OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

OXITEMS: a provider of newsfeeds forOxford University

Barry Cornelius

Oxford University Computing Services

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Outline

1 Newsfeeds, formats and OXITEMS

2 An example of the use of OXITEMS

3 Where next?

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Newsfeeds, formats and OXITEMS

1 Newsfeeds abound2 Examples of newsfeeds3 Formats abound4 Which format?5 Reading newsfeeds6 Producing newsfeeds7 Using OXITEMS to set up newsfeeds8 Normally OXITEMS does not involve OUCS9 Societies/clubs can produce newsfeeds

10 OXITEMS uses three levels of authorisation

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Newsfeeds abound

Establishing newsfeeds is a relatively new mechanismfor delivering information.

Essentially, a newsfeed is a collection of related items.

For example, there might be newsfeeds for:

the latest news from Medical Sciences;the current vacancies in the Economics Department;this term’s music events in Balliol College;the latest world news from the BBC;today’s Radio 4 programmes.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Examples of newsfeeds

The BBC’s web site provides many newsfeeds. Theweb pagehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stmprovides links to some of their newsfeeds.

Some of the web sites for departments at the Universityof Oxford provide access to a newsfeed, e.g.http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/

OUCS’s web site also provides access to manynewsfeeds. The web pagehttp://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/displays some of these newsfeeds.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

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Formats abound

In the same way that web pages are coded using amarkup language (HTML), newsfeeds are coded usinga markup language.Unfortunately, there are several markup languages thatare often used.They include: RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3, Atom 1.0.You can see examples of the first three by clicking anitem of Director’s Cut from the OUCS main web page.And then clicking on each one of the RDF, RSS andAtom buttons:http://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/rdf.xmlhttp://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/rss.xmlhttp://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/atom.xml

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Which format?

Atom 1.0 was released in August 2005.

It is probable that Atom 1.0 will become more dominant.

Reasons are given at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/oxitems/formats/

Does it matter?

Although it is useful to know that there are differentformats, in many respects it is irrelevant.

If you store your news items in OXITEMS, you are(nearly) independent of these formats.

This is because you can ask OXITEMS to deliver any ofthe RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3 and Atom 1.0 formats.

I.e., it allows consumers to read the information in anyof these formats.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Reading newsfeeds

Some web sites provide a web page that lists the itemsof a newsfeed.

Some web browsers (e.g., Firefox) allow you toestablish a live bookmark to the URL of a newsfeed.

Some email clients (e.g., Thunderbird) allow you to getthe items of a newsfeed delivered into the email clientlike ordinary messages.

Instances of Bodington such as the University’sWebLearn enable you to set up a resource that is anews feed display.

There are also various feedreader sites and programs:http://www.threadwatch.org/node/4443

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Producing newsfeeds

Although there are numerous ways in which you canobtain the information of newsfeeds, ...

... there are no common ways of maintaining newsitems.

OXITEMS is a system for members of the University tostore news items.

It assumes that any unit of the University will want tocreate news items.

unit means any department, college, society, club orsome other project.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Using OXITEMS to set up newsfeeds

If you want to set up a new OXITEMS newsfeed, thiscan only be done by someone that OXITEMS has beentold is the administrator of a unit.The OXITEMS system has been seeded with datasaying that the main ITSS person of a unit is anOXITEMS administrator for that unit.So, the ITSS people of Medical Sciences, Economicsand Balliol College might set up the newsfeeds:medsci/news

latest news from Medical Sciences;econ/vacancies

details of the current vacancies inEconomics;

ball/music-eventsnews items for this term’s music events inBalliol.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Normally OXITEMS does not involve OUCS

The main ITSS person can use OXITEMS to set upnewsfeeds now without any involvement of OUCS.

The OUCS can add other people as administrators.

For example, in Medical Sciences, Anne Bowtell andDamion Young are experimenting with usingnewsfeeds.

They have set up a number of newsfeeds:medsci/notices-medicine-year4medsci/notices-medicine-year5medsci/notices-medicine-year6medsci/notices-medicine-years4to6

And are looking at how these may be displayed:

on their web site;using WebLearn.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Societies/clubs can produce newsfeeds

For societies and clubs, the username associated withthe society/club is the administrator of the newsfeedsfor that society/club.

So a person who authenticates with that username canset up newsfeeds (without any involvement of OUCS).

For example, a person who has webauthed with theusername ouscr can set up the newsfeeds:

societies/ouscr/eventsevents of the Society of Change Ringers;

societies/ouscr/newsnews of the Society of Change Ringers.

The above is not as it is currently implemented.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

OXITEMS uses three levels of authorisation

It is appropriate for one or two people in a unit tocontrol what newsfeeds get set up.E.g., to ensure a sensible naming scheme is employed.The administrator can delegate the day-to-day runningof a newsfeed to another person (called a manager ).For example, this person could be the head of aresearch group.The latter can in turn allocate authors, people who addnews items to the newsfeed.Although OXITEMS provides three roles(administrators, managers, authors), this need not betoo much bureaucracy: ...... when an administrator creates a new newsfeed, theycan quickly establish the initial values of the managerand the authors.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

An example of the use of OXITEMS

1 Reading a newsfeed2 Instructions to read a newsfeed3 Altering the newsfeed4 Setting up a new newsfeed5 Reading the new newsfeed6 Creating a newsfeed resource in WebLearn7 Viewing the newsfeed resource8 Configuring the newsfeed resource9 Other ways for a web page to read a newsfeed

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Reading a newsfeed

Suppose some department (or college) has a web site.

