Terminology

API (Application Programming Interface)
An API is a way to share information, specifying what information can be requested, how requests are made, and what is returned (data or an error message). The API sends an inquiry or 'Call(s)' and receives a response or 'Return(s)' with data.

Call
A Call sends an inquiry for data from the API. One Call can return multiple responses from the API.

Return
A Return sends a response with data from the API to the user.

Boolean Operators
When conducting a search of IEEE metadata the Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) can be used in some cases. Use of AND restricts the result set, use of OR expands the result set, and use of NOT removes those matches from the results.

DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
A DOI is a unique identifier assigned to an article or document. This can be used to look up data for the document via the IEEE Xplore DOI Metadata API.

Endpoint
An endpoint is the website address where the API resides. Requests for data will be sent to the relevant endpoint in order to retrieve the desired information.

Metadata
Metadata is “data about data”, such as the author of a document, the year it was published, where it was published, and a variety of additional information about that document. The IEEE APIs return metadata about their publications, conference proceedings, and courses.

Parameter
A parameter is another name for a variable, which means that it is a named container for data. When requests are made to the IEEE APIs there are a variety of parameters that are part of that request, defining such things as what is being searched and the format for results.

SDK (Software Development Kit)
SDKs are software that communicates with the API, so that writing your own code to directly communicate with the API is not required. The SDK documentation explains the methods for requesting data from IEEE and has numerous examples.

Wildcard
Wildcards match any characters in a word and are indicated with an asterisk (*). For example, a search for “swim*” would match “swim”, “swims”, “swimming”, and any other word that had “swim” followed by other characters, until a space occurs.