Ever wish you could get the latest news without cramming your email inbox or repeatedly returning to a web site? Or subscribe to audio and video like you can in iTunes? RSS is a simple – not to mention immediate and convenient – solution.

At IU, you can use RSS to subscribe to a number of sites, including UITS News, IT Notices and Alerts, and podcasts at the IU Podcast Portal.

What is RSS? Why does it matter?

RSS, most commonly referred to as “Really Simple Syndication” but also known as “RDF Site Summary” and “Rich Site Summary,” is a content delivery format that greatly simplifies how we publish and process news. In fact, it is not limited to news in the sense of current events: it can also track changes to web sites, documents, and files.

RSS is an automated, customizable information stream, which feeds a subscriber headlines, summaries, or full updates from a selected source (such as a web site or blog). Its chief selling points are that it 1) saves the time and effort of manually checking for new or revised content, 2) cuts through the clutter to report only on relevant matters, and 3) can be delivered to a variety of devices for people on the move.

How does it work?

Subscribing to an RSS feed is a straightforward process. Once you have identified your source, whether that happens to be a major news outlet or a favorite online distraction, you can:

• Download feed-reader software to your desktop – IUware Online (iuware.iu.edu) currently offers links to NetNewsWire for Macs and FeedDemon for PCs
• Use an RSS-aware web browser
• Register with a free web-based feed reader (This will allow you to receive all of your feeds in one place and, in the case of the web-based readers, on any computer or web-enabled device.)

If you have chosen the desktop software, you simply enter the URL of the feed you want into the reader. If you have chosen the web-based software, you just click the orange RSS box for your source.

For Mac users, the Tiger operating system has a built-in feed reader. The latest versions of several Web browsers, including Firefox and Safari, also come with built-in readers. For Windows users, Vista and IE7 for XP have built-in RSS readers. Or if you use more than one computer, Bloglines, Google, Newsgator, and Yahoo (among others) allow free access to web-based feed readers with registration. For more on how to subscribe to feeds with IE, Firefox, and Safari, go to: http://kb.iu.edu/data/awih.html.

What can it do for you?

Once you establish your feeds, you can do away with the bookmarks, post-its, and other reminders of sources to which you would like to return. If you want to keep tabs on your friends, you can easily track their Facebook status updates, postings, and notes: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=23.

If you are a National Public Radio aficionado, you can have instant access to programs like “All Things Considered,” personalities such as Terry Gross, and to member stations nationwide: http://www.npr.org/rss/.

If you happen to be an academic on the job market, The Chronicle of Higher Education will inform you of new or updated postings within selected position categories: http://chronicle.com/help/rss.htm.

Indiana University’s RSS options grow by the day. The UITS RSS feeds page links to:

• UITS News about information technology services, support, and resources available to students, faculty, and staff at IUB and IUPUI
• Up-to-the-minute IT Notices and Alerts about UITS systems, scheduled changes, scheduled down times, and notices about outages and problems
• IT@IU news about IU’s information technology landscape in the local, regional, and national press
• IU Webmaster News about Veritas and Champion accounts

Visit the UITS RSS feeds page at: http://uits.iu.edu/scripts/ose.cgi?avxl.ose.help.

Visit the IU Podcast Portal for lectures, music, radio broadcasts, performances, student profiles, and how-tos: http://podcast.iu.edu/.

For more on the new IU Podcast Portal, see: http://uitsnews.iu.edu/?p=1140

For more information on RSS, see: http://kb.iu.edu/data/apwv.html.