Distributed feed networks for learning

Abstract

Recent studies indicate that blogs are the breakthrough user application of this decade. Yet, the blogosphere in its current form is suffering from various problems. The fuzziness of the audience, disconnectedness, fragmentation, and lack of conversational coherence may have their roots not only in sociological factors but also in technological shortcomings of the current infrastructure. These problems hinder an effective deployment of blogs in collaborative learning activities. Within this contribution, an interface specification for user-centred distribution of feed ggregation activities is proposed which is both a prerequisite and basic infrastructure for blog-based collaboration. By presenting an overview on the current state of the art in feed and interaction standards, a clear lack of support for active network management will be elaborated. The design requirements for a solution to fill this gap will be sketched and complemented by a step by step description of the communication process of the proposed "FeedBack" specification. Preliminary results from a trial with a reference implementation for WordPress provide a proof of concept.