We've been having an interesting discussion here about tags and categories. We had categories on our blog last year to do exactly what Andy is doing now. We used the RSS feed to populate news headlines (via feed-2-js script) on the Bb login page, and we had staff info, student info etc categories. If something were relevant to staff and students, we added it to both categories, thus feeding both sets of stakeholders with no extra work. When a headline stopped being a headline, we edited it and reclassified it in the 'old news' category, so people could access the 'archives'. Because you can now use tags in the same way re RSS feeds, we're wondering if we should switch over. We're trying to figure out what if any differences/unwanted changes there would be, and whether this should be a straight switchover, or if there is benefit in using both. On my personal blog, I've had a go and found it a bit pointless trying to tag and categorise, but the version of wordpress we're using for the blog at work doesn't have tags, so we're stuck with categories at the mo. Funny what you take for granted though - even though I've quite a few tags, I don't like the way the tag cloud looks, I seem to have small print or huge print, not much variation, but Andy's seems to be getting better, so perhaps it's just the sheer number of tags and tagged entries that makes it look much better.
Andy, for me it was only the last episode that failed to downpod. Right clicking and saving directly worked. And to prove I've listened, congratulations!!
:-)
--------------------------
Kate Boardman
VLE Manager
Centre for Learning & Quality Enhancement
University of Teesside
Middlesbrough TS1 3BA
tel: +44 (0) 1642 384593
[log in to unmask]
________________________________
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist on behalf of AJ Ramsden, Learning and Research Technology
Sent: Mon 13/11/2006 14:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BLACKBOARD-USERGROUP] FAQ Managers
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 <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 <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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