Dear Arthur (and others),
I think I've made it sound more technical than it actually is ;-)
Most blogs use "tags" as the way to associate keywords / themes with a blog entry. Also the option to add tags is part of the blog contribution entry page. So all we do, is when we write the faq, we make sure that we have added the following tag to the blog entry - faq.
Then we can do lots of different stuff with this information.
Firstly, simply tell all people that the faqs are located on our blog (<http://www.blackboard.blog-city.com/>). Hence people can go to the blog and use the search box to search for their question (normal search route).
Secondly, they could click on the tag "faq" and get a list in time order of all the faqs, so they could browse, i.e., <http://www.blackboard.blog-city.com/tags/?/faq>.
Thirdly (this is where the techies get involved) - we include the rss feed from the faq tag in our Bbd login page (http://www.ole.bris.ac.uk). Then people can see the most recent faqs that have been added.
This is quite exciting because it can be further rolled out that through adding faq-student or faq-staff as a tag, we can display faqs for students, or staff as different feeds. While allowing people to browse by these terms.
Why I get excited is that all we are doing is pre-presenting the information to "typical users" from the same source. So we can automatically feed in just the faq appropriate to staff into our help for bbd instructor course without cluttering them up with students faqs. That said, we'll give them the student faqs as well because I think it is rather useful to be aware of those.
Once set up - we just keep updating the blog ;-)
In terms of the "fireside", there have been a few reported problems, I'll forward these to the blog people and see if it's a known problem with their blog.
Cheers
Andy
--On 13 November 2006 11:22 +0000 Arthur Loughran <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Andy,
> Thanks for your feedback on FAQs. A bit too technical for me and we
> don't have the people here to do it. We do have them but we can't get
> to them.
>
> On another matter I have been looking to use Juice to get your Fireside
> Chats but I am getting a "timed out" signal. Is this possibly something
> to do with our firewall or a issue with your feed?
>
> cheers,
> Arthur
>
>
>>>> "AJ Ramsden, Learning and Research Technology"
> <[log in to unmask]> 02/11/2006 4:12:01 pm >>>
> Dear Arthur,
>
> No - but, we've mentioned the idea of further developing our Blackboard
> blog, through using tags for an FAQ. This would make finding / searching
> / authoring / editing much easier - it would scale much easier.
>
> An example (just one example) is available via the tag cloud on the
> Blackboard blog - top right corner.
>
> <http://www.blackboard.blog-city.com>
>
> Cheers
>
> Andy
>
>
>
> --On 02 November 2006 12:03 +0000 Arthur Loughran
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> Is anyone using dynamic, searchable FAQ managers (not static lists)
> to
>> provide Blackboard help? If so I would be grateful for the details
> of
>> such.
>> thanks,
>> Arthur
>>
>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>> Dr. Arthur J. Loughran
>> Senior Lecturer
>> Centre for Learning and Teaching
>> University of Paisley
>> Paisley PA1 2BE
>> tele: +44-(0)141-848-3558
>> fax: +44-(0)141-848-3822
>> email: [log in to unmask]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>
>
> ----------------------
> Andy Ramsden,
> Learning Technology Adviser,
> LTSS
> University of Bristol
>
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> tel: 0117 928 7152 (direct)
> skype: andyramsden
> blog: www.mobile-learning.blog-city.com
> web: http://www.ltss.bris.ac.uk/
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