(via Dan Mitchell) From an article that I can’t get to in the Chronicle of Higher Learning comes this quote:
Jeremy Trumble, Web-services manager at RIT, says that students there are getting the benefits of RSS without even knowing they’re using it. Every student has the opportunity to create a Web portal that presents a personalized version of the university’s Web site, similar to a My Yahoo page. During the customization, students decide which information they would like to have regularly updated. That tells an RSS reader built into the software which feeds to collect. About half the institution’s students have created personalized versions of the Web site through which they get updates on campus news and events.
Ok, now I really want this. Really. This is kind of what I was playing with last year (pardon the formatting problems…) So how do I get it?
Here’s the thing. I’ve been following with interest and as much understanding as I can muster as Tom implements his new student information system for his school, and I’m guessing it’s not a very big leap for him to make something like the above happen at his school. The reason I’m interested is that we’re about to pick a new very closed source SIS that I’m wondering might not have some capability in this area too. It would be great to have the whole ball of wax so to speak. So someone tell me…how do I get it?
Will,
Is your district looking at an SIS that is integrated with a portal? If you don’t want to announce which one publically, perhaps you should email me.
What’s annoying to me is the commercial focus on a monolithic solution. What would be best is a good content management system and a good student information system, with standard protocols for passing data between them.
You can read the article here:
http://chronicle.com/temp/email.php?id=c88xmwvpmiz9a47mb2gywxrbcncjj4rk
Thanks to Dave Winer for the link [http://archive.scripting.com/2004/02/10#When:12:27:13PM].
Thanks!
Most portals do now support RSS, particularly the uPortal/Sakai project.
The challenge is always getting data out of an SIS. Ours is horrendous too.
David