22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

RSS Newsfeeds and Podcasting

University of Manchester WebCT User Group22nd November 2005

Adrian StevensonLearning Technology Services

Some slides in this presentation are based on original presentations produced by the JISC-funded QA Focus project provided by UKOLN and AHDS

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

RSS

• What is RSS?– “RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites,

including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs” – from xml.com

• What does RSS stand for?– Several different views:

• Netscape called it Rich Site Summary (v 0.92)• W3C felt it should be based on RDF/XML to provide

extensibility and called it RDF Site Summary (v 1.0)• Dave Winer (& others) valued its simplicity and developed an

alternative called Really Simple Syndication (v 2.0)

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Some background

• Initial attempts at news ‘solutions’ included:

– Scrolling ticker tape – BBC News

– Subscriptions to email alerts

• But ..

– Content usually only from one source

– Accessibility problems

– Often proprietary solution

• An open standards solution with widely available authoring tools and viewers was needed.

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

RSS - History

– Initially developed for My.Netscape portal

– The potential for this adaptable solution was quickly recognised and widely taken up

– Now there are many RSS readers and authoring tools available

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

RSS Viewers

Ways of accessing RSS feeds:

– Blog – eg. bloglines

– Web pages

– Bookmark interfaces –Mozilla Firefox ‘live’ bookmarks

– Tickertape

– Email alerts

– Email clients - Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird

RSS File Format• RSS is a light xml based formatChannels<rss version="2.0">

<channel>

<title>BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition</title>

<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/default.stm</link>

<description>Updated every minute of every day</description>

<language>en-gb</language>

RSS News Items<item>

<title>Primary reading set for overhaul</title>

<description>The way children are taught to read in primary schools in England will be shaken up, the government confirms.</description>

<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/education/4485062.stm</link>

<pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2005 09:46:17 GMT</pubDate>

</item>

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

RSS Authoring ToolsCreating RSS feeds:

– Hand coding

– Client authoring tools

– Web-based tools• http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/

– Blogs

– Transformation by anapplication or a webserver program thatconverts to HTML to RSS

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Publishing an RSS Feed• Upload the RSS file to a web server at a ‘persistent’ location

e.g. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2005/news.xml

• Use the <link> tag in your news page so RSS tools like FireFox live bookmarks can be used

– <link href="http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2005/news.xml" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="IWMW 2005 News" />

• Validate the news feed - http://feedvalidator.org/

• Add to WebCT – Laura Shaw will demonstrate how to add a news feed to WebCT

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Podcasting - What is it?• Podcasting is a very popular subject in the press – over hyped?

– Some say it’s transforming society and freeing the airwaves

– Podcasting does allow you to set up a radio station and ‘broadcast’ on the web easily and cheaply

• RSS and Podcasting:

– Podcasting is an application of RSS 2.0: It is simply the syndication of audio, typically mp3 files, instead of

text (RSS news feeds) You can schedule the download of the mp3 files and listen to them

offline e.g. on a portable mp3 player such as an Apple iPod

– Very easy for the end user and relatively easy for the publisher

– It can be difficult to do well –it helps to have some sound recording skills• Many Podcast directories http://www.podcastalley.com/, BBC

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Podcasting and [e-]LearningThe University of Bath provides a highly-regarded e-learning Blog, Auricle

– http://www.bath.ac.uk/dacs/cdntl/pMachine/morriblog.php

Auricle has now added some Podcasts:

– Skype interviews

However, Podcasting still fairly new to HE sector

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Institutional Web Management WorkshopPodcasting at Institutional Web Management Workshop, Manchester, 6-8 July:

– Brief Podcasts released prior to event

– One keynote talks now podcasted

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Accessing a PodcastTo access a Podcast:

• Install Podcast software e.g. iTunes, Juice, Jager, Blogmatrix, …

• Add the URL of RSS file to the podcast software

– IWMW 2005

– BBC Film reviews

• Various configuration options are usually available Scheduling for downloads The download location of mp3 file

• Transfer files to portable mp3 player such as an iPod (using e.g. iTunes, Winamp)

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Creating a Podcast• Make the recording:

– Install audio recording software e.g. Audacity open source software or use Windows Sound Recorder

– Best to use good quality microphone and a PC

– Recording usually made in a ‘native’ file format such as ‘wav’ and then converted to mp3 file

• Upload the recording to a web server

• Create an RSS file for the recording

Creating a Podcast (2)Early adopters approach – copy & edit an existing RSS file

<item><title>Podcast 1 For IWMW 2005</title><link>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/…podcasts/podcast-iwmw-2005-01.mp3</link><guid>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/…/podcasts/#podcast-01</guid><description>This introductory Podcast describes what a Podcast is and ….( 2.5 minute long MP3 recording, ~1.6 MB).</description><enclosure url="http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/…/podcasts/podcast-iwmw-2005-01.mp3" length="1575770" type="audio/mpeg"/><pubDate>Sun, 12 Jun 2005 ...</pubDate></item>

<channel><title>IWMW 2005 Podcasts</title><link>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/podcasts/podcasts.xml</link><description>Podcasts About IWMW 2005</description><language>en-gb</language><copyright>Creative Commons - Attribution and Share-alike</copyright><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jun 2005 10:00:00 GMT</pubDate>

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Usage Scenarios

• Podcasting is not a replacement for the ‘real thing’ – the live lecture theatre experience

• But it means you can …– access lectures, conference presentations etc. after the event

– Provide some support in case of problems (e.g. couldn't attend talk), conflicts (parallel sessions), …

– Provide a 'taster', helps in marketing, addresses additional areas (e.g. social activities), …

– Keeping informed of developments elsewhere

22nd November 2005 RSS Newsfeeds and PodcastingCombining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Questions?