, more accessible to novice developers.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"resources\"\u003eResources\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://developer.dol.gov/\"\u003eDepartment of Labor Development Community\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/USDepartmentofLabor\"\u003eDepartment of Labor GitHub\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"disclaimer\"\u003eDisclaimer\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReferences to the product and/or service names of the hardware and/or software products used in this case study do not constitute an endorsement.\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}