Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome Making RSS work in your institution: Newsfeeds a workshop for IWMW2006 Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing Oxford University Computing Services OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Welcome
Making RSS work in your 1 Welcome to this workshop institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Agenda
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Welcome to this workshop
Making RSS work in your This document is available at http://www.oucs.ox. institution: a workshop for ac.uk/oxitems/presentations/iwmw2006/ IWMW2006 I’m Barry Cornelius. Welcome I work for the Information Services group of Newsfeeds Oxford University’s Computing Services. Reading a newsfeed I’ve been at Oxford for about 15 months, and was Formats previously at the University of Durham. Institutional uses How about you?
Providing Who are you? OXITEMS Where are you from? OXITEMS Example What do you know about RSS and newsfeeds? Are you using a content management system, and, Other issues if so, has it got facilities for newsfeeds? Final issues Agenda
Making RSS work in your Welcome institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Welcome Formats Newsfeeds
Reading a Institutional uses newsfeed Providing OXITEMS Formats
Institutional OXITEMS Example uses Other issues Providing OXITEMS Hands-on OXITEMS Example Final issues Other issues
Final issues Newsfeeds
Making RSS work in your 1 Newsfeeds: what are newsfeeds? institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Newsfeeds: how can I detect them?
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Newsfeeds: what are newsfeeds?
Making RSS work in your Establishing newsfeeds is a relatively new mechanism institution: a workshop for for delivering information. IWMW2006 Essentially, a newsfeed is a collection of related items. Welcome Many web sites are providing newsfeeds. Newsfeeds For example, the BBC has several newsfeeds, Reading a newsfeed one for UK News, one for World News, ... . Formats The web page Institutional uses http:
Providing //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm OXITEMS provides links to some of the BBC’s newsfeeds. OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Newsfeeds: how can I detect them?
Making RSS work in your There are several icons that indicate a newsfeed is institution: a workshop for available from a web site, e.g. IWMW2006 ,
Welcome and
Newsfeeds .
Reading a If you click on a newsfeed or a Formats , you will often be taken to a web page containing Institutional uses the code of the newsfeed. Providing For example, go to: OXITEMS http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/ OXITEMS Example and click on a Other issues icon. Final issues From the output, you can see that newsfeeds are coded using a markup language (in the same way that ordinary web pages are coded in HTML). Hidden away in all this markup is a list of items. You do not need to understand this markup. In the Location textbox of your browser, you will find the URL of this newsfeed. The URL will be useful if you want to subscribe to the newsfeed (as we will see later). Reading a newsfeed
Making RSS work in your 1 Reading a newsfeed: overview institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Reading a newsfeed: different ways 3 Reading a newsfeed: using Firefox Welcome 4 Reading a newsfeed: using Thunderbird Newsfeeds 5 Reading a Reading a newsfeed: using a program newsfeed 6 Reading a newsfeed: from a Google page Formats 7 Institutional Reading a newsfeed: using Bloglines uses 8 Reading a newsfeed: from a web page Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: overview
Making RSS work in your There are many ways in which you can read a institution: a workshop for newsfeed. IWMW2006 Usually it is a two stage process. Welcome First, you tell a newsfeed reader which newsfeeds you Newsfeeds want to read. Reading a newsfeed Then the newsfeed reader will do the hard work of Formats getting the items of the newsfeeds and delivering the Institutional information to you. uses Providing From time to time, the newsfeed reader will get new OXITEMS items. OXITEMS Example Although newsfeed readers work in different ways, the Other issues crucial idea is: you do not have to visit each of the Final issues websites yourself. Reading a newsfeed: different ways
Making RSS work in your Here are some of the ways of reading a newsfeed: institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Some web browsers (e.g., Firefox) allow you to establish a live bookmark to the URL of a newsfeed. Welcome Although currently Internet Explorer does not have this Newsfeeds facility, something similar will be available in IE 7. Reading a newsfeed Some email clients (e.g., Opera Mail and Thunderbird) Formats allow you to get the items of a newsfeed delivered into Institutional uses the email client like ordinary messages. Providing You can install a feedreader program, OXITEMS
OXITEMS e.g., Awasu, NewsGator, NewzCrawler Example And there are web sites where you can subscribe to Other issues newsfeeds, e.g., Bloglines, Google, Yahoo! Final issues If you know how to create web pages, you could provide a web page that displays the contents of a newsfeed. Reading a newsfeed: using Firefox
Making RSS work in your Some web browsers (e.g., Firefox) allow you to institution: a workshop for establish a live bookmark to the URL of a newsfeed. IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Firefox
Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Thunderbird
Making RSS work in your Some email clients (e.g., Thunderbird) allow you to get institution: a workshop for the items of a newsfeed delivered into the email client IWMW2006 like ordinary messages.
