You are encouraged to attend the defence. You are encouraged to attend the defence. The details of the defence and attendance information is included below: 

Date: 07 August 2024

Time: 9:00 AM (PT)

Defence mode: Hybrid

In-Person Attendance: Senate Chambers, UNBC Prince George Campus 

Virtual Attendance: Zoom

LINK TO JOIN: Please contact the Office of Graduate Administration for information regarding remote attendance for online defences.

To ensure the defence proceeds with no interruptions, please mute your audio and video on entry and do not inadvertently share your screen. The meeting will be locked to entry 5 minutes after it begins: ensure you are on time. 

Thesis entitled: API ECONOMY: CONSTRAINTS TO ITS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Abstract: Every time, a user of internet services visits a page online, to reach the intended page/s for information, they interact with application programming interface (API). In generic terms, API is a way for two applications to communicate with each other over a network using a common language. In functional terms, API acts as a control point at which compilation of services is exposed to potential users in a controlled manner over a network. It has evolved to be a powerful tool for companies/organizations across various industries such as banking, healthcare, online retail, and others, to speed up their business operations, help grow their brand’s reach, and connect consumers to products and services over a network. APIs serve as a building block of digital connectivity. This research has informed about the evolution of APIs over time, and the way tech and non-tech companies can make use of APIs to increase their productivity and boost digital economy through APIs. The digital economy is the economic activity that results from billions of everyday online connections among people, businesses, devices, data, and processes. In addition, this research has measured the growth of APIs economy in terms of digital economy’s contribution in GDP of USA, selected companies revenue contribution in digital economy, growth in the number of APIs globally and companies wise APIs share, growth in numbers of developers worldwide. In other parts of this thesis, 4 different yet related objectives have been studied. Objective 2 identifies API market sizes. Objective 3 classifies APIs related constraints into three different categories i.e. APIs as a Product constraints, APIs as a Service constraints and API as a Product-Service constraints. Finally, objective 4 identifies the API risks and challenges by the API management company (TeejLab).

A review of literature on this subject has shown that there are constraints related to Scalability, Manageability, Security, and possibly other challenges that restrict building an affective ecosystem of APIs. Therefore, an exploratory study-based approach has also been taken in this research that helps in measuring the growth of companies in the presence of API specific constraints/challenges that create roadblock in achieving companies’ objectives. Overall, the findings of this research will help in creating new knowledge and information about various APIs specific constraints, risks and challenges that affect APIs and Digital Economy’s growth

Examining Committee: 

Chair: Dr. Catharine Schiller, University of Northern British Columbia 

Supervisor: Dr. Balbinder Deo, The University of Northern British Columbia 

Committee Member: Dr. Karima Fredj, The University of Northern British Columbia 

Committee Member: Dr. Darren Brown, The University of Northern British Columbia 

External Examiner: Dr. Liam Kelly, The University of Northern British Columbia