Entries in "RSS/Blogging/Webfeeds" ( for this category only)

50 Top Science Blogs

Nature.com explored the top 5 science blogs, according to Technorati ranking, and asked the writers about their success.

Related items:

• Top 50 Popular Science Blogs - Written by Scientists
• Top 5 Popular Science Blogs - Written by Writers
• Nature Newsblog with discussion of story, including corrections and additions

(VIA: The Curious Cat Science & Engineering Blog, July 6, 2006)

E-Mail, IM & Blog Risks - From the Employer Perspective

On July 11, 2006, the American Management Association (AMA) and the ePolicy Institute have released the results of their 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging & Blog Survey.

Here are a few highlights to raise your interest:

• 24% of organizations have had employee e-mail subpoenaed
• 15% of companies have gone to court to battle lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail
• 26% of employers have terminated employees for e-mail misuse
• Nearly 2% have fired workers for offensive blog content

The AMA summary provides many more details, including highlighting some blogging concerns such as copyright, harassment, or security breaches.

Is the Air Force Reading Your Blog?

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism. Read full announcement from the U.S. Department of Defense.

(VIA: Blogcritics.org, July 8, 2006)

Understanding RSS Feeds

CaseLearns Workshop: Understanding RSS Feeds
June 14, 2006, 1:00 PM
Instructor: Brian C. Gray

View the full presentation from the June 14, 2006, Understanding RSS Feeds workshop.

Continue reading "Understanding RSS Feeds"

Public Commenting on Organizational Blogs or Websites

I have been participating in a virtual workshop designed by the American Library Association (ALA) to instruct in and establish best practices in utilizing Web 2.0 technologies. ALA Library 2.0 included many components from blogging, wikis, RSS feeds, etc. My personal ALA Library 2.0 blog also includes various details and links.

One part of the virtual workshop included an interview I conducted with some of the Kelvin Smith Library Freedman Center staff.

My group just completed our final project. We explored the best practices in allowing public comments on formal organizational blogs or websites.

Here is an alternative link to the presention.

CaseLearns Workshop - Understanding RSS Feeds

CaseLearns Workshop - Understanding RSS Feeds
June 14, 2005, 1pm-2pm
Kelvin Smith Library (KSL) 215
Registration required at: http://library.case.edu/caselearns/

Learn about RSS and how it has changed the information world. We will explore what options are available to access RSS feeds (readers or aggregators), how KSL and CASE are using RSS feeds, and look at various RSS feeds and other resources available for free on the Internet or within our Library databases.

This course is NOT technical in nature, and will not explore the creation of RSS feeds or blogs. Blogs are not covered by this session, since they are not the same as RSS feeds, as some people mistakenly think. If you can surf the Internet, you are prepared to participate in the class and utilize RSS feeds in your daily life.

If you use RSS already, please share this with your colleagues that do not enjoy the benefits of RSS delivery of information.

Contact me if you have questions:
Brian C. Gray, MLIS
Librarian - Engineering, Math, & Statistics
Email: brian.c.gray@case.edu
Blog: http://blog.case.edu/bcg8/
Engineering Reading Room: http://library.case.edu/ksl/engineering/
Phone: (216) 368-8685

How Today's Web Has Changed Technical Writing

The IEEE Professional Communication Society Newsletter (IEEE PCS, Volume 50, Number 5, May 2006) has two articles that address web development and how technical writers must adapt to "web 2.0" technologies and users.

Web Development…How Do You Define Web Development?
by Elizabeth Weise Moeller

The problem is that “web development” is such a broad term, unlike so long ago when the web was first getting started. In the end, I decided to talk about the past, the present, the future, and, in the process, highlight some trends you can watch to help keep visitors returning to your website.

What is Web 2.0 and How Will Technical Writers be Impacted?
by Amy Diehl

Web 2.0 is a movement away from understanding content as housed in websites, but instead views content as “granular.” In this way, the content can be syndicated and distributed in decentralized ways and without relying on the user visiting a site or page in order to find the information or content. With the advent of Web 2.0, or the web as platform, not place, technical writers and designers will need to rethink many of their strategies regarding how their writing works in relation to “place”.

Blogs: Fad or Trend?

Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing shares data on the State of the Blogosphere. The highlights for me were that a new weblog is created every second of every day, and that 55% of bloggers still post after 3 months. See the full article for more statistics and a graph.

