News

Overview
Adding, editing, or deleting a News feed in a subject site
Adding, editing, or deleting a News feed in a project site
Viewing a news feed

Additional materials

Open a pdf document containing step-by-step instructions with screen shots.

Overview

What it does

The News tool uses RSS to bring dynamic news to your worksite. RSS is a data format used to syndicate news on the web. It allows continuously updated content from a remote news site to appear in another website. The initials "RSS" are used to refer to the following formats:

Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)
Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)

Key concepts

RSS: To set up your worksite to display news, you must specify a URL pointing to an RSS news feed. An RSS news feed is a specially formatted list of news articles. You can find RSS feeds by using an Internet search engine (e.g., Google or Yahoo). Sites that distribute news in RSS format are called "news feeds". The News tool is an RSS "news aggregator" (or "news reader") that reads and displays content from RSS news feeds. The icons associated with an RSS feed are or .

Things to consider

You can add more than one News feed when you set up the site, or at a later time.
In addition to news, some websites use the RSS format for information that is updated often, such as blogs (web logs that serve as publicly accessible personal journals), events listings, or the revision history of a book. (back to top)

Adding, editing, or deleting a News feed in a subject site

For information regarding turning a News tool on in a subject site, Subject Coordinators should first be aware of issues relating to turning tools on or off in a subject site and other tool issues on the Subject Coordinators' support page.

To subscribe to an RSS feed, first find a web page containing a suitable RSS feed. (A Google search for RSS news feed will get you started. As an example, the ABC page is at http://www.abc.net.au/news/feeds/rss.htm )
Right-click on the orange XML icon and select "Copy Shortcut" or "Copy Link Location" to copy the location URL.
In the relevant subject site, click Site Info.
On the Site Info page, click Edit Tools. If your worksite already contains News items, they will be listed here under the names assigned to them.
Select to make the News tool either available to "Coord" or" All". Click Continue.
A News tool cannot have its name changed after it has been created. The URL can still be modified, however. If the name is incorrect or the tool is no longer required the Subject Coordinator can remove the tool (Site Info ...Edit tools)

On the "Customize Tools" screen, under "News" you will also see fields where you can enter information for a new item, as follows:

In the "Title:" field, add a title.
In the "URL:" field, enter a URL by pasting the URL copied earlier in this process.
Click Continue. You will see information about the changes you have made to your worksite.
Click Finish, or if you would like to make further changes, click Back. Click Cancel to cancel your changes.

Editing or Deleting a News item in a subject site

As is the case with any other tool, Subject Coordinators are able to change the access for a tool from ‘Coord' to ‘None'. Web Content and News tools are different from other CSU Interact tools in that they are able to be removed by anybody with a Subject Coordinator role.

Note: Although the "Options" link in a subject site's News tool appears to give Subject Coordinators the same ability to edit a News feed as there is in a project site, changing the name of the News tool in this way will result in a loss of function in the tool in a subject site. Instead, a new News tool should be selected and the required new information entered. (back to top)

Adding, editing, or deleting a News feed in a project site

For additional instructions on editing or removing items from your project worksite, see Site Info - adding or removing tools in a project site.

Adding a News feed in a project site

Note: You must have the appropriate permissions to add a News feed to a project site.

To subscribe to an RSS feed, first find a web page containing a suitable RSS feed. (A Google search for RSS news feed will get you started. As an example, the ABC page is at http://www.abc.net.au/news/feeds/rss.htm )
Right-click on the orange XML icon and select "Copy Shortcut" or "Copy Link Location" to copy the location URL.
In the relevant project site, click Site Info.
On the Site Info page, click Edit Tools. If your worksite already contains News items, they will be listed here under the names assigned to them.
Tick the box next to News. Click Continue.

On the "Customize Tools" screen, under "News" you will also see fields where you can enter information for a new item, as follows:

In the "Title:" field, add a title.
In the "URL:" field, enter a URL by pasting the URL copied earlier in this process.
If you'd like to add more than one item, select the appropriate number of items from the More News Tools? drop-down menu.
Click Continue. You will see information about the changes you have made to your worksite.
Click Finish, or, if you would like to make further changes, click Back. Click Cancel to cancel your changes.

Editing a News feed in a project site

Note: You must have the appropriate permissions to edit a News feed in a project site.

To edit an existing News feed, follow these steps:

In your site's menubar, click the title of the appropriate News feed.
Near the top of the News frame, click Options.
On the "News Options " form, you can change the the following:

• Tool Title: The title that appears in your site's menubar
• Page Title: The title that appears at the top of the News frame
• Frame Height: The height (in pixels) of the News frame
• URL: The URL for the News feed
When finished, click Update Options to save changes, or Cancel to cancel changes.

Deleting a News feed from a project site

Note: You must have the appropriate permissions to delete a News feed from a project site.

To delete an existing News feed, follow these steps:

In the relevant project site, click Site Info.
On the Site Info page, click Edit Tools.
Remove the tick from the box next to the News feed that you wish to remove.
Click Continue. You will see information about the changes you have made to your worksite.
Click Finish, or, if you would like to make further changes, click Back. Click Cancel to cancel your changes.

Note: If the News feed still appears in the site's menubar, click Home to refresh the menubar. (back to top)

Viewing a news feed

If your site has a link to a news feed, you will find it in the site's menubar. To view news, simply click the title of the news feed from the menubar. The title will vary, depending on what the site owner has chosen for your site's news feed. You may see News in the menubar, or something more descriptive, e.g., ABC Breaking News or Environment Australia News.

The News tool in a course or project site is an RSS "news aggregator" (or newsreader) that reads and displays continuously updated online content from RSS news feeds. RSS is an application of XML, a markup language for creating web documents.

In addition to news, some websites use the RSS format for information that is updated often, such as blogs (web logs that serve as publicly accessible personal journals), events listings, or the revision history of a book. You can usually identify an RSS feed URL by the .xml or .rss in the URL (e.g., http://www.abc.net.au/news/syndicate/breakingrss.xml).

If you have the necessary permissions, you can customize your course or project site's News feature by adding a web address for any RSS news feed. You can find many feeds by searching Google for RSS feeds in your area of interest or for a particular online publication or news source.