News Feed (RSS)

The news feed functionality allows you to add latest news from websites, blog postings, social bookmarking and podcast subscriptions in your module/organisation area.

News feeds are often referred to as RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication); Wikipedia has more information on what RSS is and how to use it.

Before you start

Websites that provide news feeds often indicate display the RSS symbol RSS icon within their pages.

To copy a feed link from the BBC or similar sites select the RSS symbol by right clicking the mouse and then select copy.

Add a news feed

Go to the content area where you want to add the news feed.
Ensure that Edit Mode is switched ON from the top right of the screen, if it isn’t already.
Select the Add Content action link and click News Feed.

Options

Feed Options

General Setup

URL - Paste the URL (Web Address) of a valid RSS news feed here.*
Number of Stories – Enter how many items you would like to display. To display all current stories enter -1. Stories will be displayed in order of most recently added first.*

*Indicates required field.

Display Social Networking Tools – This option allows the instructor to give a student the option to ‘bookmark’ a news story of interest within a number of social networking/bookmarking websites. At present this includes Digg, del.icio.us, reddit and StumbleUpon.

Useful Links

Social Networking – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
Social Bookmarking - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

Feed Setup

Display Feed Title – You can display the default title as set by the publisher.
Substitute Feed Title - You can add your own title, replacing the publishers.
Display Feed Description – You can display the default introductory description to the feed as set by the publisher.
Substitute Feed Description - You can add your own description, replacing the publishers.
Display Feed Image – You can display an image provided by the publisher.
Display Feed Pub Date – You can display the date the feed was published (if provided).

Item Setup

The item setup options can be used to customise the amount of detail included in a news feed.

Display Item Descriptions - Provides introductory text to each item. By selecting No only the title of the item will be displayed.
Display Item Author, Display Item Pub Date & Separate Items with Rule -These options allow you to personalise the way in which the content is displayed.

Content Options

News Feed Available – Select Yes to make the feed available to students.

Submit & View

Click Submit to add the feed then select OK.

The image below is an example feed using the default setup options, each field has a numeric identifier that is highlighted using the key below.

Key
1. Feed Title
2. Feed Description
3. Item Description
4. Social Networking Tools
5. Horizontal Rule for Item Separation (Separate Items with Rule)
6. Feed Image
7. Feed Published Date

Edit & Delete news feeds

To modify a feed make sure Edit Mode is ON. Select the action link to the right of the news feed name then click Edit. To permanently remove a feed click the Delete button from the action link.

Related Info

Further Info