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Adding Content Using a Feed Group

If you are hosting content on your local servers, use feed groups to automatically populate track content in a Course page based on the podcast feed URL and details you specify.

To automatically populate track content using feed groups:

1. Log in to iTunes U as an administrator or another user with editing access.

2. Navigate to the Course page where you want to add content using a feed group.

3. Click Edit Page in the Tools area.

4. Click the Edit icon in the tab controls section to edit a feed group.

5. Verify Feed is selected in the Type pop-up menu.

6. Provide details about the feed group using the fields and options provided. For more information, see the “To create a feed group” topic in “Creating Group Types.”

7. Click Apply to save changes.

   • Click Revert to revert any changes you made since the last save.

8. Click the Save icon in the tab controls section to save the feed group.

9. Click Logout.

Note: iTunes U copies relevant information and data from your RSS feed and automatically populates your feed group track content based on the podcast feed URL information and the details you specify. When users subscribe to the feed, they are subscribing to the copied information and data, not your RSS feed directly. Because iTunes U does not use your your RSS feed directly, iTunes U cannot update Course page track content at the same time the RSS feed is updated. If you choose Daily from the “Check for changes” pop-up menu, iTunes U can update the feed group content on a daily basis. If you want to force a feed group update you can:

• Send a request to http(s)://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/PingPodcast/site.name with an id, handle, or feedURL parameter. You can pass the parameter on the query string for an HTTP GET, or pass it as an HTTP POST parameter using a content type of application/x-www-form-urlencoded. For example: https://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/PingPodcast/itunesu.edu?handle=876546541.

• Use the iTunes U UpdateGroup Web Service operation. For more information, see “UpdateGroup.”

For an example of a well-formed RSS feed, see “RSS Feed Sample.”

As the site administrator, you can also use iTunes U Web Services to create a feed group, including the URL to the feed, and automatically populate track content within a course. For more information, see “Adding Content Using iTunes U Web Services” and “AddGroup.”

The following is an example of an iTunes U Web Services document using AddGroup, and specifying that the new group is a feed group:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ITunesUDocument>
  <Version>1.1.1</Version>
  <AddGroup>
    <ParentHandle>876546541</ParentHandle>
    <Group>
      <Name>Group's Name</Name>
      <GroupType>Feed</GroupType>
      <ExternalFeed>
        <URL>http://www.itunesu.edu/feedpath.xml</URL>
        <OwnerEmail>john.doe@email.com</OwnerEmail>
        <PollingInterval>Daily</PollingInterval>
        <SecurityType>None</SecurityType>
        <SignatureType>None</SignatureType>
      </ExternalFeed>
    </Group>
  </AddGroup>
</ITunesUDocument>