(Via: Free Range Librarian & Stephen's Lighthouse)

Top 10 Sources

Top 10 Sources is a directory of sites developed to highlight the most relevant content on the Web as distributed by RSS feeds. The editors of Top 10 Sources search blogs, podcasts, wikis, news sites, and every kind of syndicated sources online for the best material. The lists are updated frequently and organized my subject categories. Several categories exist in science and technology, such as science news, controversial science, and thinkers of the web.

(Via: Librarian In Black, April 9, 2006)

Visualizing the Blogosphere

On the Data Mining blog is an entry exploring the link structure of the blogosphere based on the various structures, such as LiveJournal, TypePad, etc.

(Via: Jeremy Smith's blog, January 6, 2006)

Wiki as a Presentation Format

Here is an example of using a wiki to give a presentation, as an alternative to PowerPoint.

I think PowerPoint is quickly losing its hold on the presentation format, especially as reliability on Internet resources increase and discussions continue long afer the actual, physical presentation. Blog and wiki presentations promote discussion and collaboration into the future.

(Via: Library Stuff, October 20, 2005)

They Are Blogging At Blackboard

Educate Innovate is the Blackboard blog about the convergence of education and technology.

They aim to use this forum to generate discussion about the topics, news, and latest trends impacting e-Learning and campus service offerings; and hope to provide insight about how technology can enable educational innovations for both.

They invite people to visit frequently to hear from their blogging team, guest bloggers, Q&A interviews with education industry thought leaders, movers and shakers, the people who work at Blackboard, and just plain interesting, cool people.

(Via: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian, February 23, 2006)

BioMed Central Journals Have RSS Feeds

BioMed Central offers RSS feeds for each of their journals.

[What is BioMed Central?]

BioMed Central is an independent publishing house committed to providing immediate open access to peer-reviewed biomedical research. Read more here...

NY York Times - Science & Technology RSS Feeds

New York Times offers various RSS feeds. You may want to check out the Science RSS or Technology RSS feeds.

American Chemical Society Journals - RSS Feeds

Each of the American Chemical Society journals offer RSS feeds that include their Articles ASAP and complete Table of Contents.

Track Biomedical Papers Being Discussed by Bloggers

Postgenomic collates posts from life science blogs and then does useful and interesting things with that data. For example, you can see which papers are currently being discussed by neurologists, or which web pages are being linked to by bioinformaticians. It's sort of like a hot papers meeting with the entire biomed blogging community.

A RSS feed is available to track the "Posts of the day", "Current hot stories", or "Current hot papers".

[About Postgenomic]

Postgenomic aggregates posts from life science blogs and then does useful and interesting things with that data.

For example, it allows you to get an instant picture of which web sites are being heavily linked to by researchers in the medical sciences, or which papers are being cited or reviewed most often by bioinformaticians, or which buzzwords are being used the most frequently by evolutionary biologists.

It's sort of like a hot papers meeting with the entire biomed blogging community.

Sort of.

Postgenomic's primary purpose is to act as a central repository for reviews of scientific papers and for conference reports. You can help with this by adding some very simple semantic markup to your blog posts when you write a review of a paper. In this context a "review" isn't necessarily a particularly long or critical assessment of the paper (though it could be): it's simply any information that other researchers might find useful.

(Originally shared on the Science Library Pad, March 3, 2006)

Science Magazine Offers RSS Feed

Science Magazine offers several RSS Feeds, including table of contents, "this week in Science", podcasts, and ScienceCareers.

Web 2.0 Mashup Matrix

If you are looking to develop some new web applications or are looking to take advantage of some current mashups, you have to check out the Web 2.0 Mashup Matrix or the Web 2.0 Mashup Center (database) on Programmable Web.

(Originally shared on Snarkmarket, March 24, 2006)

Podcasts - Current State Of

On Designtechnica Talk Backs (March 23, 2006), Colin Dixon and Michael Greeson looked at the current status of podcasting.

First, they established a standard definition of podcasting:

• file-based (download not streaming),
• subscription-based and "pushed" to user,
• & consumed on portable devices.

They further discussed the results of a survey that demonstrated that 80% of podcast downloads were never transferred to a portable device. Was the definition established with too tight of parameters or is podcasting not as hot as everyone wants us to believe?

Personally, I find myself downloading and listening to more and more podcasts, but I have yet to use a portable device. I find it more convenient to use my laptop for listening to podcasts, and I listen to music on my portable device while walking, running, or driving.

New Scientist Offers RSS Feeds

The New Scientist offers various RSS feeds, including breaking news, subject-specific, and special reports.

For the Case community, the New Scientist is available in the Kelvin Smith Library or electronically from various sources.

