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HPU students can check the front page of Pipeline to see a list of changed and canceled classes. This is a good example of a pull system. Students have to log in to Pipeline and look at the channel to see the information.

Here’s a screen shot of today’s notices. There are no classes scheduled today, of course, because it’s Labor Day. The fall term starts tomorrow.

The channel only reports official changes, though. In the past, the university posted these changes by the classroom door, using a paper sign. If an instructor hasn’t told the university that they are canceling a class for a specific day, the change won’t appear by the door or on this new list.

It would be nice if this list were available on the public web site or an RSS feed. As I mentioned on April 16, a push system could send out notices to the affected students, perhaps by email, text messages.

RSS can be either a push or pull system, depending on how it’s used. For example, users can have the posts in this blog sent or pushed to them by email. Just pull up the RSS feed as a web page and look for the option.

Most users tend to employ RSS as a pull system. It’s a bit different from web browsing, as an RSS reader can be set to automatically check and retrieve new articles on a schedule.

I have a longer discussion about RSS and how students can use it in my courses – it was posted January 23, and it links to an older post from September 23, 2006.

Tech: Data Mining Goes 3D: Sounds like a stakeholder identification system to me. “In ‘Sandia’s intelligence lab converts business data into 3-D images,’ the New Mexico Business Weekly reports that Sandia’s Information Visualization Lab is able to search structured documents, such as scientific journals, or unstructured ones, such as the Web or an intranet. Since the lab has been established five months ago, this software has already been used to determine the potential of several partnerships with SNL. Other firms, such as Lockheed Martin, also are starting to use the lab.”