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Biz/ed Syndicated Content

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Biz/ed provides syndicated content that can be included, free of charge, on your own Web site or incorporated within a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

What syndicated content is available?
What format does the content take?
How can I include the content on my Web site or VLE?
Other resources

What syndicated content is available?

Biz/ed currently offers five news feeds:

What's New? on the Biz/ed Web site: Example
This feed announces new resources and features available for students and educators on the Biz/ed Web site.
RSS feed location: http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/homepage/whatsnewrss.pl?items=5
If you require a different number of news items (the above URL returns 5) you can change the number of items by editing the number at the end of the URL.
In the News: Example
In the News: details of news and events that will be of interest to students, teachers and lecturers of business, economics, accounting, leisure and recreation and travel and tourism.
RSS feed location: http://www.bized.co.uk/dataserv/chron/bigbizednews.rss
Glossary term of the day: Example
A new term each day from our glossary of over 1400 business studies and economics terms.
RSS feed location: http://www.bized.co.uk/glossary/dailyterm.rss
Biz/ed Service News: Example
A news feed announcing upcoming events, conference talks and general information about the Biz/ed service.
RSS feed location: http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/servicenews/rss.pl?items=5
If you require a different number of news items (the above URL returns 5) you can change the number of items by editing the number at the end of the URL.

Biz/ed also offers content as podcasts, where subscribers automatically receive new audio broadcasts in a series when they are published. Visit our podcasting page to find out more.

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What format does the content take?

Biz/ed news feeds are in RSS format. RSS (Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary) is a way of sharing/syndicating content from a Web site. RSS feeds are text files and are easy to produce. RSS feeds are an excellent way of providing up-to-date subject-targeted information that can be used to encourage students to regularly visit a VLE course or Web site.

In general, the RSS feed comprises a series of news headlines and a snippet of information related to the headline, but they can also provide a means to perform a search on the remote site.

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How can I include the content on my Web site or VLE?

There are a number of different ways to incorporate news feeds in your Web site or VLE, but one of the easiest is to use some JavaScript. The process requires about 10-15 minutes to set up and then requires no maintenance. Every time someone visits a Web page containing the JavaScript, the news feed is displayed. You don't need to know how to program in JavaScript as there are online tools to generate the code for you:

The service described below is available through UKOLN (see: http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/include/).
Copy and paste the RSS feed location (from the list of three Biz/ed feeds above) in to the form available at http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/include/?t=1 or select a feed from the listing in the blue box on the right-hand side of the page on the UKOLN Web site. Press the "Get Script" button.
You will now see a box containing the code to include the RSS feed, copy the code from the grey box and paste it between the <body> tags of your Web page where you want the feed to appear.
Save the changes to your Web page and then view it in a Web browser. The news feed should now be displayed within your Web page.
You can alter the appearance of the feed as outlined in 'step 3' of the page containing the JavaScript code snippet.

If you'd like to incorporate any of the Biz/ed newsfeeds into Blackboard then comprehensive instructions are available from: http://www.ltss.bris.ac.uk/ole/Bbd6_1/rss.pdf.

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Other resources

A list of UK feeds maintained by the RSSxpress service at UKOLN - http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/
A list of international feeds maintained by Syndic8 http://www.syndic8.com

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