This is more of a feature request than a question, I hope this is the right place to submit it.
If the Brightspace REST API supported Etag and If-None-Match headers, it could allow for more efficient communication for both the client and the server
The headers are described in these links:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/If-None-Match https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/ETag.
Many other APIs and web services support these headers. The idea is, when you make an API call, an ETag header is included in the response, which is just a string of characters that is usually some kind of hash of the content. Then, the next time the client makes that same request, they can include an If-None-Match header in the request containing that Etag. If nothing has changed, the server responds with an empty 200 response. That way the client knows that content hasn't changed, and it also saves time and bandwidth for both sides.
This is useful for integrations that have to regularly check for updates to content.
Thanks,
Ryker Blunck