I have been using RSS feeds for supporting lifelong learning and information retrieval for years. RSS is a news tool that enables retrieving the latest changes from some specific website or e.g. scientific journal. Feeds can be subscribed to mobile apps or email applications like Thunderbird or Outlook. However, the existing solutions were not 100% suitable for my learning needs, so I coded my own.

Version 1.0

I built a web application using jQuery Mobile (JQM) and jQuery FeedEk plugin. The UI is made via JQM Tabs feature. It supports adding multiple languages. In the demo version the UI can viewed in Finnish, English or Swedish.

Use cases

This kind of application can be used in e.g. following the news and articles published from some specific topic. Feeds can be grouped using rows. Every row can hold three feeds, which is optimal for mobile devices.
My first use case for the demo was to follow my own publications and our University of Helsinki Research Portal feeds. These are the information sources that give a wide perspective to my current activities.

Test and download

The license for JQM and FeedEk is MIT. There is almost no restrictions for using the technology.
The source code of the project has been archived in the Research Portal of the University of Helsinki. You can download the source code for different versions (ZIP package) and test the app yourself. The package contains all needed JavaScript files and style sheets. Just edit the rss.html file and change the default feeds and UI according to your needs. All code is commented for easy re-use.

For the future versions I will be improving the language selections so that they will support different feeds. All feedback is much appreciated.