I had a lunch meeting with two guys from PSU who run pieces of the ANGEL project here on our campus to talk to them about adding RSS features to the toolset. I won’t bore you with the details, but I made the case that ANGEL should have multiple feeds available so students can use news readers (or the PSU Portal) to get updates, notifications of mail, calendar updates, etc without spending the 10 mins to just log into the system and look around. They liked the idea and were happy that it didn’t step on the toes of the portal, but supported it.

At any rate the biggest issue they are dealing with revolves around email. Someone at the University — who will remain nameless — has been pushing the ANGEL development team to not allow students to forward ANGEL, course-related mail out to their standard email accounts. I have talked with students about this and most, if not all, are upset about the idea. I understand adminstrators think it should stay in the system because it enables tracking, but it limits availability for students. Now, if you combine an RSS notification feature with the newly proposed “limitation” on email forwarding, you’ve got something.

I have more to say about this and will add additional thoughts later. Off to another meeting!