What is RSS?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader or a feed reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail, or keep it on a web-based service.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want to receive by finding and subscribing to the relevant RSS feeds. For example, if you would like the entire Press Office newsfeed, simply visit the News index and you will notice an orange RSS button.

If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader, dragging the button icon into your reader, or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check RSS feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to RSS feeds much easier. 

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time. Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer. A list of popular readers appears on the list on the right.

All users: We encourage the use of Oxford University News RSS feeds as part of a website, subject to our Terms and Conditions.

Internal users: If you run your own website, you may use our RSS feeds to display the latest headlines on your site. For information on how to do this, and for more information about RSS feeds, please read the documentation on the Oxitems site. As these headlines are available on a trial service, you may find that this service may be interrupted, taken down, or replaced in future. We will aim to give prior warning should any of these need to occur using the ITSS-D/ W-M-D contact lists.