a centre of expertise in digital information management dont do it yourself content syndication on...
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Don’t Do It YourselfContent Syndication on the Web
Pete CliffUKOLNUniversity of BathBath, BA2 7AY
[email protected]://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
UKOLN is supported by:
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Workshop Structure
• Overview of Syndication• Concepts• History• Standards
• Exercise One - Thinking about why…
• Exercise Two - Thinking about how…
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Aims
The workshop aims to provide:
• An understanding of syndication• An awareness of an emerging standard -
RSS• An understanding of the benefits and the
potential problems of sharing content
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Brian Kelly for the templates, Web site layout and advice on giving this workshop.
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Syndication
“…Websites that publish new content regularly usually provide a list of news headline style links to their latest content. In addition to displaying these headlines on their websites, it is very common for the publishers to make them available for syndication, so that other websites or applications can also use their headlines…”
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Syndication - advantages• Decentralized maintenance• You maintain how your content looks on
other sites• Wide, simple, automated distribution to:
• Desktops• Web sites• Intranets
• Some very simple implementation options• See http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/include/
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Syndication - disadvantages• Decentralized maintenance• Third party input to your site• Requires some technical input to do properly• Existing feeds predominantly US oriented• Existing feeds not always relevant• Standards wars may become a problem
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
The Bad Old Days• Proprietary formats• Web only• Reliance on JavaScript• Interfaces can change - breaking your site!
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS 1.0• Widely adopted syndication format• XML/RDF based (don’t panic!)• The basic format consists of:
• Channels• Items• An Image
• Extensible• Many software tools• Other flavours - RSS 0.9x / 2.0• 0.9x versions simpler but not extensible
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the RDN
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the RDN
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the RDN
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the RDN
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the desktop
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the desktop
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the desktop
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the portal
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
RSS In Use - the portal
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Exercise 1 - Why?• Is syndication useful to you?• If not, why? Will it be in the future?• What content do you want to use?• From who?
• Local / Regional / National / International• Where would you use that content?• What content can you create for others?
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Exercise 1 - Report
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Exercise 2 - How?
A) Management Issues• What structure does your organization
need to support information sharing in this way?
• New ways of working?• Support for your staff?• Any issues using third party content?• Editorial and other policies?• Planning for it in future site development
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Exercise 2 - How?
B) Technical Issues• What support do you need to make this
happen?• New ways of working?• Support for staff?• What software/hardware are you currently
using? Do they support RSS already?• Planning for it in future site development
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Exercise 2 - Report
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Don’t Do It YourselfContent Syndication on the Web
UKOLN is supported by:
Pete CliffUKOLNUniversity of BathBath, BA2 7AY
[email protected]://www.ukoln.ac.uk/