There are a few APIs to consider: The [main [editing api][1] lets you search, retrieve, retrieve and edit raw data (including history). It require no "API key" but it requires a registered OSM user for any editing, and it probably looks at your http user agent. The other apis are the generated-tiles viewing apis similar to googlemapview. A few exist, two popular ones being [openlayers][2] and [leaflet][3]. There are also special-purpose apis like [nominatim][4]. All of these usually require no more than a properly-setup http user agent (and reasonable usage of resources, but that should be no problem for a dissertation project). [1]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6 [2]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Openlayers [3]: http://leaflet.cloudmade.com/ [4]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim

There are a few APIs to consider: The [main api][1] lets you search, retrieve, and edit raw data (including history). It require no "API key" but it requires a registered OSM user for any editing, and it probably looks at your http user agent. The other apis are the generated-tiles viewing apis similar to googlemapview. A few exist, two popular ones being [openlayers][2] and [leaflet][3]. There are also special-purpose apis like [nominatim][4]. All of these usually require no more than a properly-setup http user agent (and reasonable usage of resources, but that should be no problem for a dissertation project). [1]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6 [2]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Openlayers [3]: http://leaflet.cloudmade.com/ [4]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim