Inside this Issue
- Focus on E-learning
- E-learning website and blog
- Resource guide to e-learning software and resources
- Sympodcasting
- Instantly Collaborative Spaces
- RSS Feeds and Public Health
- SPH Podcasting Update
- E-learning Guide
- PHLI Summer Schedule
- E-learning Bibliography
- Annual User Survey
- Announcing Merit Online
- Posters and Public Health
- PHLI Technology Update
- New Web Statistics Software
- New Staff Bios
- Librarian Exchange
- Staff Notes
- A Day in the Life
RSS Feeds: What Are They and Why Are They Important to Public Health?
A screenshot of the RSS Bandit Reader
HubMed
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health RSS Page
By Jason Nargis
RSS feeds have many applications for public health instruction, research, and practice and can play a significant role in improving the timeliness, accuracy, and reach of these activities. In general, RSS helps users manage awareness of wide-ranging and/or rapidly-developing fields.
Professors can, for example, create a blog (a weblog or online journal) for a class with an RSS feed that sends any changes to an RSS reader. This is a great way to continue classroom discussion or post links to new resources in an easy-to-digest format. Students can become and remain up to date on quickly changing areas of interest or study by subscribing to specific feeds. Often, one of the most difficult tasks facing individuals in the field of public health is maintaining expertise. Evidence based public health research and practice is a good example of this. RSS feeds can minimize the effort needed to sustain relevant understanding of changes in this arena. Researchers can quickly publish results and stay on top of colleagues’ work, and healthcare professionals can also maintain up to the minute knowledge and quickly disseminate information to one another.
Examples of RSS in Action
Many journals, professional associations, and websites now offer various forms of RSS feed links. PubMed and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are two good examples.
Medline search results are available as RSS feeds through PubM+ed. After setting up a search that is useful, you can click on the “Send to” menu at the top of the screen and select “RSS Feed.” This will generate a feed based on your search that will send a number (you determine) of daily updates for this search to your reader. HubMed is another interface for accessing the Medline database, and offers greatly increased flexibility and functionality.
HubMed has been described as “PubMed on steroids.” For an excellent synopsis of HubMed and its capabilities see the following web address: http://www.eaa-knowledge.com/ojni/ni/9_2/hubmed.htm.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has a clear, useful, progressive web page offering RSS and audio and video podcast links. Public health headlines and school news are easily accessible, as are informative and entertaining media selections. There are also links to RSS feeds for John Hopkins Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the University at large. For more information please visit: http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/rss.
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