OERu learner support/Links/FAQs/Blog feed URL

In this section we provide information on how the OERu technology platform uses the blog feed URL of your blog site to fetch posts for inclusion in the course feed.

How the harvester works
The OERu uses an automated process for fetching links to your blog posts for blog sites learners have assigned to the courses they are enrolled for. This process is automated, but it is useful to have a basic understanding of how this works.

The OERu software scans the feed pages of assigned blog sites by visiting the URL of a blog feed page. The blog feed page is a special page supported by many popular blog software applications. This feed page generates a machine readable version of your posts using predefined formats, for example, RSS (which, depending on whom you ask, stands for either Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary), Atom or other formats. The feed scanner needs to know:


 * 1) The courses a learner is enrolled for.
 * 2) The blog URLs of the learners' personal blog site(s) they are using for their courses
 * 3) The blog feed URLs the learner assigns to their enrolled courses.

We have a blog feed finder website that simplifies this process (see below). Once a blog is assigned, the OERu software will periodically check the machine readable feed page. If it finds posts tagged with the course code, it will fetch and include a link to your post in the course feed on the course site. Assuming that you have assigned your blog URL and tagged your posts using the course code, the scanner will fetch links to these blog posts and automatically include a link to posts it finds that are tagged with the course code. Note that the feed scanner will check registered blog sites about three times each hour for appropriately tagged posts, so it may take a while for your post to appear in the course feed after registering or updating your blog URL.