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RSS: Information Delivery Made Really Simple

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GOAL

Students will learn the concept of RSS and practical applications and ways to use the technology to receive current information from web sites and databases. This will include how to identify sites featuring RSS, sign up for an RSS reader account, create and manage subscriptions.

STANDARDS

This class addresses Competency Standard Two from the ACRL Objectives for Information Literacy Instruction: The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently. In particular, it is relevant to Performance Indicator 3: "The information literate student retrieves information online or in person using a variety of methods"; and Performance Indicator 5: "The information literate student extracts, records, and manages the information and its sources."

OBJECTIVES

• Students will sign up for a Bloglines account and access the "My Blogs" page.
• Students will locate the RSS feed indicator when shown a sample web page.
• Students will use their Bloglines account to subscribe to the RSS feed of a website chosen from a provided list.
• Students will subscribe to a search of their own choice in the database Academic Search Complete.

TIME NEEDED

This is a 50-minute drop-in workshop.

LEARNER ANALYSIS

Typical attendees for similar workshops in the past have ranged all the way from undergraduates to senior faculty. Few younger undergraduates sign up for voluntary library workshops, but they do occasionally attend. Initial publicity for this workshop has drawn interest from librarians and staff as well. (The lesson plan refers to all learners in this class as "students" for simplicity.) While this is a technology workshop, the only skill required is comfort with a web browser, which few members of the university community lack. Most attendees will be familiar with the concept of database searching, but this can be explained briefly at the beginning of activity 7 if needed. While most (not necessarily all) attendees are expected to know what a blog is, the idea and uses of RSS are expected to be new to most attendees.

TEACHING STYLES

The instructor will utilize a variety of teaching styles during the course of the workshop, varying styles on a continual basis. Methods include lecture and discussion, a brief video, slide presentations, on-screen demonstration and hands-on active exercises. Sufficient time is allotted for individual help during active exercises and as questions arise during understanding checks. A handout is given out during class and a web page is available for students' reference afterwards.

MATERIALS

1. Handouts
2. Slide presentation
3. Computers with web access
4. Instructor computer with web access and projector

INSTRUCTOR AND STUDENT ACTIVITIES

[Slide 1 on screen as class starts]

1. Motivation
Begin with point-of-need examples to indicate how learners will be able to use this information, such as:

• How many of you read news sites or blogs, or sites that post periodic updates? Do you have several of them that you read? Do they post on a regular schedule?
• Who has an ongoing research topic that you do database searches for regularly?
• I used to have a bookmarks folder of all the sites that I read daily over my morning coffee: news, comics, blogs, and so on. Some of them had new articles daily, or weekly, or on different days, so I'd sometimes have to check them all if I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

Summarize how RSS addresses these information needs, such as:

• With RSS, all of your site updates come to one place. If there's no new content, you don't need to go out and check individual websites. Think of it as getting a magazine subscription rather than going to the newsstand every time you want to see if there's a new issue.
• It's like being able to roll your own daily newspaper with content from all over the web: CNN headlines, your favorite comics, a sports page from Bob's Baseball Blog, and stories from the Chronicle of Higher Education and Wired, all in one place.

2. Basic principles
[Slide 2]
Instructor explains: RSS is a feature used on most modern web pages that allows new content to be automatically pushed out to subscribers via "feeds" without their having to visit the actual sites in question. Sites featuring RSS content usually have one of these icons (or similar ones) somewhere on the site.

[Slide 3]
Instructor explains: There are three simple steps: set up a reader; subscribe to feeds; visit your reader page to read new content.

View 3-minute Common Craft video: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

3. Set up a reader
[Slides 4-5]
Students go to bloglines.com and sign up for a free account. Instructor circulates, answers questions and provides individual help as necessary.

4. Subscribe to feeds
[Slide 6]
Instructor demonstrates: Go to a web page with an RSS feed (such as time.com); copy the URL; click Add in Bloglines and paste URL.

[Slide 7]
Students choose one or more of the feeds listed on the back of the handout and try it independently. Instruction summary is on screen in case they need to refer to it. Instructor circulates to provide help if needed.

5. Read feeds
[Slide 8]
Instructor demonstrates: Go to bloglines.com/myblogs to see all your feeds in one place. If there's new content on any of your sites, there will be a numeric indicator next to the feed. Click the feed name to read a summary of the new content, and click the individual item if you want to see the whole thing on the original site.

6. Organize your feeds
[Slide 9]
Instructor demonstrates: Click the Edit link to organize your feeds. You can place feeds into folders, drag them into the order you prefer and delete them. Click Finished when done.

7. Subscribe to database searches
[Slide 10]
Instructor explains: More and more research databases provide RSS features. You can perform a search once, then subscribe to it in your RSS reader so that you automatically receive any new results that appear. (Slide show can be closed at this point.)

Instructor checks to make sure everyone has searched an article database before. If anyone has not, he briefly explains the concept, assuring them that he will walk them through the necessary steps.

Students go to the Academic Search Complete database while instructor demonstrates. Perform a search of your choice. Click the "Create alert for this search" link. Copy and paste the Syndication Feed URL into Bloglines reader to subscribe.

Instructor demonstrates that search results appear in the reader just like any new feed content.

8. Conclusion
Instructor sums up the objectives addressed during class and discusses any remaining questions. He points out his contact information on the handout in case students need assistance after class.