Remote RSS feeds block

shamelessly unedited hence unfinished

RSS is a technology where visitors to your site can choose to have the site send new postings to an RSS reader. RSS allows a user to build a custom news service. When users “subscribe” to your RSS-enabled page, they will get new postings from Forums and/or new entries in Glossaries, without having to visit your Moodle. Moodle has an RSS aggregator (collector) for these modules. The end user does need a way to display the news-feed. Windows and Macintosh RSS news readers can be found at: • http://www.bloglines.com/ (web based) • http://www.fastbuzz.com/main.jsp (web based) - or you can put RSS into a search engine to find more.

Why use RSS? If you normally try to keep updated on what is happening on say 10 or 15 different websites, RSS can help. If all these web pages are RSS enabled, then you can put all 15 RSS feeds into your RSS news-reader, and see all the new things going on in one place.

RSS Feeds Moodle supports outgoing (out of Moodle) RSS feeds. This option needs to be enabled by your Moodle administrator. Once enabled, RSS is available in the Forum and Glossary modules.

RSS RSS is a technology where visitors to your site can choose to have the site send new postings to an RSS aggregator (a collector). RSS allows a user to build a custom news service. When users “subscribe” to your RSS-enabled page, they will get new postings from forums and/or new entries in glossaries without having to visit your Moodle site every day. The end user does need a way to collect the news-feed, called an aggregator. Some aggregators can be found at: http://www.bloglines.com/ (web based) http://www.fastbuzz.com/main.jsp (web based) or you can put RSS into a search engine to find more.

Why use RSS? If you normally try to keep updated on what is happening on 10 or 15 different webpages, RSS can help. If all 15 pages are RSS enabled, then you can put all 15 RSS feeds into your one aggregator, and can see all the new things going on in all the pages, but you only have to look one place.

3.2 RSS in Forums When RSS is enabled, you will see two new questions in the Forum setup: - RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off for this forum. When set to “None,” RSS is disabled. When set to “Discussions,” the RSS feed will send out new discussions to subscribers. When set to “Posts,” the RSS feed will send out any new posts to subscribers. - Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of articles that go out via RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers. As new posts (or discussions) get added, the oldest post/discussion gets replaced on the RSS feed. If your forum gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number high. When you enable RSS in your forum, your users will see an orange RSS button on the main page of the forum (in the upper right-hand side): Notice the forum description tells the users about RSS. I do that in case students are not familiar with RSS. If you click on the RSS button, you will get taken to a page that looks something like this: The stuff on the page is not important to you or your users (but Moodle needs it!). For the purposes of RSS feeds, you (or the user) would copy the URL (the web address) from the top of the browser, like this: You (or your user) would then paste this address into an RSS aggregator. When I put the address into my test account at bloglines.com, it looks like this: Now you (or your user) can get the latest posts or discussions along with all the other RSS (news) feeds that you are subscribed to.

3.3 RSS in Glossaries Moodle’s RSS feed works almost the same in the glossary module as it does in the forum module (see 3.2 for RSS in forums). If RSS is enabled, you will see two additional fields under the glossary setup page: - RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off. When set to “None,” the RSS feed is disabled. When set to “Concepts with authors,” the RSS feed will send out the glossary entries with the name of the author. When set to “Concepts without authors,” the RSS feed sends out glossary entries without the name of the author. - Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of entries that go out via RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers. As new entries get added, the oldest entry gets replaced on the RSS feed. If your glossary gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number high. When RSS is enabled for your glossary, an orange RSS button appears on the main page (in the upper right-hand side): Notice the glossary description tells the users about RSS. I do that in case students are not familiar with RSS. When you click on the RSS button, you should see a page something like this: The stuff on the page is not important to you or your users (but Moodle needs it!). For the purposes of RSS feeds, you (or the user) would copy the URL (the web address) from the top of the browser, like this: You (or your user) would then paste this address into an RSS aggregator. When I put the address into my test account at bloglines.com, it looks like this: Now you (or your user) can get the latest posts or discussions along with all the other RSS (news) feeds that you are subscribed to.

RSS in Forums When RSS is enabled, two new properties in Forum setup appear (Fig. 45). • RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off for this forum. When set to “None,” RSS is disabled. When set to “Discussions,” the RSS feed will send out new discussions to subscribers. When set to “Posts,” the RSS feed will send out any new posts to subscribers. • Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of articles that go out via RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers. As new posts (or discussions) get added, the oldest post/discussion gets replaced on the RSS feed. If your forum gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number high. When you enable RSS in your Forum, your users will see an orange RSS button on the main page of the forum (in the upper right-hand side), as shown in Fig. 46. If you click on the RSS button you will get taken to a page that looks something like Fig. 47. The stuff on the page is not important to you or your users (but Moodle needs it!). For the purposes of RSS feeds, you (or the user) would copy the URL (the web address) from the top of the browser, and paste this address into an RSS news-reader. Now you (or your students) can get the latest posts or discussions along with all the other RSS (news) feeds that you are subscribed to.

More about RSS in Glossaries you will find here

More about RSS in Forums you will find here

Moodle’s RSS feed works almost the same in the Glossary module as it does in the Forum module. If RSS is enabled, you will see two additional fields in Glossary setup (Fig. 48). • RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off. When set to “None,” the RSS feed is disabled. When set to “Concepts with authors,” the RSS feed will send out the glossary entries with the name of the author. When set to “Concepts without authors,” the RSS feed sends out glossary entries without the name of the author. • Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of entries that go out via RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers. As new entries get added, the oldest entry gets replaced on the RSS feed. If your glossary gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number high. When RSS is enabled for your Glossary, an orange RSS button appears on the main page (Fig. 49), just like when the Forum is enabled. Create a Glossary description that tells students about RSS. When a user clicks on the RSS button, they see the XML code displayed (Fig. 47), needed by the news-reader. Once a user has the RSS news-feed link, adding it to a reader (Fig. 50) is simple and will then display Forum and Glossary aggregated information, along with other information they subscribe to. Bloglines is an example of an online web-based RSS news-reader. Fig. 48 Fig. 49 Fig. 50 Course Management 39 http://moodle.org Fig. 55 Learner Management Features In this section of the manual you will be introduced to Moodle’s features for managing learner activity, including: • Groups • Activities block • Administration block