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Thunderbird
Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using a program
Making RSS work in your You can install a feedreader program. institution: a workshop for Examples are: IWMW2006 Linux: Akregator, NewsFeed
Welcome Macs: NetNewsWire, Newsfire Windows: Awasu, FeedDemon, Newz Crawler, Newsfeeds RssReader Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: from a Google page
Making RSS work in your First go to http://www.google.co.uk/ institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Then use the link labelled Personalised Home. If you are not logged in, use the link labelled Sign in. Welcome You will need a Google account and you can either use Newsfeeds a Google Mail e-mail address or some other e-mail Reading a newsfeed address. Formats You can subscribe to a newsfeed by using the Institutional uses Add Content link.
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: from a Google page
Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Bloglines
Making RSS work in your Besides Google, there are other places where you can institution: a workshop for subscribe to newsfeeds. IWMW2006 Another one that I’ve used is
Welcome http://www.bloglines.com/ Newsfeeds Once again, you have to register using an e-mail Reading a newsfeed address.
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Bloglines
Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Reading a newsfeed: from a web page
Making RSS work in your At the point in the web page where you want to output a institution: a workshop for newsfeed, include something like: IWMW2006 Reading a newsfeed where all the text between src=" and "> should be on Formats one line (with no spaces). Replace the URL Institutional uses http://www.jobs.ac.uk/rss/disc/0700.xml
Providing by the URL of the newsfeed that interests you. OXITEMS This uses a facility provided by UKOLN that first goes OXITEMS Example off to the website containing the newsfeed and then Other issues displays the news items as a web page. Final issues Here is a link to a web page containing the above code: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ presentations/iwmw2006/jobs.html Formats
Making RSS work in your 1 Newsfeed formats: numerous standards institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Newsfeed formats: who will win? 3 Newsfeed formats: does it matter? Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Newsfeed formats: numerous standards
Making RSS work in your As has already been mentioned, newsfeeds are coded institution: a workshop for using a markup language. IWMW2006 Unfortunately, there are several markup languages that
Welcome are often used. Newsfeeds They include: RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3, Atom 1.0. Reading a newsfeed You can see examples of the first three by visiting the Formats following: Institutional http://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/ uses
Providing rdf.xml OXITEMS http://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/ OXITEMS Example rss.xml
Other issues http://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/ Final issues atom.xml Newsfeed formats: who will win?
Making RSS work in your Atom 1.0 was released in August 2005. institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 My view is that Atom 1.0 will become more dominant. Reasons are given at http: Welcome //www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/formats/ Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Newsfeed formats: does it matter?
Making RSS work in your Does it matter that there are numerous formats? institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Although it is useful to know that there are different formats, in many respects it is irrelevant. Welcome This is because many readers will read most formats. Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Institutional uses
Making RSS work in your 1 How do newsfeeds fit into your institution? institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues How do newsfeeds fit into your institution?
Making RSS work in your Time for you to get involved: institution: a workshop for How could your institution use newsfeeds? IWMW2006 Think of different kinds of information that might usefully be delivered through a newsfeed. Welcome What are the advantages/disadvantages of using a Newsfeeds newsfeed for delivering this information? Reading a newsfeed Divide into pairs and discuss. Formats Report back in 10 minutes. Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your The University’s Press and Information Office produces institution: a workshop for news stories every day. IWMW2006 Go to http://www.ox.ac.uk/ Welcome The text at the top right underneath Latest news is Newsfeeds produced by outputting the first item of an OXITEMS Reading a newsfeed newsfeed (called offices/university-news).
