ACRL - Day Four, Part Two

Morning Session, Part Two:
Analog v. Google in the CMS: RSS Feeds to the Rescue presented by Heather L. Moulaison and Edward M. Corrado from The College of New Jersey (TCNJ)

I thought the presenter looked familiar; I went to grad school with Heather.

CMS = Course Management System as opposed to Content Management System (ie. Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle, etc.)

1 Course shell = 1 class section

TCNJ uses a homegrown CMS.

Mix of systems may be used.

I'm familiar with a lot of CMS functionality as I worked for the UIUC GSLIS Instructional Technology Office, which supported the LEEP program, for one year in grad school. The CMS used at that time was of the homegrown variety, but they now use Moodle.

TCNJ's version is SOCS (Simple Online Courseware System)

TCNJ focuses on print resources. Nearly all students live on campus close to the library.

A little multi-media with some foreboding music with the "Google lurks..." slide.

"RSS - Result Set Syndication" from Walter Lewis.

Previous versions of RSS are not that compatible with older versions (<- did not know this)

Anatomy of a RSS feed - explanation of how they use it

Three stage process in integration of RSS with CMS.

More info: http://www.tcnj.edu/~library/rss/

Need to sell faculty and IT staff on why the library needs to be involved in the development/management of CMS.

Main use of RSS at this time is highlighting new books that may be of use for a course.

RSS feed for databases has been requested by faculty.

New DVD feed in top 5 most used resources on Library portion of the website in the last two months.

Course guides by librarians have been integrating the homegrown RSS feeds as well as featuring RSS feeds from other sources like specific websites and blogs and del.icio.us.

Students interested in one-stop shopping and want the course guides in SOCS rather than just on the library's website.
- The library resources need to be involved in the CMS, not just the librarian.

Up next (providing wireless access, Nina Totenberg.