Transcript Document

Adding EdNA Services
to your website
(Workshop B, 2004)
Presenter
Kerrie Smith
School Education Information Officer
EdNA Online
[email protected]
Ph: 08 8334 3213
 EdNA Online is a joint initiative of the states, territories and Australian
Governments through their education departments and managed by
education.au limited.
Workshop Objectives
 Provide details about the free EdNA Online Shared
Information Services
 Provide information about how to add Shared Information
Services to your own website
 Help you identify the most appropriate technology for
your website
 Provide hands-on experience in adding some Shared
Information Services to a web page.
Getting Started
During this workshop we will be using the following:
 EdNA Online website
http://www.edna.edu.au/
 Notepad or its equivalent
Workshop Documentation
 Documentation supporting this workshop and
use of the Shared Information Services
http://www.edna.edu.au/developers
Shared Information Services
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Browse Topics and Categories
EdNA Online Distributed Search
Recently Added Resources
News Headlines
EdNA Online Browse Topics and
Categories
 The EdNA Online Browse Topics and Categories
organises collections of like resources.
 Using a category or topic and browsing through them is
another way to find information.
 EdNA Online has hundreds of categories, some are
organised by sector, some by document type, and others
by subject.
Browse Structure (cont)
 Use the topics and categories on your own website to
provide your site users with quality assured information
relevant to their needs and their areas of interest.
See http://www.edna.edu.au/browsemap/0
 School Education Browsemap
http://www.edna.edu.au/browsemap/3830
 Higher Education Browsemap
http://www.edna.edu.au/browsemap/14899
 Vocational Education and Training Browsemap
http://www.edna.edu.au/browsemap/12650
Technology Options
Different technology options are available:
 HTML
 Javascript
 XML
 RSS
Your choice will depend on the technical resources
you have available.
HTML and Javascript
 A HTML or Javascript option is a 'low technology'
solution.
 Suits website administrators who do not have
access to software developer resources or who
manage 'static' websites that cannot be
programmed.
 The services available as HTML or Javascript
are also available in XML and RSS
HTML Shared Information Services The Generators
 The Generators
[http://www.edna.edu.au/generators]
help you by automatically generating the HTML
or Javascript for you to copy and paste into your
own web pages.
 All you need for this option is some basic
knowledge of HTML so you know where to copy
and paste the code.
The Generators – HTML and
Javascript
Available services:
 Distributed Search
 Browse Topics and categories
 Recently Added Resources
 News Headlines
http://www.edna.edu.au/generators
Using The Generator for Search
Add an EdNA Online Search to your own website!
 Add either a Standard or an Advanced Search
 Use the Generator to create the HTML code to put in
your own web page
 Modify the resulting search strings to further customise
the search results if you wish.
Parameters for further customisation are available in the
Shared Information Services documentation.
e.g. &showdesc=false will turn descriptions off
&sr=gem will give GEM results
Using The Generator for Browse
Add an EdNA Online Browse topic or category to your own
website!
 Choose a topic from the list provided or get one from the
browsemap.
 Generate code
 Cut and paste into your own web page.
 Modify the code according to parameters available in the
Shared Information Services documentation.
E.g. &items=65 will change the number of items
displayed from the default of 10 to 65
&showdesc=false will turn descriptions off
Using The Generator for Recently
Added Resources
Add EdNA Online's Recently Added Resources to your web
page!
 Choose a topic from the list provided or get one from the
browsemap.
 Generate the code
 Cut and paste into your own web page.
 Modify the code according to parameters available in the
Shared Information Services documentation.
Default for the number of items shown is 10
e.g. &items=30 or use other topic codes
Using The Generator for News
Headlines
Add EdNA Online's News Headlines to your web page!
 Choose from the list provided
 Generate the code
 Cut and paste into your own web page.
 Modify the HTML according to parameters available in
the Shared Information Services documentation.
Default for the number of items shown is 10
e.g. &items=20 (A maximum of 20 is available)
&showdesc=false removes descriptions
XML Overview
XML
• stands for EXtensible Markup Language, a markup
language very much like HTML
• An international standard mainly used in exchanging
data between computers
• can be used to describe any data that has a well
known structure
XML Types
• There are 1,000s of defined XML data formats or types or
schemas (some are industry standards and some are adhoc).
• Common XML data formats used by EdNA Online are:
• RSS describes news feed data exchange format
• EdNA XML API Search Results describes search
results format
RSS Overview
 RSS can stand for 'Rich Site Summary', 'RDF Site
Summary' or 'Really Simple Syndication
 RSS is an XML-based format that allows the syndication
of list-oriented content
 A feed contains a list of items, each of which is identified
by a hyperlink. The most basic metadata supported by
RSS includes a title for the link and a description of it.
XML Shared Information Services
 The XML option suits an organisation that has a
dynamic website or web portal and has access to
software developer resources with XML expertise.
XML Shared Information Services
(cont)
The following services are available
 XML Browse
 XML News Headlines
 XML Recently Added Resources
 XML Distributed Search
 XML Event Calendars
 XML Browsemap
See http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/page3035.html
(Developers’ Kit > XML Services)
and Shared Information Services documentation
XML Services Examples
EdNA Online VET News Headlines are used in Vet e-News
at Training.com.au
http://www.training.com.au/
EdNA Online Browse categories are displayed in the
ACTivatED portal
http://activated.decs.act.gov.au/
RSS Shared Information Services
 Access the EdNA Online RSS Services via any device
that can support RSS feeds.
 Display EdNA Online RSS feeds if your website supports
the display of external RSS feeds.
 Include EdNA RSS Services into your desktop products
either via a desktop RSS reader, or by using desktop
products that support RSS.
RSS Shared Information Services
(cont)
 Browse
 Search
 Recently Added Resources
 News Headlines
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/page3041.html
(Developers’ Kit > RSS Services)
See also the Shared Information Services
documentation
Requesting an RSS Service
All EdNA Online XML services are available as RSS feeds.
 Searches available through the EdNA Online website can
be delivered as RSS. See the bottom of the search
results page
 Search strings created through the Search generator can
be modified to give an RSS string
e.g. Search is http://api.edna.edu.au/search.xml?q=frogs
RSS is http://api.edna.edu.au/search.rss?q=frogs
RSS strings can be added to your RSS reader.
Requesting an RSS Service (cont)
Similarly the documentation shows how to convert
 Browse
 Recently Added Resources
 News Headlines
to an RSS format.
These can then be added to an RSS reader.
Register with us
 Register as a user of EdNA services so we can keep in
touch and let you know when new services are available
or when services change.
[email protected]
 Please participate in our online survey about the
usefulness of this workshop.
Please complete the workshop survey
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2GK6R4RD
 Thank you for attending this EdNA Online workshop
HTML Shared Information Services
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Through ‘The Generators’ EdNA Online provides a
number of its services as simple HTML code that you
can copy and paste into your own web page.
Distributed Search [HTML]
Browse Topics and Categories
News Headlines
Recently Added Resources
Available in HTML or Javascript
• Browse
• Event Calendars
• Recently Added Resources
• Distributed Search
• News Headlines