RSS For Your Project Web Site
Posted by Brian Kelly on 23 May 2008
Stephen Downes has recently suggestedthat use of RSS and blogs “should be basic and fundamental information, and in my view, projects without this sort of informational support are just being anti-social.” I think Stephen’s right – although, as a Brit, I’d probably be more circumspect (perhaps along the lines of a Sir Humphrey Appleby “Is really it wise not to have a RSS feed“). Stephen’s direct North American approach is to be applauded, I feel.
And Stephen linked to a blog post on RSS injects edu with accuracy, freshness, and cool stuffwhich gives an example of how RSS can be used.
My own use of RSS to enhance access to project deliverables was for the JISC-funbded QA Focus project. In this case RSS filesprovided for the project’s key deliverables including briefing documents, case studies, papers and presentations. In addition OPML fileswere also created which enabled the RSS files to be integrated in a variety of ways.
Stephen’s right – if you’re not doing this you are “just being anti-social“.
UK Web Focus (Brian Kelly) 
Code Gorilla said
Ah – if only the world was that simple!
Not all projects have deliverables that come out well under RSS…. not all projects have a significant number of deliverable, other than a few reports at the end.
Not all organisations want to have multiple RSS feeds… and if you want to have different levels of feed, it gets more complex to organise: a feed for each project; a feed for each service; a feed for Service provider news; an aggregated feed by subject area; and aggregated feed by project type; an aggregated feed of general news… all with their own exceptions and considerations…
No – a single project can have an RSS feed, but trying to scale needs very very careful thought….
Stephen Downes said
> Not all projects have deliverables that come out well under RSS….
The idea isn’t to post the deliverables in RSS, but to communicate regularly using RSS. You should not just be working incommunicado.
pascal said
I wish they were more web2.0 tools oriented in my company but it seems that nobody is ready to step outside the all-Outlook box any time soon.
Wendell said
I’ve gotta go with Code G. on this one. Maybe projects without RSS are indeed being anti-social. But, then, maybe being “social” isn’t necessary or even sensible for all projects. How’s that saying go? If you’re all about hammers, everything looks like a nail?
;)
Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) said
Hi @Code G, @Wendell – in this case ‘social’ isn’t about social networks, it’s about allowing your content to be more easily reused by others by providing access to the content using RSS.
RSS For Events « UK Web Focus said
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