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An exploratory study into the use made of RSS by academic staff at MMU. Aims & Objectives Information technology has transformed, and continues to transform, the ways that data, information and knowledge is created, stored, managed and used. The overwhelming availability and supply of information demands mechanisms for accessing, filtering and sorting within work-flows both for research and teaching within higher education. Some of those mechanisms (email, library databases) are well established but may be creaking under the strain of increasing quantity. Others, such as the family of formats known as RSS are emerging. The aim of this study is to explore the uses of RSS in facilitating the management of information and assess its potential as a tool to improve research and teaching activity. It will do so in the context of academic members of staff at Manchester Metropolitan University. Three objectives will inform this initial exploration: 1. an assessment of the adoption of RSS by academic staff 2. an understanding of the present uses made of RSS in learning and teaching 3. to understand the potential for RSS in learning and teaching at MMU Whilst these are the immediate objectives of this study, it is invisaged that the findings inform discussions of, and strategic developments in, information management in academic practice.
Background While the promise of fifteen years ago that the world wide web would become the pre-eminent global platform for information exchange has largely been realised, it is less clear whether the promise of five years ago that RSS1 would be the 'killer app'2 (Harrsch, 2003), revolutionising the processing of that exchange, has occurred. It seems that interest in using RSS is certainly growing 3, its visibility is increasing3 and its potential in Higher Education in the UK is being explored5, particularly by educational technologists6 and libraries. It may even be true that, as William Gibson argued, 'the future is already here - it's just unevenly distributed'. However, there is little evidence concerning the adoption of RSS by academics in the UK, or research examining how those who have adopted it make use of it in their learning and teaching. RSS is an enabling technology/family of formats that is playing a central role in changing the nature of the world wide web from a series of static web pages created and visited on web sites to a distributed network of active, dynamic flows of information. Initially inspired by the notion of news subscription services and conceived as an antidote to email spamming7, the idea of aggregating news updates remains central to RSS. Users subscribe to content using an RSS reader or aggregator which automatically checks for and downloads new content. Without having to visit numerous web sites users can quickly and effectively access new content from information sources that they are interested in. With RSS metadata information can be accessed, collected, mixed and republished in a variety of forms and viewed on a variety of platforms (Windows, Linux, OS) and devices (iPods, PDAs, and smart phones). Described variously as a 'pipe' through which information courses, a radio channel