Comments on: Fall of a HERO http://digitalbydefault.com/2009/04/14/fall-of-a-hero/ Matt Jukes: digital tactics & open web in the public sector Sun, 20 May 2012 12:56:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Matt http://digitalbydefault.com/2009/04/14/fall-of-a-hero/#comment-284 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:54:00 +0000 http://backpass.org/?p=262#comment-284 I’m willing to bet that for alot of HEIs the RSS issue has something to do with the CMS they are using. When I was at JISC we had to have a fair bit of custom work done to get anything near usable RSS feeds out of the CMS – something that I had (wrongly) assumed would be straightforward.. It certainly should be more of a priority than it is at the moment for people but sooner or later the message will get through..

]]> By: Tony Hirst http://digitalbydefault.com/2009/04/14/fall-of-a-hero/#comment-282 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:57:12 +0000 http://backpass.org/?p=262#comment-282 One way of populating HERO pages on a Netvibes like dashboard would be through feeding off news from the HEIs themselves; only they seem resistant to publishing it in a syndication loving way?!

For example, I picked up on the “percentage uptake” idea MashTheState uses and tweaked the page that displays HEI’s autodiscoverable RSS feeds [
http://ouseful.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/back-from-behind-enemy-lines-without-being-autodiscovered/ ] to count how many have taken up the challenge… Currently it reports that less than 30% of UK HEIs have autodiscoverable RSS feeds.

The research councils too are a possible source of information – how about a feed of recent grants from EPSRC for example [ http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ListGrants.aspx?mode=Latest ]. Ah, no RSS… sigh… Here’s a spreadsheet version of that info: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p1rHUqg4g420XUjaJKolJLw etc etc etc

]]> By: Matt http://digitalbydefault.com/2009/04/14/fall-of-a-hero/#comment-280 Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:54:33 +0000 http://backpass.org/?p=262#comment-280 > not sure finding sources of information would be a problem (though filtering it might be) you could info from HEFCE, Universities UK, the NUS, UCAS, Russell Group, HE Academy, Unistats not to mention the HE unions etc and the HEIs – as well as the growing number of blogs etc..

> I quite like the idea of a ready made dashboard (almost like alltop.com) that takes the need away for any techy knowhow – but then have the whole thing open via an API or something so that those with the skills and the willing could reshape all the data gathered into what they needed

> current should take care of itself with a little management and pruning and adding of the sources. Useful would be down to the person/people running the service – I’d like to see a genuine agile, user led approach with the site being constantly tweaked based on analytics, feedback and research. I read something about 4iP recently that said they put aside like 70% of funding for post launch iterative developments – i like that.

Responsive is the toughy – doing something like this distributes the conversation even further (though many of these sources don’t have the ability to comment at source) and for it to be a success you’d want contributions from the community on all sides. That might still be a tough sell some places.

]]> By: Steph Gray http://digitalbydefault.com/2009/04/14/fall-of-a-hero/#comment-279 Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:33:38 +0000 http://backpass.org/?p=262#comment-279 Interesting post, Matt. I’m not directly involved in the future of HERO but I’d be interested to hear more about your suggestion for a collaborative source of information for the sector, which is exactly what I’m mulling over at the moment.

Any ideas on:

- relevant feeds/sources
- formats: i.e. a ready-made dashboard, or something more modular assuming a bit more technical nowse?
- how to keep it current, responsive and useful?

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