HigherEd BlogCon - Online Conference

From April 3-28, 2006, make sure you participate in the HigherEd BlogCon. This brand-new, all-online event aims to bring together in a single Web space many of the leading players who are transforming academe with their use of the new tools of the Social Web. Higher Ed BlogCon 2006 will focus on the use of blogs, wikis, RSS, audio and video podcasts, and other digital tools in a range of areas in academe.

The program tracks appear to have something for everyone interested in using today's newest tools in education:

• Teaching - April 3-7, 2006
• Library & info resources - April 10-14, 2006
• Admissions, alumni relations, and communications & marketing - April 17-21, 2006
• Websites & web development - April 24-28, 2006.

Physics Today Offers RSS Feed

Physics Today offers a RSS feed.

For the Case community, Physics Today is available in the Kelvin Smith Library for your pleasure and research. Various points of electronic access can also be located from Case's Electronic Journal List.

American Physical Society Offers RSS Feeds

The American Physical Society offers RSS feeds highlighting new articles in its many journals. The APS journals include Physical Review (A-E), Physical Review Letters, and Review of Modern Physics.

What Newspapers are Blogging by the Students in a Blogging 101 Class

Blue Plate Special combed through the 100 largest newspaper sites. The results show who's blogging, who's not, and which newsrooms are doing what. It provides links to each paper, the paper's blogs, and a description of the blogs.

(Originally shared on ResourceShelf, March 4, 2006)

[About Blue Plate Special]

Each Blue Plate Special is a package of articles, features and blog posts on a single theme. Special No. 1 is about newspaper blogging: state of the art. It features a rolling launch, with new content introduced over a period of 7-10 days. See this PressThink post for more explanation.

The Blue Plate Special editorial team is drawn from the students enrolled in Prof. Jay Rosen's blogging 101 class, plus two graduate students working with him. Other contributors are drawn from around the Web.

University Channel - Public Affairs Lectures

The University Channel is a collection of public affairs lectures, panels and events from academic institutions all over the world. A science category does exist and contains materials like stem cell research, nanotechnology, and global warming. The site does offer RSS and podcast feeds to stay current of new content.

[About University Channel]

The University Channel makes videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to the public. It is a place where academics can air their ideas and present research in a full-length, uncut format. Contributors with greater video production capabilities can submit original productions. (Read more...)

Stay Politically Aware with White House RSS Feeds & Podcasts

The White House and George W. Bush offers various RSS feeds and podcasts, such as press briefings, the Presidential weekly radio address, and Presidential speeches.

Blogs, Wikis, & Podcasts for Beginners

Aaron Shaffer, who works in the Freedman Center of the Kelvin Smith Library, recently gave a talk on blogs, wikis, and podcasts. Even more exciting is that you can view the podcast of the presentation. It was very professionally done and I enjoyed the format.

College and University Feed Directory

Peterson's maintains a College and University Feed Directory of RSS and Atom feeds related to higher education. Some of the categories include libraries, podcasts, research centers, students, and technology.

[About Peterson's]

Since 1966, Peterson's has helped to connect individuals, educational institutions, and corporations through its critically acclaimed books, Web sites, online products, and admissions services. Peterson's reaches an estimated 105 million consumers annually with information about colleges and universities, career schools, graduate programs, distance learning, executive training, private secondary schools, summer opportunities, study abroad, financial aid, test preparation, and career exploration. (See more...)

arXiv.org e-Print Archive

Hosted by Cornell University, arXiv.org is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative biology. As of February 27, 2006, it contained over 350,000 e-prints. The major subject categories are broken down into more specific subjects that allow the user to find papers of relevance to their research. Abstracts can be viewed in html and the full papers are available in PDF. RSS feeds are available for individual archives and categories.

CAS Introduces RSS Feed

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has introduced a RSS feed for news and updates.

[About the RSS Feed from CAS]

The RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed from CAS is based on the RSS 2.0 specification. RSS is a standard for syndicating updated content from a web site.

This will initially be just a single feed that will encompass all news and updates from CAS. Additional or specific topic feeds might be offered in the future depending on feedback and user demand.

Understanding RSS Feeds (3)

CaseLearns Workshop: Understanding RSS Feeds
February 9, 2006, 11:30 AM
Instructor: Brian C. Gray
(The following entry is one of several entries I will be using to demonstrate RSS feeds in a CaseLearns workshop I am conducting in the Kelvin Smith Library.)

View the full presentation from the February 9, 2006, Understanding RSS Feeds workshop.

