Frustrated with the #change11 RSS feed. Technical difficulties

Posted on 30. Sep, 2011 by nando in change11

I feel like I'm the only one having this problem, but it can't be. It's annoying and hinders my participation in the course. Us techies sometimes dismiss technical difficulties, but they can be a real obstacle.

My current problem is that the participants blogs RSS has some serious problems that haven't been addressed: I read the feed through Google reader and get a snippet of the test in each blog.

When I find something I want to read fully, I can't. I simply can't. Each post in the feed contains a title, that is linked to an error page like this one http://change.mooc.ca/cgi-bin/edurss02.cgi?rd=2471. They also contain a link after the word "from", which I understand to represent the source of the post. But clicking on it takes me to a page in Stephen Downes Web with information about the source of a feed. A feed. It seems random. Unrelated to what I want to read. Is it a strategy to make me read other stuff?

For example, this is taken (copy/paste) from my reader:

"Long post alert. As an additional post, this piece is part of the #change11 Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). It’s part of Week 3, on digital scholarship. What is a MOOC? Here’s a video introduction: Onward! Books are tools. Visiting … Continue reading → [From: TheUniversityBlog, September 29, 2011] [Comment]"

Clicking on TheUniversityBlog after "continue reading" takes me to information about a blog called "My learning blog" and nothing to do with the post I want to read.Clicking on "comments" takes to a comment page in grsshopper to comment on the post I haven't been able to read. Awesome!

I can't figure out a way to read the posts in the feed past the snippets I get through the RSS feed. I haven't been able to read any full posts.

Is it me? Is it my reader? Is there something I'm not getting? Is it a problem with the coding of the RSS aggregator in the Change 2011 platform? Or is it working well and I just don't understand how to read the posts through my Google Reader? Or am I not supposed to be able to access the full posts this way? Then how?

I have no idea what happens. But it's annoying and most importantly, I can't read what others post. I've tweeted about it to no avail. Would a blog post help? I guess not, but I get to whine and vent my frustration publicly.

Any help will be highly appreciated, if you manage to read the post and comment on it through my blog...

Comments

nandoMon, 10/03/2011 - 17:01

Well, I've added the OPML file to my Google Reader and it seems to work fine. Hopefully this'll be a solution. Pity the aggregated feed from the course page doesn't work. Glad this option exists.

nandoFri, 09/30/2011 - 18:40

Thank you so much for the idea, Matthias. I'll try importing the OPML file and hopefully it'll work. The Daily Newsletter contains snippets and links that work fine. I've continued exploring and have confirmed the error. This is what the "Participants blogs" RSS feed shows from one of my previous posts:

Synchronous meeting with Martin Weller in #change 11 (Notes)

from change.mooc.ca - Participant Blog Posts

These are unedited notes taken during the synchronous meeting via Fuze on Sept. 28th, 2011 (11:00 am GMT-5). When we look at what is being done in educational technology, many of the ideas are the same as what we talked about 5 years ago: Youtube, blogs, etc. Even though technology advances fast, this does not mean the field of ed. tech. has moved as fast. Defining digital scholarship. Not come up with a definition. Is shorthand for three things come together: Open, Networked, Digital. It&.... [From: EdGeek #change11, September 28, 2011] [Comment]

The link through the topis shows an error page, the feed after "From" takes me to information about a blog called contentious.com, not my blog. In short, no way to actually read the post.

I'll report back after importing the OPML file into my Google Reader.