You can use OLSA web services to obtain course metadata. This process is generally used for third party LMS integrations. There are two options to do this.
Download Asset Metadata for All Courses
You can use the web service equivalent of the course metadata report. This is called the AI_InitiateAssetMetaData service. This will output the same information as the manual report within the OLSA Admin UI. The output formats are the following:
CSV
XML
The report generates information for each course asset available on the site. The contents of the output file are the following:
Identifier (course number)
Course title
Course description
Course type
Language
Duration
Download Asset Metadata on a Course By Course Basis
There are two secondary web services that will let you pull asset metadata on a course by course basis, rather than in large CSV/XML files that may contain thousands of entries. The two web services are:
AI_GetCsvAssetMetaData for retrieving the asset metadata in a CSV file.
AI_GetXmlAssetMetaData for retrieving the asset metadata in an XML file.
The report generates information for the specified course number. The contents of the output file are the following:
Identifier (course number)
Course title
Course description
Course type
Language
Duration
Pros:
Greater level of automation. Since an API or web service essentially allows you to plug into the site, you can automate the running of the report. This is much smoother than manually running it as an administrator.
Standards-based. Our web services use the SOAP standard, so anyone familiar with web services and APIs should find them relatively easy to develop for.
Cuts out the middle man. Even with the manual option, you would most likely still need to develop some method of parsing the CSV file or XML data. With this method, you can go directly from the report to the parsing without needing to involve a person to transfer the file.
It contains all of the information you need to create a catalog.
Cons:
Technically more complicated. This requires a developer capable of utilizing the web services.
Potentially longer implementation time.
May see limited use if you only want a catalog report every few months.
