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7 things you should know about... RSS

ScenarioFor several semesters, Dr. Shaw has maintained Websites or his chemistry courses. Each site includes read-

ing lists and the syllabus, and he also uses a blog on the

site to inorm students about additional resources and

changes to lab times and locations. Each lab group,

consisting o ve students, also has its own blog, where

they report results rom experiments. Beginning in the

spring semester, Shaw adds RSS eeds to the siteone

each or his blog and the lab group blogs. RSS eeds

deliver updated Web content to subscribed users, and

Shaw tells the students to subscribe to all o the eeds

in the course. He also suggests that they subscribe to

the chemistry departments RSS eed or its Web page,which includes events and news that might be o inter-

est to the students, as well as podcasts o pertinent lec-

tures, both on campus and rom other institutions.

Students subscribe to the eeds using a variety o RSS

aggregators, chosen based on personal preerence. At

regular intervals, the aggregators automatically check

or and download new content rom the RSS eeds.

When they look at their aggregators, the students see

a list o all the eeds they are subscribed to and which

ones have new content, which they can quickly access

through the aggregator. Several o the students are in

other classes that also use RSS or course updates. By

organizing all o their RSS eeds in their aggregators,

those students establish a single point o contact or

updates to their classes. Many students also add RSS

eeds rom other online sources relevant to their course-

work, creating a customized, up-to-date resource or

their academic work.

Shaw ollows the RSS eeds to monitor the progress

o the lab groups. Each day he checks his aggregator

or new content, and, when he is away rom campus,

he monitors the eeds on his PDA. With two introduc-

tory courses o more than one hundred students each,

using RSS eeds allows Shaw to keep tabs on all o

his lab groups more easily than he could with e-mail

updates rom students or by looking or blog updates

on the course Web site.

What is it?RSS is a protocol that lets users subscribe to online content usingan RSS reader or aggregator, which checks subscribed Web

pages and automatically downloads new content. The aggregators

display a list o subscriptions, with highlighting or another indicator

o RSS eeds that have added content since the user last logged

in. Without having to go to all o the individual Web sites, users can

quickly and easily access new material rom sites that interest them.

For many, RSS has become the pipe through which content fows

rom providers to consumers. What makes RSS important is that

users decide exactly what content is allowed through that pipe.

Since its introduction in the late 1990s, RSS has become almost

ubiquitous. An excellent mechanism or distributing regularly

updated content, RSS is a natural complement to blogs, news

sites, photo-sharing applications, and podcasts. The popularity

o podcasting results on some level rom RSS technology. When

new podcasts are available, the aggregator (or, in this case, pod-

catcher) automatically downloads the new le to your computer or

portable music player.

Whos doing it?Bloggers represented many o the early users o RSS, which has

since been widely adopted as a way to share inormation rom

virtually any source, including machine data. At both the institu-

tional and departmental levels, large numbers o colleges and uni-

versities have incorporated RSS eeds into their online oerings.

Petersons maintains a College and University Feed Directory that

catalogs hundreds o higher education RSS eeds organized by

topic area, such as admissions, libraries, research centers, and

technology. Listed in research centers, or example, is a Harvard

University Gazette RSS eed that provides updates about scientic

research conducted at the university. Other eeds relate to scholar-

ship opportunities, calendars o campus events, new acquisitions

by libraries, tips or students rom university IT sta, and numerous

other areas o interest to students, aculty, sta, or alumni.

How does it work?Making content available through RSS requires adding a small bito code to a Web site, typically with an accompanying icon that lets

users know that the content on the page is available through RSS.

Users click on the icon or other RSS link to add a subscription to

their aggregators, which allow users to set parameters such as how

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requently the application looks or new content and how long down-

loaded items are kept. Rather than checking 20 or 50 or 100 blogs

every day, or example, you can subscribe to the blogs RSS eeds

and simply check your aggregator to see new content added to any o

them. For some content, RSS eeds deliver headlines and short bits

o teaser text, driving users to the content providers site to accessthe ull resource. In other cases, such as podcasts and photos, RSS

eeds deliver all o the content to users. I you subscribe to a Flickr

eed, or example, new photos added to that eed will be downloaded

to your aggregator, where you can access them locally.

