Each time a new reserve Item is added to a course, the Ares client automatically generates an RSS feed to all students in the course. The RSS Feeds option is available on the Student Course Tools menu on the Ares web pages. Students can choose to view all RSS feeds or only new feeds since their last visit. Feeds can be sorted by date or title in ascending or descending order. Clicking on an RSS feed will take the student to the page for that reserve Item.
Subscribing to RSS Feeds
Students can subscribe to receive RSS feeds and have them delivered to them via their web browser or news reader.
- On the Ares web pages, navigate to a Course's home page.
- In the course details section, a note will say "An Email subscription will send you emails when new items become available in this course. You are currently not subscribed. Subscribe Now"
- To subscribe to the RSS feed, click Subscribe Now.
- The message will now say "An Email subscription will send you emails when new items become available in this course. You are currently subscribed. Please remove my subscription."
- To remove the subscription, click Please remove my subscription.
RSS Feed Settings
Click on View feed Properties on the RSS Feeds page to view and customize the Feed Properties browser settings. The user's browser settings (how often the browser checks for RSS Feed updates, etc.) determine when the student is notified of new RSS Feeds. Instructors can view RSS Feeds from within Student Mode.
Administration can limit the maximum number of items that will show under the New Course Items viewing option. The RSSMaxNewItems key is located in the Ares Customization Manager under Web.
Editing RSS Page Title and Description
You are able to customize the title and description that appears on RSS feed pages on browsers. This is done using the RSSCourseItemsChannelDescription and RSSCourseItemsChannelTitle customization keys.
- In the Ares Customization Manager, navigate to Web | RSS.
- To edit the page title, use the RSSCourseItemsChannelTitle key. To edit the page description, use the RSSCourseItemsChannelDescription key.
- Type in values for the title and description. The default values are Ares reserve materials and New reserve materials.
- To add course information to the title or description, use the following format: tablename.fieldname or <Courses.Name/>. For example, <#Courses.Instructor/>. More than one tag may be used together.