Here is a link to its home page:http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/oxitems/pages/zero.html

Suppose that the University’s administration stores itspress releases in an OXITEMS newsfeed.

Suppose the department wants to output the items ofthis newsfeed on its home page.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Instructions to read a newsfeed

This can be done by adding lines like the following tothe head of the web page:

<script type="text/javascript"src="http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/output_newsfeed.js"language="JavaScript">

</script>

And then at the point in the web page where you wantto output a newsfeed, include something like:

<script type="text/javascript">output_newsfeed("oucs/test-university-news", 2)

</script>

Here is a link to a new version of the home page:http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/oxitems/pages/one.html

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Altering the newsfeed

Now suppose you are the press officer of theadministration and you want to add a new news item.

The URL for OXITEMS is:https://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxonly/oxitems/

As this has been webauthed, it is available fromanywhere.

Click on the Add an item link.

Enter the news item, preview it and then add the newsitem to the newsfeed.

If a person now visits the department’s home page, thenew news item will appear.

Here is the URL again: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/oxitems/pages/one.html

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Setting up a new newsfeed

Suppose the department now wants to produce its ownnewsfeed.The main ITSS person of the department can set upnewsfeeds.They go to:https://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxonly/oxitems/

And select the Add a newsfeed link.They need to enter information such as the name of thenewsfeed, its title, its description, who is going tomanage the newsfeed, and so on.If the person is in Medical Sciences, they could set up anewsfeed with a name like medsci/news .Having set up the newsfeed, they can add news itemsto the newsfeed in the way described previously.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Reading the new newsfeed

Then at the point in the department’s home page wherethey want to output this newsfeed, they can include:

<script type="text/javascript">output_newsfeed("medsci/news", 3)

</script>

Here is a link to a new version of the home page:http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/oxitems/pages/two.html

Here is a mock-up page that illustrates otherpossibilities: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/oxitems/pages/lots.html

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Creating a newsfeed resource in WebLearn

The department may also want to output the contentsof this newsfeed on their WebLearn pages.

http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/site/testarea/asuc/barry/

In WebLearn, they can click on Create a new resourcehere.

Then click on News Feed Display.

Then enter some appropriate values in the Name, Titleand Description boxes.

In the URL of Feed box, they need to enter a URL like:http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/medsci/news/rss10.xml

Then click on the create now button.

That has created the resource.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Viewing the newsfeed resource

The new resource can be viewed by clicking on Back tothe menu of resources and then scrolling to the bottomof this screen.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Configuring the newsfeed resource

It is best to configure the resource to display the titles ofeach item as links.

This can be done as follows. Find the > symbol that isassociated with the new resource. Click on the >symbol. Then click on Modify News Feed Display.Ensure that the box to display the titles as links ischecked. Ensure that the box to display the title of eachentry is checked. Click on save and then revisit themenu of resources.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Other ways for a web page to read a newsfeed

The OUCS web pages are coded using TEI.If you are using TEI, a newsfeed can be displayedusing:

<xptr rend="rss" type="transclude"url="http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucs/test-university-news/rss10.xml"/>

An example is:http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/team/news/

If a web site is built using Plone, a template to deliveran RSS newsfeed can be used.If a web site is using PHP that has CURL installed:

<?phpheader("Content-Type: text/xml");$uri = "http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucs/test-university-news/rss10.xml";$cobj = curl_init($uri);curl_setopt($cobj,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);$xml = curl_exec($cobj);curl_close($cobj);echo $xml;

?>

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Where next?

1 Now2 Later3 Acknowledgements

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Now

Medical Sciences are experimenting with usingOXITEMS: http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/site/medsci/undergrad/medicine/year4/

Some OUCS staff are experimenting with OXITEMSnewsfeeds.

Any new OUCS newsfeeds will be established usingOXITEMS.

I need to talk about newsfeeds and OXITEMS to staff inthe University Offices.

It will be useful for IT Support Staff to test the system.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Later

I need to talk to those people involved with the existingOUCS newsfeeds ...

... and move those feeds to OXITEMS early in the NewYear.

Next term, there will be a ByteSize presentations aboutnewsfeeds and OXITEMS.

Another member of my group is looking at deployingUrchin for commonly-requested aggregations.

OXITEMS: aprovider of

newsfeeds forOxford

University

BarryCornelius

Newsfeeds,formats andOXITEMS

An example ofthe use ofOXITEMS

Where next?

Acknowledgements

Thanks to those people (mainly in OUCS and MedicalSciences) who have reviewed OXITEMS, and suppliedcomments.

I have made a lot of changes as a result of thesecomments.

Thanks to Joe Talbot for providing the initial design ofthe home page that I’ve used for the Department ofRunning.

Thanks to Pete Robinson for supplying lots of usefulfeedback at each stage.