Continue reading "Understanding RSS Feeds (3)"

Understanding RSS Feeds (2)

CaseLearns Workshop: Understanding RSS Feeds
February 9, 2006, 11:30 AM
Instructor: Brian C. Gray
(The following entry is one of several entries I will be using to demonstrate RSS feeds in a CaseLearns workshop I am conducting in the Kelvin Smith Library.)

Benefits of Using RSS

• Receive updates without visiting each web site
• Can monitor large number of sites very effectively
• Short summaries or “table of contents”
• Alternative to email notifications
  • Reduce spam building opportunities
  • Reduce “out of office” messages
  • No rejection of messages by email filters/servers
  • Not “tracked” like an email subscription

Blogs vs. RSS

• Blog or weblog is a web site that contains relatively short entries, usually in chronological order.
• A blog can “generate” RSS feeds, depending on the blogging software.
• Difference: Content versus Delivery Method

Continue reading "Understanding RSS Feeds (2)"

Understanding RSS Feeds

CaseLearns Workshop: Understanding RSS Feeds
February 9, 2006, 11:30 AM
Instructor: Brian C. Gray
(The following entry is one of several entries I will be using to demonstrate RSS feeds in a CaseLearns workshop I am conducting in the Kelvin Smith Library.)

What is RSS?

• RSS = Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, or RDF Site Summary
  
• User-initiated subscriptions that provide updates, news headlines, or other content directly to the user for browsing at their convenience.
  
• XML-based format for sharing and distributing Web content.
  
• On the web, it can be recognized by various terminology: XML, ATOM, RSS feed, RSS channel, RSS steam, syndicated feed, & webfeed.
  
• Several versions have been created and are used: RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom.

Examples of logos to watch for:

Continue reading "Understanding RSS Feeds"

CaseLearns Workshop - Understanding RSS Feeds

CaseLearns Workshop - Understanding RSS Feeds
February 9, 2005, 11:30am-12:30p
Kelvin Smith Library (KSL) 215
Registration required at: http://library.case.edu/caselearns/

Learn about RSS and how it has changed the information world. We will explore what options are available to access RSS feeds (readers or aggregators), how KSL and CASE are using RSS feeds, and look at various RSS feeds and other resources available for free on the Internet or within our Library databases.

This course is NOT technical in nature, and will not explore the creation of RSS feeds or blogs. Blogs are not covered by this session, since they are not the same as RSS feeds, as some people mistakenly think. If you can surf the Internet, you are prepared to participate in the class and utilize RSS feeds in your daily life.

If you use RSS already, please share this with your colleagues that do not enjoy the benefits of RSS delivery of information.

Contact me if you have questions:
Brian C. Gray, MLIS
Librarian - Engineering, Math, & Statistics
Email: brian.c.gray@case.edu
Blog: http://blog.case.edu/bcg8/
Engineering Reading Room: http://library.case.edu/ksl/engineering/
Phone: (216) 368-8685

Online Socializing can have Unintended Consequences

Think Before You Share - Students' online socializing can have unintended consequences By BROCK READ
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Volume 52, Issue 20, Page A38

Brock Read shares the details of several incidents where student information was found freely on the internet and used against them. For example, Penn State football fans arrested after running on to the field after a victory over Ohio State based on pictures in Facebook. Facebook is one of several social networks that is rapidly growing on the internet.

As blogs, web sites, and social networks continue to grow with various forms of personal data available for all to see, students and other users must be aware of the related dangers: cyberstalking, criminal prosecution, discrimination, etc.

The Case community can access the full article from the Electronic Journal List. Several of the sources have a one month embargo before the article is available. The EBSCOhost EJS link will provide the article immediately if you log-in with the password provided in the description.

The Scientist - Now with a Blog & Podcasts

The Scientist, available to the Case community in print through the Health Center Library (HCL), now offers various improvements at The Scientist web site. Thanks to the Science Library Pad blog we have word of new podcasts and blog.

Observations on Blogging

I subscribe to Planet Case, Blog@Case Comments, and various RSS feeds from Case blogs and other blogs from several subject areas (library & information science, technology, engineering, etc). I am surprised by some of the activities I have seen on some blogs.

• Copying word for word materials written by others, which would be a violation of copyright
• Copying all or a portion of a material written by others without citing the original source
• Posting an item, allowing extensive discussion to occur in the comments section, and than changing the original post so the commentators look like idiots
• Allowing commenting to occur, than deleting comments you do not agree with
• Not linking to the source that you are commenting about, so others can form their own opinions
• On and on...