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your If you use the link labelled More news stories, you will institution: a workshop for be taken to the web page IWMW2006 http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/
Welcome All the items of the newsfeed are displayed on this Newsfeeds page. Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your Go to http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/ institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Choose Current Job Vacancies from the Staff menu. That takes you to http://www.history.ox.ac. Welcome uk/faculty/jobs/index.htm Newsfeeds The information on this page is generated from reading Reading a newsfeed the OXITEMS newsfeed histfac/news. Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your Go to http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/ institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 On the right hand side of the page under the headings News, Seminars and Studentships, three OXITEMS
Welcome newsfeeds are output (zoo/news, zoo/seminars Newsfeeds and zoo/studentships). Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your The Health Care Libraries provides services to the staff institution: a workshop for and students of the University’s Medical Sciences IWMW2006 Division and to staff of local healthcare organisations
Welcome and Trusts. Newsfeeds It provides a main web page at Reading a http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/hcl/ newsfeed
Formats The area with the light blue background has been Institutional generated from the medsci/hcl newsfeed. uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your Go to http://www.materials.ox.ac.uk/ institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 At the bottom left hand side of the page, click on Information. Welcome The info and news page appears. Newsfeeds In the menu on the right hand side, click on Reading a newsfeed Recent News RSS. Formats The Newsfeeds page at http://www.materials. Institutional uses ox.ac.uk/infoandnews/newsfeeds.html Providing appears. OXITEMS
OXITEMS On this page, three newsfeeds are output: Example mat/news, mat/seminars and mat/jobs. Other issues
Final issues Uses of newsfeeds at Oxford University
Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006
Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Providing OXITEMS
Making RSS work in your 1 Providing an institutional newsfeed system institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Requirements of an institutional n’feed system 3 What is OXITEMS? Welcome 4 Using OXITEMS to set up newsfeeds Newsfeeds 5 Reading a Societies/clubs can also produce newsfeeds newsfeed 6 OXITEMS uses three levels of authorisation Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Providing an institutional newsfeed system
Making RSS work in your Although there are numerous ways in which you can institution: a workshop for read a newsfeed, there are no common ways of IWMW2006 maintaining news items.
Welcome Often websites generate RSS/Atom automatically from Newsfeeds databases or from a content management system. Reading a newsfeed In August 2005, we considered how newsfeeds could
Formats be provided at the University of Oxford. Institutional Oxford University’s IT is very devolved: all departments uses
Providing and all colleges have IT Support Staff (and, for OXITEMS example, provide their own web servers). OXITEMS Example Few of these have a content management system. Other issues And few departments/colleges were using newsfeeds. Final issues So, in August 2005, we started work on an institutional newsfeed system. Requirements of an institutional n’feed system
Making RSS work in your Authentication: institution: a workshop for people must authenticate to use the system IWMW2006 (using webauth) (http://webauth.stanford.edu/) Welcome Authorisation: we saw the need for three roles: Newsfeeds administrator for each unit Reading a newsfeed manager for each newsfeed Formats authors for each newsfeed Institutional uses It’s a bit similar to mailing lists.
Providing Devolved administration: OXITEMS make the main IT Support Staff person of a unit the OXITEMS Example main newsfeed administrator for that unit
Other issues allow that person to add other people as administrators
Final issues in this way, administration of the newsfeed system would not require intervention from Computing Services What is OXITEMS?
Making RSS work in your OXITEMS is a system (developed by institution: a workshop for Computing Services) that all members of the University IWMW2006 can use to store news items.
Welcome It assumes that any unit of the University will want to Newsfeeds create news items. Reading a newsfeed Here the word unit means any department, college,
Formats society, club or some other project.
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Using OXITEMS to set up newsfeeds
Making RSS work in your An OXITEMS newsfeed can be set up by someone that institution: a workshop for OXITEMS has been told is the administrator of the unit. IWMW2006 Automatically, the main ITSS person of a unit is an
Welcome OXITEMS administrator for that unit.
