We've got a date for the launch event and you can sign up at http://cosmiccollections.eventbrite.com/

(AKA putting our money where our mouth is.)

One reason we're looking at APIs is that in November 2009 we'll be running a mashup competition using data created for our 'Cosmos and Culture' exhibition to provide the public web interface(s) for the exhibition.  To provide more context, I've made the presentation I gave internally to get sign-off on the project available, blogged about it and am sharing a draft version of the data output from the API.  Currently, the plan is to provide REST-style web service with the data represented in JSON and ATOM.

How can you help?

1. Take a look at an updated draft version of the schema: CosmosandCulture_public_example_v1.txt
2. Tell me what you think. I'm really interesting in the usability of the supplied data - does it provide enough potential hooks into other content?  What's your preferred method of working with APIs?
3. Tell me if you need more context and I'll do my best to answer.

You can email me (mia.ridge [you can guess the middle bit] sciencemuseum.org.uk, tweet @mia_out or use the hashtag #coscultcom.  You can also leave comments here or edit the page itself. 

Some background for the mashup competition

Objectives

• Make best use of the limited (10K) budget and staff time to get the highest impact web presence for Cosmos & Culture.
• Experiment with new ways of making objects available via the web.
• Experiment with new ways of attracting user-generated content.
• Provide our audiences with new visualisations and interpretative contexts for objects

How the competition works

• We make raw data about C&C’s objects (name, date, people, locations, relevant celestial body, associated images etc etc) available. [Plus caption text]
• Users come up with a mashup interface for this. This will integrate our object information with other freely available resources (examples could include Google Maps; sky mapping applications like Google Sky, Stellarium and Celestia; photo-sharing sites; Yahoo Pipe; IBM Many Eyes, astronomy news feeds … or something completely unexpected). The other resources will generally be a form of visualisation (maps, timelines, etc) or another data source.
• The best mashup, as judged by a panel (Sci M, high profile astronomer, high profile web designer?) is awarded the prize fund. We will be judging in terms of creativity rather than purely technical accomplishment so if someone comes up with a great idea that they can’t quite execute, we can work this up to get it online. [Working up the final project might take resources so we'd need to think about this - or we could pair them with another contestant.]
• If feasible, we could run a ‘mashup speed dating’ ['hack matching'] event as part of the programme (between the data being released and the deadline for submission) – this would allow people to meet and share creative ideas, knowledge and skills. It would be easier to run this as part of Dana/Lates programme but we can look at different ways of doing it.

Audience

• At the competition stage the field would be relatively small, as users will need some familiarity with mashups. Possible entrants could include design students, web designers, astronomers (many are very web literate) etc. Although a small field it enables us to target some sectors who might not normally be interested in a Science Museum web offer, and can be open to people around the world.
• Once the finished web presence goes live it is open to all of our web audience.