Master 's Thesis von Mihailo Rajacic

Collaborative Development of Open APIs - Status Quo and Ideas for Improvements

Motivation and Goal

The number of publicly offered Web APIs has increased continuously over the last decade [1] since successful public Web API initiatives provide a new source of profitability for organizations. Nevertheless, such initiatives are only successful, if the functionality or data offered is actually demanded by third-party developers and the API design meets developers’ expectations. However, due to a lack of guidance, organizations struggle to involve potential developers into the process of designing open APIs. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to identify and evaluate a process for desiging open APIs which enables the direct collaboration between API providers and consumers. 

The thesis should answer the following research questions:

• RQ1: What stakeholders are involved in the collaborative development of open APIs?
• RQ2: What design decisions have to be made during the development of open APIs?
• RQ3: How could a process for collaborative open API development look like?

[1] See https://www.programmableweb.com/news/programmableweb-api-directory-eclipses-17000-api-economy-continues-surge/research/2017/03/13