Download - Advanced Uses of RSS
About Me
• Research Associate at ICBL http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk
• ticTOCs http://www.tictocs.ac.uk
• Gold Dust http://www.hull.ac.uk/golddust
Use and Re-Use of RSS
• Viewed in RSS Reader/Browser– Individual Use
• Embedded into websites.– Others displaying your news on
their websites
• Machine to Machine Use– Used by service providers and
aggregators such as News Now, ticTOCs and Gold Dust.
Categories of RSS Feeds
• General Feeds– News, Blogs, Job Adverts,
Events, Website Updates, etc.
• More Specific Feeds– Journal Tables of Contents, Items
in Institutional Repositories, Learning Resources, Calls for Funding, Conference Announcements, Industry News, Calls for Papers, etc.
RSS Formats
• RSS 1.0– Uses RDF– Can be extended through use of
Modules DC, PRISM etc.– Provides more structured metadata
• RSS 2.0– Simple format– Generally used to provide textual
updates, news, blogs etc.
Journal Table of Contents
• Many Publishers are now providing RSS feeds for TOCs.
• Quality of data provided varies
• Little standardisation
ticTOCs
• JISC funded Project Piloting a current awareness service.
• Collection of over 11,000 Journal TOC RSS feeds from over 300 publishers
• Allows users to find feeds to export to their own reader or view in ticTOCs
• Will produce guidelines for publishers producing RSS feeds.
Guidelines for Publishers of TOCs
• Use RSS 1.0 specification • Use RSS 1.0 Modules (dc, prism)• Use well formed and valid XML files for your
TOC RSS feeds • Use the RSS Content Module to present
HTML marked up content.• Do not restrict access to TOC RSS feeds.• Produce regular static copies of RSS feeds for
fast downloading• Provide a choice of feeds (e.g current issue,
recent issues)• Provide up-to-date OPML files
Gold Dust
• JISC funded Research project investigating alerting users about items of interest based on usage of ticTOCs.
• Testing using 50 Engineers
• Push highly relevant items from other RSS feeds.
The Future for ticTOCs
• Embedding ticTOCs into the research process
• Standardising TOC RSS feeds
• Increasing the number of TOC RSS feeds
The Future for Gold Dust
• Develop auto discovery and delivery services
• Explore possibility of similar service in domains other than engineering.