Newsfeeds That person (and any member of Computing Services)
Reading a can add other people as administrators for that unit. newsfeed An administrator can use OXITEMS to set up Formats newsfeeds without any involvement of Computing Institutional uses Services. Providing For example, the ITSS people of History, Materials and OXITEMS Zoology have set up the newsfeeds: OXITEMS Example histfac/jobs, histfac/medieval, Other issues mat/news, mat/seminars, mat/jobs, Final issues zoo/seminars, zoo/studentships. The Press and Information Office has set up: offices/university-news. Societies/clubs can also produce newsfeeds
Making RSS work in your For societies and clubs, the username associated with institution: a workshop for the society/club is an OXITEMS administrator for that IWMW2006 society/club.
Welcome So a person who authenticates with that username can Newsfeeds set up newsfeeds (without any involvement of Reading a Computing Services). newsfeed
Formats He/she can also add other people as administrators for Institutional the society/club. uses
Providing For example, a person who has webauthed with the OXITEMS username ouoc has set up the newsfeeds: OXITEMS Example clubs/ouoc/news,
Other issues clubs/ouoc/socials, Final issues clubs/ouoc/training. OXITEMS uses three levels of authorisation
Making RSS work in your It is appropriate for one or two people in a unit to institution: a workshop for control what newsfeeds can be set up. IWMW2006 E.g., to ensure a sensible naming scheme is employed.
Welcome The administrator can delegate the day-to-day running
Newsfeeds of a newsfeed to another person (called a manager). Reading a For example, the administrator could make the head of newsfeed a research group the manager of a newsfeed. Formats
Institutional The latter can in turn allocate authors, uses people who add news items to the newsfeed. Providing OXITEMS Although OXITEMS provides three roles OXITEMS (administrators, managers, authors), Example this need not be too much bureaucracy: ... Other issues
Final issues ... when an administrator creates a new newsfeed, they can quickly establish the initial values of the manager and the authors. OXITEMS Example
Making RSS work in your 1 Example: reading a newsfeed institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Example: setting up a new newsfeed 3 Example: adding an item to the newsfeed Welcome 4 Example: reading the new newsfeed Newsfeeds 5 Reading a Example: coping with disabled JavaScript newsfeed 6 Example: advertising the newsfeed Formats 7 Institutional Example: handling events uses 8 Example: viewing the newsfeed resource Providing OXITEMS 9 Example: configuring the resource OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Example: reading a newsfeed
Making RSS work in your Suppose some department (or college) has a web site. institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ demopages/zero.html Welcome The University’s Press and Information Office displays Newsfeeds its news stories at: Reading a newsfeed http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/ Formats These are available in an OXITEMS newsfeed called Institutional offices/university-news. uses Providing As mentioned earlier, the RSS icon can be used to OXITEMS locate this newsfeed’s URL. OXITEMS Example It is: http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/offices/ Other issues university-news/rss20.xml Final issues Suppose the department wants to output the items of this newsfeed on its home page. Example: reading a newsfeed
Making RSS work in your Earlier, we saw that ukoln.ac.uk provides a facility institution: a workshop for that goes off to a newsfeed site and delivers the items IWMW2006 of the newsfeed in a web page.
Welcome So, we can read a newsfeed by adding lines like the
Newsfeeds following to a web page:
Reading a Providing OXITEMS where all the text between src=" and "> should be on OXITEMS Example one line (with no spaces).
