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Event Data Access

UC San Diego Jacobs School event data is available to Jacobs School academic departments and affiliated research institutes. Data can either be selected directly from a database table or event RSS feeds can be transformed into web pages using the instructions and free code set below.

Jacobs School academic departments and affiliated research institutes are also eligible to use the web based data entry interface to add events to the Jacobs School event system. Please email soeweb AT soe DOT ucsd DOT edu for further details.

Option 1: Database Access

Please email soeweb AT soe DOT ucsd DOT edu to request access to the events database. This option requires server side programming/scripting on your web server that build pages dynamically based upon database queries.

Option 2: Ajax Code Set

Event data can be outputted directly to a static html web page on your web server by using the free code set. The code set relies on the JavaScript XMLHttpRequest object. Browser security restrictions prevent JavaScript from making cross-domain calls - calling a page on another web server; in this case the page would an RSS Feed and the other web server would be www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu. In order to circumvent this browser security restriction you will need a proxy.

Instead of making XMLHttpRequest calls directly to the RSS XML files on www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu, you will need to make calls through a proxy on your web server. The proxy passes the call to www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu and www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu passes the data back to your proxy, which then forwards the data to your client application (event web pages on your web server). Because the connection is made through your server, and the data comes back from your server the call does not violate browser security rules.

XMLHttpRequest and Proxy Server

For security reasons it is a good idea that proxy use be restricted. An open proxy that passes connections to any URL is highly subject to abuse. Although it is difficult to limit the connections to your proxy, you can prevent the proxy from making connections to servers other than those you specify. It is advised that you hard code the connection URLs in the proxy itself or provide limited options. This makes the proxy less useful to users other than your client application and reduces the likelihood of abuse.

Apache's mod_rewrite or mod_proxy can be used to pass requests from your web server to www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu. Apache essentially acts as the proxy.

You can also use server side programming/scripting to get an RSS feed and pass the results to the free events code set.

Once the proxy method has been established the code set can be implemented. Implementation only requires modifying a few variables. The free events code set also allows you complete control over the layout and the "look and feel" of the event web pages. For assitance please email soeweb AT soe DOT ucsd DOT edu.