Library clips

RSS World has a hack to enable an RSS feed for your Feedburner circulation numbers in 2 easy steps.

Step 1. Activate your Feedburner Awareness API (see the Publicized tab in your admin area)

Step 2. Add your feed name after the “=” in this URL:
http://lab.rss-world.info/feedburner-feedstats/stats2feed.php?feeds=

Here’s mine:

http://lab.rss-world.info/feedburner-feedstats/stats2feed.php?feeds=LibraryClips

Graze this at 2RSS (thanks 3spots).

To do it for multiple feeds just add a comma, you can also add a date range eg. &days=7

Here is my feed and my comments feed for the last 7 days:
http://lab.rss-world.info/feedburner-feedstats/stats2feed.php?feeds=LibraryClips,LibraryClipsComments&days=7

Graze this at 2RSS.

Here is the Feedburner Awareness API documentation.

I can enable feeds for my blog categories, if I did this I would run them through Feedburner first, this way I could keep statistics on each category…see which categories are most popular.
But the hard thing about this is I’d need a subscriber number chicklet for each category.

So if any coders can hack into the API and allow you to combine multiple feedburner feeds into the same chicklet, this would be awesome…Improbulus asked for this a while back.

RSS World also has Feed2PDF, similar to RSS2PDF, and RSS2PDF.org.

The obvious difference between a wiki and an EDMS is that a wiki stores and presents (publishes) webpages, whereas an EDMS stores folders and files.

There are numerous differences and killer features between these two content management systems, but I’m going to draw on the big picture or better still when can a wiki be used instead of, or to complement an EDMS.

I really enjoyed reading, Using wikis on the intranet: The British Council case study…this article sparked this blog post as it documented a use-case focus…we need more of these experience type articles.

A wiki is collaborative or communal website, anyone (access allowed) can edit a wiki webpage, sames goes with a document (and its metadata) or folder structure in an EDMS.
Also both these systems have version control, and a version history…EDMS’s also can have a click trail.

I haven’t had much experience with wikis, but I’ll explain the EDMS I use at work.

Just like a wiki, if you have remote access to the Intranet you can use the EDMS from home.
To edit, you check out a document for an edit session, while it’s checked out others cannot edit the same document, they can only see who is in the edit session and email that person to “hurry up” …the only thing they can do is view the document (not the one being edited, they can view the last version of the document).

What you can do is get automatic email notification when that document is checked back in from the edit session. Also after a document is checked in, the person may also decide to edit the metadata, eg. they may decide to change the title of the document.
Not sure if wiki pages have metadata, but this is sure handy in an EDMS for fielded searching and reporting…full-text searching is also available.

Just like a wiki each document has a version history, after an edit session the current version is displayed, and previous versions are stored.

Why a wiki?

It seems they are both collaborative editing environments (not real-time), keeping track of document history. In the end they are both electronic filing cabinets of documents (EDMS) or pages (wiki).

What I like about wikis is that the content is presented as a website, whereas an EDMS (or at least the one I use) looks like a filing cabinet…not too different than Microsoft Windows.

As mentioned at the start one hosts webpages and the other documents, this is the fundamental difference, but if you don’t need your content in MSWord or Excel, etc…then a webpage format could be an alternative…just type in text into the WYSIWYG editor and you’re web publishing with the greatest of ease.

I’m not saying it’s an alternative, but sometimes content (like brainstorming or minutes of meeting) doesn’t really require MSWord, why not use a wiki…don’t be afraid to leave the safety of what you know…we already have a hurdle with knowledge sharing as people won’t get their heads out of email, MSWord, etc…

So if your content is OK in webpage format, then you are really rolling, as all these webpages become part of your wiki website…you can have a homepage, category pages, images, re-syndicate feed content, favourite links, etc…
This website look can be much more pleasing than navigating around or drilling down in a EDMS environment…sure you can make short cuts to documents in an EDMS, you can also list featured items/links in your EDMS homepage, but it just doesn’t have the design and flexibility of a webpage.

Even if your work just had a wiki, and not an EDMS, but still wanted some content in MSWord of Excel…well you can store these on the network server and link to it, or maybe just attach these in your wiki.
Then what about collaborating and version control without an EDMS, an answer to this is using an alternative to Microsoft like Online wordprocessing and spreadsheets offered by service like Zoho.

Complementary

I think an EDMS could be re-vamped with a plug-in wiki module, or just use an external wiki it doesn’t matter.

Why I say this is that an EDMS files all your content, but it would be good to make a gateway link page to all featured or heavily used documents. But this could be more than a link page, it could be the webpage for your business unit or project. You could have links, a blog (for announcements), re-syndicate news, a link to polls, a link to a forum, etc…basically presenting your filing cabinet as a typical website.

Now you don’t need a wiki to do this, but since a wiki enables people to publish their own homepages so easily, you don’t need an expert intranet programmer doing it for you, the staff can do it themselves. If a staff member has a new feature document they can add a link to it in the wiki themselves, no waiting anymore as we are all empowered.

So the content in the wiki itself can be used to present and display content that is kept in the EDMS, and although this can be done with traditional webpages, wikis allow staff to make changes to these pages.
I like the idea that as a staff member the page that represents my business unit can be owned by all of us together (a belonging, and proud factor).

Use case comparison eg. Minutes of Meeting (MoM)

EDMS

- navigate to the MoM folder
- create a new MSWord document for this weeks agenda
- when a new document is created in this folder you can be automatically notified by email
- staff can add to this document (even from home)
- when someone finishes editing this document you can be automatically notified by email
- while the meeting is happening this same document can be edited by one person (action notes)
- when the meeting is over and the document is checked back in you can be automatically notified by email
- when each person has completed their task, they can edit the agenda and cross out (strikethrough) their task to signify it’s completed, others can automatically be notified by email…or the strikethrough can be the MSWord Track changes option.
(In this case when you go to the document to see the changes how are you going to know why you were sent the automatic email, out of all the strikethroughs how do you remember which task was the most recently completed…maybe each person could have a blog to describe their completed task…others can be notified by RSS)

How is a wiki different?

The obvious difference is that the EDMS just stores/points to the file, whereas in a wiki there is no file, the content is within the wiki itself, it is not a MSWord file it is a wiki webpage.

We know both systems have version control and collaborative features, but since I have limited experience using wikis, maybe others can comment on the collaborative process part, ie. the difference between using MSWord Track Changes housed in an EDMS or using a wiki webpage as part of a wiki website.

This MoM example could also be applied to using an EDMS or a wiki for brainstorming ideas.

An obvious part I didn’t make explicit is that using a EDMS also requires using MSWord to store the content…once you have created a document (in one system) you have to upload it to the EDMS (another system).
Whereas a wiki is a system to itself, it both creates and store webpages.