Accessing and Managing Scientific Literature: Using RSS in the Classroom

RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is a Web feature that allows for a wide variety of content from Web sites, blogs, or other sources to be collected by a reader and organized onto a single Web page, creating a personalized information space. This powerful function may be used effectively in the classroom to incorporate information from the current news or from the recent scientific literature into discussion or homework assignments. Details of selecting a reader, setting up personal RSS feeds, and using this feature for class assignments are discussed.