Other issues Suppose we add those lines to the department’s home
Final issues page. Here is a link to a new version of the home page: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ demopages/ukoln.html Example: reading a newsfeed
Making RSS work in your There is no need to go to ukoln.ac.uk. institution: a workshop for Instead, first add lines like the following to the head of IWMW2006 the web page: Formats Institutional And then, at the point in the web page where you want uses
Providing to output a newsfeed, include something like: OXITEMS Other issues
Final issues Here is a link to a new version of the home page: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ demopages/one.html Example: setting up a new newsfeed
Making RSS work in your The department now wants to produce its own institution: a workshop for newsfeed. IWMW2006 The main ITSS person of the department can set up
Welcome newsfeeds. Newsfeeds He/she needs to go to OXITEMS’s web page which is Reading a https: newsfeed //rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxonly/oxitems/ Formats
Institutional As this has been webauthed, it is available from uses anywhere. Providing OXITEMS Then they select the Add an ordinary newsfeed link. OXITEMS They need to enter information such as the Example name of the newsfeed, its title, its description, Other issues
Final issues who is going to manage the newsfeed, and so on. If the person is in Medical Sciences, they could set up a newsfeed with a name like medsci/news. Example: adding an item to the newsfeed
Making RSS work in your Having set up the newsfeed, they will want to add an institution: a workshop for item to the newsfeed. IWMW2006 They need to go to the OXITEMS’s web page again:
Welcome https: Newsfeeds //rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxonly/oxitems/ Reading a newsfeed This time, they click on the Add an item link. Formats They enter the news item, preview it and then add the Institutional news item to the newsfeed. uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Example: reading the new newsfeed
Making RSS work in your Then at the point in the department’s home page where institution: a workshop for they want to output this newsfeed, they can include: IWMW2006 Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed Here is a link to a new version of the home page:
Formats http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/
Institutional demopages/two.html uses
Providing Here is a mock-up page that illustrates other OXITEMS possibilities: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ OXITEMS Example oxitems/demopages/lots.html
Other issues
Final issues Example: coping with disabled JavaScript
Making RSS work in your The above code assumes the visitor’s browser has institution: a workshop for JavaScript enabled. IWMW2006 We need to provide an alternative if JavaScript has
Welcome been disabled. Newsfeeds Here is some code that deals with both possibilities: Reading a newsfeed enabled or disabled. uses Example: advertising the newsfeed
Making RSS work in your You should add to the
element of the HTML institution: a workshop for page an element like the following: IWMW2006 Reading a newsfeed This causes some browsers to output an icon indicating Formats that a newsfeed is available from this page. Institutional uses Alongside the output of the newsfeed, you should Providing OXITEMS display a button providing access to the newsfeed’sOXITEMS URL: Example Final issues Example: handling events
Making RSS work in your Besides ordinary newsfeeds, OXITEMS has institution: a workshop for events newsfeeds that are better at handling events. IWMW2006 If you add an item to an events newsfeed, OXITEMS
Welcome will ask you for lots of information about the event. Newsfeeds The RSS/Atom formats do not have elements for Reading a newsfeed describing events. Formats One could augment the RSS/Atom with XML describing Institutional an event. However, would feedreaders understand uses
Providing whatever XML you supplied? OXITEMS It is better to include HTML describing the event in the OXITEMS Example description element of an RSS feed or the Other issues content element of an Atom feed. Final issues The feedreader can use this HTML to render details about the event. Example: handling events
Making RSS work in your Because people will want to output different things institution: a workshop for and in a different order, OXITEMS allows you to provide IWMW2006 a template for the HTML.
Welcome If you do not provide a template, a default is used.
Newsfeeds Go to http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ Reading a pages/events-demo.html newsfeed to see an example of what is produced. Formats
Institutional Go to http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ uses templates/events-default.tpl Providing OXITEMS to see the code of the default template. OXITEMS Decided not to use Smarty (from Example http://smarty.php.net/) because it allows Other issues people to do too many things. Final issues Instead we have invented our own templating language. It just has variable substitution and choose statements. Example: handling events
Making RSS work in your It is best if the HTML conforms to the hCalendar institution: a workshop for specification IWMW2006 (http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar).