Many bloggers probably do not think of actions like this, because it is so easy to cut-and-paste or press a delete button. Actions like this happen on web sites all of the time, but unless cached by Google, the WayBack Machine, or other services it might not be visible to the casual reader. Email holds more accountabilty, because once you send an item you cannot recall it. The blogosphere falls in between these two realms. Changes, deletions, updates, etc. on blogs probably go unnoticed all the time, unless the blog owner makes a statement in their entry. RSS feeds though increase the level of accountabilty of blogs. Once a subscriber receives a RSS item in their reader or aggregator, it is no longer in control of the original blog owner. If someone follows a certain blog closely, especially by utilization of RSS, the writer's habits, changes, or style of writing now have gained a history outside of the blog owner's control.

I like the Bloggers' Code of Ethics that was created by CyberJournalist.net. And in a related note, CyberJournalist shared the New York Times view on blogging.

Professor Fired For Blogging?

Meg Spohn, a professor at Devry University in Westminster, Colorado, has been fired, she says, for some "water-cooler kvetching" about the institution on her blog. See the entry at The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog and the Denver Post article for more information and commentary. She posted that she was given no warnings before the firing, and Colorado is an “at-will” state so they can fire with no reason given. To this day she still does not know what entries may have caused her firing.

6th Annual Weblog Awards, The 2006 Bloggies

It's now the sixth year of the world's most established weblog awards, the Bloggies. Personal Web publishing never stops growing, and that means this year the public will have more contenders than ever to select from when choosing the year's best weblogs.

Nominate your favorite blogs. I cannot way to see who the winners are, so I can find some more exciting blogs to read.

Science in the Web Age

Thanks to Bob Michaelson on the CHMINF-L listerv for sharing that Nature published several article about "science in the web age." The initial commentary was on the Crooked River blog.

The articles published by Nature on December 1, 2005, focused on science research and how it driven or assisted by search engines, book digitization efforts, and blogs & wikis.

Podcasting Gaining Interest

Back in April of 2005, the Pew Internet & American Life Project issued a data memo showing that podcasting is catching on.

A few key findings include:

• More than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players, and about 1 out of 3 of those have downloaded a podcast.
• Of the iPod/MP3 owners from 18-28, half have downloaded podcasts.

See the full report for more figures and survey results. Some additional commentary is also available in response to several publications that questioned the data attained.

I guess this report shows very strong justification for the Freedman Center to continue creating and educating users in podcasting, since college age users of iPods/MP3 players are embracing podcasts.

E-Mail Is So Five Minutes Ago

Evidence that demonstrates that email usage will decrease as collaboration becomes the key for success is presented in a November 28th, 2005, Business Week article, called E-Mail Is So Five Minutes Ago. It gives some examples of business usage of wikis, blogs, instant messaging, RSS, and groupware.

I particularly enjoyed some of the words or thoughts introduced, such as "e-waste" for all that junk email and email CC meaning "cover your ass".

Of great concern was the statistic that next year only 8% of all emails will be legitimate. I think this will just further drive alternative technologies such as RSS even harder into everyday usage.

RSS Still Not Widely Adopted

On October 12, 2005, Chris Sherman on SearchEngineWatch reported that RSS usage was still not widely adopted. His article summarized and provided commmentary on several studies. Some of the results, included:

• Only 12% of all users know about RSS
• Only 4% knowingly use it to read web content
• 27% of users utilize RSS on personalized start pages without realizing that RSS drives the content

See the full article for more numbers related to who and how people are using RSS feeds.

Blogging in Academia - Benefit or Risk to Your Job

From the It's All Good blog came a posting about an article in Slate called Attack of the Career-Killing Blogs - When Academics Post Online, Do they Risk Their Jobs? by Robert S. Boynton on November 16, 2005. The article highlights the various opinions on academic blogs, such as increasing Internet-awareness of a professor or university, increasing dialogue, lack of seriousness, harming an institution, and improving or harming a professor's chance for tenure.

An older article that might also be of interest, called Bloggers Need Not Apply by Ivan Tribble, appeared on July 8, 2005, in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Universities Are Warming Up to Wikis

I am catching up on my reading, and I see that Jeremy Smith shared how the Case Wiki is gaining attention.

IEEE Xplore now offers RSS feeds

IEEE Xplore digital library has added RSS feeds for new issues of all IEEE journals. Feeds are available individually from each journal's main page in IEEE Xplore. To see one example, visit the Proceedings of the IEEE main page.

RSS feeds can also be found through the Table of Contents Alerts service, which continues to offer notification by email.

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IEEE Xplore is available to the Case community and includes access to an amazing collection of IEEE materials direc