Authentication Method

EDS API utilizes the REST communication protocol and supports several access methods. You will need to decide how you would like to authenticate users into your existing EBSCOhost services and identify your EBSCO customer account. EDS API offers authentication by IP address or with an institutional API UserID and Password. The authentication method is how you establish your organization's access to EBSCO content. The two methods are:

• IP address - Used if you plan to access the API from a server(s) with a fixed IP address or via a proxy server.
• UserID - Used if you might connect to the API from machines outside your network or from many different addresses.

Request Formats

The REST communication protocol uses either a GET or a POST to submit requests. Typically, GET is used to request data and POST is used to submit data. We will use GET for most of our examples. You can choose to use GET or POST, or a combination of both. If you are using GET, the search parameters go on the URL and are sent to the API.

The data returned from the API via a GET or a POST is in either XML or JSON format. You will need to decide which format that you want to receive the results in: XML or JSON.

Results Screen

Since the API offers many options for displaying search results, limiters, and expanders, you will also want to spend some time thinking about your screen design.