Intro

This BP Document lists the recommendations to use URI for accessing data on the web.

Human-readable and Machine-readable

The data available should be human-readable and machine-readable.

Content Negotiation

Content Negotiation is an alternative to serve data both human-readable and machine-readable on the same URI. The content that will be returned depends of the information provided by the user agent on HTTP header.

APIs serving data

In the other hand, instead of use the Content negotiation technique, an alternative discussed previously is the use of APIs serving the data. There is a document called URIs versus APIs that shows advantages of each one of these methods.

Persistent URIs

The result from a survey performed by [ISA http://ec.europa.eu/isa/index_en.htm] to explore the good practices on the publication of URIs points to [10 rules for persistent URIs https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/semic/document/10-rules-persistent-uris].

The recommendations from the D7.1.3 Study on persistent URIs are reproduced here:

10 Rules for Persistent URIs

Good practices

• Follow the pattern

   http://{domain}/{type}/{concept}/{reference}

• Re-use of the existing identifiers

   http://education.data.gov.uk/id/school/123456

• Link multiple representations

   http://data.example.org/doc/foo/bar.html
   http://data.example.org/doc/foo/bar.rdf

• Implement 303 redirects for real-world objects

   http://www.example.com/id/alice_brown

• Use of a dedicated service

   a service independent of the data originator

Bad practices

• Stating ownership

   http://education.data.gov.br/ministryofeducation/id/school/123456

• Version numbers

   http://education.data.gov.br/ministryofeducation/doc/school/v01/123456

• Use of the auto-increment

   http://education.data.gov.br/ministryofeducation/id/school/123456
   http://education.data.gov.br/ministryofeducation/id/school/123457

• Use of query strings for identifiers

   http://education.data.gov.br/ministryofeducation/doc/school?id=123456

• File extensions

   http://education.data.gov.br/ministryofeducation/doc/school/12345.css

URI Persistence

{TODO}

Discussion about this references:

• http://logd.tw.rpi.edu/instance-hub-uri-design
• http://www.sbolstandard.org/initiatives/best-practices
• http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/wiki/223_Best_Practices_URI_Construction#URI_Persistence
• http://moz.com/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls

Editors and contributors

• Carlos Iglesias
• Flavio Yanai
• Makx Dekkers
• M. Tomas Carrasco
• Newton Calegari
• Phil Archer

Links and references

• D7.1.3 - Study on persistent URIs, with identification of best practices and recommendations on the topic for the MSs and the EC [PDF]
• Data on the Web URI Best Practices
• URIs versus APIs