qNews

Did you know that you can get the latest posts on qNews automatically?

qNews has RSS (Really Simple Syndication) . Using an RSS Reader or ‘Aggregator’ you can subscribe to our blog and automatically receive the latest posts.

I’m keen, how do I get an RSS Reader?

There are a number of options available:

• The latest version of Internet Explorer (IE7) has a reader built in
• I use RSS Popper, a plugin for Outlook that delivers the latest posts into a designated folder just like regular email
• Check out the link above to Wikipedia for a list of free readers

I have a Reader, where do I subscribe?

At the bottom of our blog is a link names ‘Entries’ that contains this URL: http://qnews.qibt.qld.edu.au/feed/. Add this link to your list of subscriptions and all done.

Happy reading!

What is a blog?
A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.

There is no standard definition of a blog, but it usually means a Web page (or qNews in our case) that is updated daily by one person who posts a continuing stream of personal commentary and links, writing in an informal, conversational style.  A lot of businesses are beginning to use Web logs as an online — and interactive — marketing tool.  QIBT is proposing to use a blog as an adjunct to our e-newsletter and e-newsflash items.

We held a competition in-house whereby we asked all staff to submit entries for a name for our newsletter.  Chris Hannigan (QIBT Welfare Advisor), Lyn Tracey (Academic Advisor) and myself used a ranking scale to determine the best name and qNews got the most votes.  Linda Do was announced the winner of our competition and was the lucky recipient of 2 movie passes. 

The QIBT e-marketing group, made up of Brad Dorahy (Director Marketing & Business Deevelopment), Angela O’Sullivan (Communications Coordinator), Glen Shields (IT Manager) and Mark Brenand (IT Officer), convened and decided that a html newsletter is a more attractive and professional medium to attract readers. 

At QIBT we have found that students do not read messages sent to their individual portal email addresses and thus we have tried to create a more attractive medium to send them important information.  It is envisioned that all QIBT staff will contribute their news ideas for qNews through its authors:

Angela O’Sullivan - Communications Coordinator
Chris Hannigan - Welfare Advisor
Lyn Tracey - Academic Advisor

When building this system I wanted just about everything to be as fluid and dynamic as possible.  The Newsletter & Newsflashes areas are template driven and new templates can be added to this system very easily.

The links are just part of the template. Angela and Chris decided on a number of sections to be part of the December 2006 Newsletter (our first newsletter using this system!) and these were built on top of the template.

The beauty of the templating system is that the next one can have different sections if needed. I anticipate a different but similar design being used on each successive release.

A brief was given to Philippe which detailed who our audience was, what message we were trying to achieve and what links we wanted to include.  Philippe’s job was to design something that would attract our audience and then get them to read it - not an easy task!  Mark has included a tracking/reporting function which allows us to analyse if our audience is reading qNews and what links they are clicking on.