Welcome It is then possible for others to scrape the RSS/Atom to Newsfeeds produce an iCalendar file (iCalendar). Reading a newsfeed (iCalendar files enable event information to be imported
Formats into calendaring programs.) Institutional OXITEMS provides ways of producing iCalendar files uses
Providing from its newsfeeds. OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Other issues
Making RSS work in your 1 Other issues: adding categories institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Other issues: aggregating newsfeeds 3 Other issues: automatic email of news items Welcome 4 Other issues: feed validation Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Other issues: adding categories
Making RSS work in your When an author is adding an item, OXITEMS allows institution: a workshop for the author to categorise the item. IWMW2006 For example, if you are providing news items for a
Welcome department which has several research groups, you Newsfeeds might wish to add a category to each item to say that it Reading a is about a particular research group. newsfeed
Formats Having categorised each item of a newsfeed, it is Institutional possible for people to obtain from your newsfeed those uses items referring to a particular category. Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Other issues: aggregating newsfeeds
Making RSS work in your You can ask OXITEMS to display the result of institution: a workshop for combining the items of two or more newsfeeds. IWMW2006 You can do aggregation by using a comma-separated
Welcome list for the name of the newsfeed. Examples are:
Newsfeeds Formats Final issues http://rss.oucs.ox. ac.uk/oucs/news,ict/ict-news/rss10.xml Other issues: automatic email of news items
Making RSS work in your When you set up a newsfeed, you can associate an institution: a workshop for email address with the newsfeed. IWMW2006 Typically, this would be the email address of a
Welcome mailing list. Newsfeeds Every time an item is added to the newsfeed, Reading a newsfeed details of the item are also sent to the email address. Formats If the newsfeed is an events newsfeed, the message Institutional has an attachment giving the details of the event in uses
Providing iCalendar format (iCalendar). OXITEMS The message is sent from the person who added the OXITEMS Example item to the newsfeed. Other issues
Final issues Other issues: feed validation
Making RSS work in your It is tricky to ensure that a newsfeed system is institution: a workshop for generating RSS/Atom that is correct. IWMW2006 The following web site provides you with the ability to
Welcome get an RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 newsfeed Newsfeeds validated: Reading a http://feedvalidator.org/ newsfeed
Formats For example, the OXITEMS newsfeed for the University Institutional News is accessible at uses http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/offices/ Providing OXITEMS university-news/rss20.xml. OXITEMS It can be validated by going to: Example http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url= Other issues
Final issues http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/offices/ university-news/rss20.xml. Hands-on
Making RSS work in your An exercise sheet that gives you some hands-on institution: a workshop for experience of OXITEMS is available at: IWMW2006 http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ presentations/iwmw2006/exercises.xml Welcome
Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Final issues
Making RSS work in your 1 How easy is this to do? institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Selling this to your institution 3 Final thoughts Welcome 4 Thank you Newsfeeds
Reading a newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues How easy is this to do?
Making RSS work in your What does OXITEMS use behind the scenes: institution: a workshop for a web server able to handle PHP IWMW2006 (or some other scripting language) (e.g., Apache) (with forms to obtain information from the user) Welcome a database server (e.g., PostgreSQL) to store Newsfeeds information Reading a an authentication server (e.g., webauth) newsfeed an authorisation server: Formats Assumes a person belongs to a unit. So how does it get Institutional uses the person’s unit?
Providing Assumes a person has an e-mail address and a display OXITEMS name. But these are not essential. OXITEMS Assumes a unit has an administrator. Example
Other issues
Final issues Selling this to your institution
Making RSS work in your Here is a list of some of the things we did to sell this to institution: a workshop for departments and colleges at the University of Oxford: IWMW2006 Talk to people in departments about their requirements. This led to the following being added: Welcome items automatically sent to a mailing list Newsfeeds ability to add categories to an item Reading a providing better handling of items that are events newsfeed Make the system devolved so people help themselves Formats Provide information about the system in various ways: Institutional uses documentation at different levels
Providing lunchtime one hour sessions OXITEMS getting people past the initial shock barrier OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Final thoughts
Making RSS work in your Time for you to get involved again: institution: a workshop for If you were sceptic about the role of newsfeeds when IWMW2006 we started today, are you now more convinced? Have you had any other thoughts about other uses of Welcome newsfeeds? Newsfeeds What stops you from adopting these ideas in your Reading a institution? newsfeed
Formats
Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues Thank you
Making RSS work in your Making RSS work in your institution: institution: a workshop for a workshop for IWMW2006 IWMW2006 Barry Cornelius,
Welcome Computing Services, Newsfeeds University of Oxford Reading a newsfeed [email protected] Formats http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ Institutional uses
Providing OXITEMS
OXITEMS Example
Other issues
Final issues