In the early days o RSS, users needed separate reader or aggre-

gator applications or their RSS subscriptions. Increasingly, Web

browsers and even operating systems incorporate RSS unction-

ality, giving a much wider range o users access to RSS eeds

through applications they already use. In addition, devices such as

PDAs and cell phones now support RSS.

Why is it signifcant?In many ways, RSS answers the question o how to lter and orga-

nize the vast amount o inormation on the Web. Internet users

tend to settle on preerred sources o inormation, whether news

sites, blogs, wikis, or other online resources that regularly update

content. RSS allows users to create a list o those sources in an

application that automatically retrieves updates, saving consider-

able time and eort. RSS eeds can be oered at varying levels o

granularity, urther enhancing users ability to speciy exactly what

inormation they want to receive. For example, a college or univer-

sity might oer one RSS eed or the institutions main news page,

sharing inormation that concerns the institution broadly, and other

eeds ocused on the college o arts and sciences, the history

department, or research being conducted by a proessor o Euro-

pean history. Users can subscribe to eeds independently, tailoring

the content they receive to their unique interests and needs.

Growing numbers o online resources oer RSS unctionality.

Because applications such as browsers and operating systems

increasingly support RSS, the technology has the potential to

become the primary vehicle through which users interact with the

Internet. Further, RSS can oer an alternative to e-mail newslet-

ters, which raise concerns about privacy and spam.

What are the downsides?To take advantage o RSS eeds, users must locate online sourcesthey trust, which can be a time-consuming task. Even i a site is

deemed reliable, it may not oer RSS eeds. Moreover, because

using RSS depends on making specic choices about which con-

tent you see, users who limit their Internet usage to reading RSS

eeds will miss the serendipity o pulling up a sites home page just

to see i something catches their attention. The fipside o placing

limits on the overfow o online inormation is that you cut yoursel

o rom resources that might prove valuable.

Not all content is appropriate or RSS, such as a published article

that is not going to change. Nevertheless, Web pages like these

sometimes oer RSS eeds, indicating that appropriate guidelines

or how the technology should be used are still evolving. In addition

to several versions o RSS, a competing protocol rom Atom oers

an alternative technology or the same purpose. Underlying the

various protocols are undamental disagreements among devel-

opers about how the tools should work.

Where is it going?Increasing numbers o Web sites will oer RSS eeds, and RSS

enables new ways or data to fow between applications. A course

management system, or example, can be congured to send an

RSS eed about its current status. I trouble is detected, an update

about the problem is sent to users or other systems subscribed to

that eed. Mashup applications that combine data rom disparate

systems can also take advantage o RSS technology to maintain

awareness o data updates. Similarly, some social networking sites

allow users to add RSS subscriptions to their pages. For instance, a

Facebook user can subscribe her prole page to her Flickr RSS eed.

When she adds a picture to her Flickr account, that photo is addedto her Facebook page (with Facebook acting as the aggregator).

Some services attempt to quantiy the number o individuals sub-

scribed to specic RSS eeds, though these numbers are currently

only estimates. Tools to track RSS usageincluding how many

people are subscribed, how many o those subscribers open spe-

cic links, and other usage datawill likely become more sophis-

ticated and more accurate as organizations seek to understand

the eectiveness o RSS eorts. By enabling new channels o data

exchange, as with research data and communities o learners,

RSS has the potential to create a stronger connection between

knowledge creation with individual learning.

What are the implications or

teaching and learning?RSS provides an ecient way or students to keep in touch with

aculty, stay inormed about coursework and other academic

activities, and ollow developments in their elds o study, which

or many will be an important skill in their proessional lives. The

exchange o inormation that RSS acilitates can also take place

rom students to aculty or among the students in various courses

within a department. Faculty use RSS to help them eciently use

the Internet to exchange disciplinary inormation and increase

awareness o important developments. Many aculty also use

online repositories o learning objects to locate educational resourc-

es to include in their courses, and initiatives including MERLOT

and OpenCourseWare oer RSS eeds that notiy subscribers

when new content has been added in particular academic areas.