Publications

DesignSafe hosts over 1,500 published datasets with DOIs, spanning experimental, simulation, field reconnaissance, and other research types. Published datasets are read-only and accessible to all users.

Publication metadata is fetched from the DesignSafe portal API (/api/publications/v2/). Files are accessed via the Tapis Files API on designsafe.storage.published.

List publications¶

Returns a DataFrame by default. Use output="list" for a list of dicts.

from dapi import DSClient
ds = DSClient()

# Recent publications
ds.publications.list()

# Pagination
ds.publications.list(limit=50, offset=100)

DataFrame columns: projectId, title, pi, type, keywords, created.

Search publications¶

Search with specific filters or general text. All filters are case-insensitive and combined with AND logic.

# General text search (across title, description, keywords, PI)
ds.publications.search("liquefaction")

# Filter by PI name
ds.publications.search(pi="Rathje")

# Filter by keyword
ds.publications.search(keyword="storm surge")

# Filter by publication type: simulation, experimental, field_recon, other, hybrid_simulation
ds.publications.search(publication_type="simulation")

# Combine filters (AND logic)
ds.publications.search(keyword="storm surge", publication_type="simulation")

# Combine filters
ds.publications.search(keyword="earthquake", publication_type="experimental")

Get publication details¶

Returns a dictionary with full metadata.

info = ds.publications.get("PRJ-6270")

info['title']
info['description']
info['pi']
info['dois']          # DOIs for citation
info['keywords']
info['dataTypes']
info['projectType']   # simulation, experimental, field_recon, other
info['awardNumbers']

List files in a publication¶

# Root of a published project
ds.publications.files("PRJ-1271")

# Subfolder
ds.publications.files("PRJ-1271", path="/Experiment-9/")

# Raw Tapis file objects
files = ds.publications.files("PRJ-1271", output="raw")

DataFrame columns: name, type, size, lastModified, path.

How it works¶

1. Publication listing and search: dapi queries the DesignSafe portal API (/api/publications/v2/). For search, all ~1,500 publications are fetched via pagination (~3 seconds) and filtered client-side.

2. Publication detail: dapi queries /api/publications/v2/PRJ-XXXX/ which returns metadata in the tree.children[0].value structure, including DOIs, authors, and data types.

3. File access: published files live on the designsafe.storage.published Tapis system under /PRJ-XXXX/ paths. File listings use the standard Tapis Files API.

Error handling¶

• Publication not found: raised if the PRJ number doesn’t match any published dataset.

• File listing errors: raised if the path doesn’t exist on designsafe.storage.published.