Www Prospects Ac Uk

Prospects.ac.uk Course Data Access Skill

Overview

This skill extracts postgraduate course information from Prospects.ac.uk, the UK's official graduate careers website. It parses HTML pages to retrieve structured course data including entry requirements, fees, duration, contact details, and related courses.

Data Source

• Host: www.prospects.ac.uk
• Content Type: Postgraduate course listings for UK universities
• Access Method: Direct HTTP requests with HTML parsing
• No API Required: All data is extracted from publicly accessible HTML pages

Supported Functions

get_course

Fetch and parse a single course page.

Parameters:

URL Format:

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/universities/{institution-slug}-{institution-id}/{department-slug}-{department-id}/courses/{course-slug}-{course-id}

Example:

result = await execute({
    "function": "get_course",
    "url": "https://www.prospects.ac.uk/universities/goldsmiths-university-of-london-3836/media-and-communications-9471/courses/script-writing-24120"
})

get_courses

Fetch and parse multiple course pages concurrently.

Parameters:

Example:

result = await execute({
    "function": "get_courses",
    "urls": [
        "https://www.prospects.ac.uk/universities/goldsmiths-university-of-london-3836/media-and-communications-9471/courses/script-writing-24120",
        "https://www.prospects.ac.uk/universities/goldsmiths-university-of-london-3836/media-and-communications-9471/courses/filmmaking-cinematography-112152"
    ]
})

Output Structure

Success Response

{
  "url": "https://www.prospects.ac.uk/...",
  "title": "Script Writing",
  "description": "Discover entry requirements, content, fees...",
  "url_info": {
    "institution_slug": "goldsmiths-university-of-london",
    "institution_id": "3836",
    "department_slug": "media-and-communications",
    "department_id": "9471",
    "course_slug": "script-writing",
    "course_id": "24120"
  },
  "json_ld": {
    "@type": "Course",
    "name": "Script Writing",
    "provider": {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "Goldsmiths, University of London"
    }
  },
  "institution": {
    "name": "Goldsmiths, University of London",
    "department": "Media and Communications",
    "website": "http://www.gold.ac.uk/..."
  },
  "course": {
    "qualifications": "MA",
    "duration": "12 months",
    "attendance": "full-time",
    "entry_requirements": "You will be considered for this programme...",
    "content": "The skills of storytelling are timeless...",
    "fees": {
      "uk_home": "£10350",
      "international": "£22640"
    },
    "contact": {
      "name": "Course Enquiries",
      "email": "course-info@gold.ac.uk",
      "phone": "+44 (0)20 7078 5300"
    }
  },
  "sections": {
    "Entry requirements": "You will be considered...",
    "Course content": "The skills of storytelling...",
    "Fees and funding": "UK students Home - full-time...",
    "Qualification, course duration and attendance options": "MA full time 12 months..."
  },
  "related_courses": [
    {
      "title": "Filmmaking (Cinematography)",
      "url": "https://www.prospects.ac.uk/..."
    }
  ]
}

Error Response

{
  "error": "Request failed",
  "status": 404,
  "message": "HTTP 404",
  "url": "https://www.prospects.ac.uk/..."
}

Data Extracted

URL Structure

Course URLs follow this pattern:

/universities/{institution-name}-{institution-id}/{department-name}-{department-id}/courses/{course-name}-{course-id}

Example breakdown:

• Institution: goldsmiths-university-of-london-3836 (name + ID)
• Department: media-and-communications-9471 (name + ID)
• Course: script-writing-24120 (name + ID)

The numeric IDs are critical for uniquely identifying resources.

Notes

1. No Search Function: The site uses dynamic JavaScript loading for search. This skill only supports direct course URL access.

2. URL Discovery: To find course URLs, you may need to:

   • Browse the site manually
   • Use search engines with site:prospects.ac.uk/courses/
   • Follow links from institution pages

3. Rate Limiting: Default rate limit is 2 requests/second with 5 concurrent connections to avoid overwhelming the server.

4. Data Availability: Not all courses have all fields populated. The skill gracefully handles missing data.

5. Fee Information: Fees are extracted from the Fees and funding section. Format and availability may vary by institution.

Use Cases

• Course Research: Aggregate course details for comparison
• Fee Tracking: Monitor tuition fee changes
• Contact Information: Collect admissions contact details
• Entry Requirements: Analyze admission criteria across courses
• Link Discovery: Use related_courses to discover similar programs

Error Handling

The skill returns structured error responses rather than raising exceptions:

Dependencies

• aiohttp - Async HTTP client
• beautifulsoup4 - HTML parsing
• Standard library: asyncio, json, re, urllib.parse