Remember what life was like before the Internet? Until 1997, NASFAA delivered news to its members through a biweekly publication, The NASFAA Newsletter, mailed to every NASFAA institution throughout the country. Once Internet access became widespread, however, NASFAA began delivering Today's News every day through the Internet. All members needed to receive daily updates on financial aid news, Department of Education issues, and NASFAA activities was a Web browser or an email account. It was a big leap forward in keeping members engaged and informed.
In another leap forward, NASFAA is now introducing several new RSS feeds so that members can receive breaking news the moment it is posted to NASFAA's site.
NASFAA RSS Feeds
NASFAA members can now subscribe to the following five RSS feeds. If you're already familiar with RSS, but unsure how to get started, you can go to our Quick Guide for brief instructions.
-
Today's News
NASFAA's blanket coverage of the financial aid world begins each morning with Today's News, offering the information you need to best serve your students and your campus (www.nasfaa.org/RSS/TN_Rss.xml).
What is RSS?
Depending on who you ask, RSS can stand for a couple of different things. The most widespread belief is that RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication," but other definitions could include "Rich Site Summary" or "RDF Site Summary."
No matter which definition you use, ‘RSS' has come to represent a light and fast way to stay up-to-date on current events. RSS feeds are broadcasts from Web sites that publish frequently updated content, such as news headlines, podcasts, or blog entries.
Users can then use an RSS Reader (sometimes referred to as an ‘Aggregator') to collect and organize those broadcasts for easy reading.
Why Would I Use an RSS Reader?
There are three main advantages to using an RSS reader to capture RSS feeds instead of just going to a Web site. An RSS reader
- Gathers broadcasts from several different Web sites at once, eliminating the need to open several different Web pages to manually see new information or content. I personally subscribe to over 55 news related RSS feeds. Instead of going to 55 different Web sites everyday, I can go directly into my RSS reader and quickly scan through headlines and abstracts to see what interests me or what might be important to NASFAA members. In just under 20 minutes, I can run through more than 400 articles from multiple news sources without wasting time by tediously opening multiple Web pages. Even if the average user subscribes to only five RSS feeds, it would still be easier to use an RSS reader to collect and review new content from Web sites.
- Automatically publishes new content as soon as it is broadcast by the Web site. Even though NASFAA's Today's News is published on a daily basis, many times stories are posted to the NASFAA Web site throughout the day. RSS users would be able to see these breaking stories as they're published, instead of waiting for tomorrow's Today's News.
- Allows users to receive information on specific topics. For example, instead of always going to my local newspaper's Web site and then navigating to their "sports" page, I could just as easily subscribe to their sports RSS feed, which would then deliver stories to me just on sports-related topics. So if NASFAA users are especially interested in legislative issues and analysis, they could subscribe to NASFAA's Legislative News feed in addition to NASFAA's Today's News feed.
But Can't NASFAA Just Continue to Send Emails?
NASFAA will continue to distribute Today's News via email every morning. But you probably spend far too much time sifting through emails everyday already. NASFAA does not want to contribute to the massive amount of email you have to sift through by sending you numerous emails about breaking stories. An RSS reader is an unobtrusive way to deliver breaking news you can review at your convenience.
If I Only Use an RSS Reader for Today's News, Is It Worth the Trouble?
The short answer is, "Probably not." But RSS readers can do much more than just pick up NASFAA's Today's News. By using an RSS reader, you can subscribe to your favorite magazine, newspaper, blog, band or music group news, podcasts and even shopping or retail deals.
Some search engines even provide RSS feeds for Web searches. For example, if you were interested in anything the media may report about your institution, you could type into Google News a search for "XYZ University." Google will then give you an option to subscribe to any new news on that search. You simply subscribe and then everyday you can go to your RSS reader to view any new items that Google finds about your school.
Here are some of the RSS feeds that members of NASFAA staff subscribe to in their professional and personal lives:
NASFAA staff also subscribe to several family and friends' blogs and calendars as well as political, lifestyle, and think-tank blogs.
So Where Do I Begin? (Quick Guide)
First, users need to find an RSS reader. RSS readers can be divided into two groups, Web-based readers or desktop readers. Web-based readers are online so they can be accessed whenever you have Internet access. Desktop readers are usually downloaded and installed on your local PC. Which you use depends on whether you use multiple computers in multiple locations. I prefer Web-based readers because I can log on at home, at work, or on the road.
Popular Web-based RSS readers include: Google Reader, Yahoo! RSS Reader, and NewsGator.
There are several desktop RSS readers, such as FeedReader, which can be downloaded and installed onto a computer. Some even integrate with your email program, but in a more organized fashion than simply receiving e-alerts. Microsoft Outlook 2007, Internet Explorer 7, and Mozilla Firefox 2.0 all support RSS inherently.
Of course, the easiest way to find, install, and begin using an RSS reader may be by contacting your IT department.
After you have signed up to start using an RSS reader, the next step is to find RSS feeds. Simply go to any Web site that you normally visit and begin looking for "RSS" or the RSS symbol: 
, or .
An RSS feed is actually just another URL that points to an XML file, so if need be users can manually subscribe to RSS feeds as well. To learn more about NASFAA's RSS feeds, visit http://www.nasfaa.org/RSS/NASFAARSS.html.
Questions or Need Help With RSS?
Additional questions on whether an RSS feed is right for you, or how to set up an RSS feed can be sent to Web@nasfaa.org.
By Justin Draeger
NASFAA Assistant Director for Communications
Please submit Web Site questions or comments to Web@NASFAA.org.
