Create a Podcast: Publish

Creating a Podcast - Overview
Step 1: Prepare Episodes
Step 2: Create the Feed
Step 3: Publish

Publishing a podcast makes it available to your audience. Publishing consists of storing your media and feed files and creating a link to the feed file for your audience. At this point, you should also plan an archiving strategy for your podcast (Step D).

A. Store Files

In your I: drive, or a department/organization web folder, create a folder named "media." Within the "media" folder create a sub-folder named "podcasts." All media files (.mp3 or .m4v) and the feed file (.xml) should be stored within the "podcasts" folder. For example: I:\media\podcasts\song1.mp3.

For instructors podcasting classroom sessions, each course should have its own folder, and each section should have its own subfolder. For example: I:\media\podcasts\COPS1230\Section3241.

B. Use the UWF Stylesheet in Your Webpage

For your podcast to display properly, the UWF web presence CSS stylesheet must be used in your webpage. If your web page was created using the UWF web presence standards (most department websites), then you are ready to proceed to Step C. If your site was not created using the UWF standards (most individual websites), then you must include the following code in the "head" of your webpage.

C. Create a Link to Your Podcast

Method 1: Place a Link Directly on the Webpage

To include a link directly on the webpage, use the format below.

Example: <a href="uwf_feed.xml" class="rssfeed" title="UWF News Podcast XML Feed"> <span>UWF News Podcast</span></a>

Method 2: Place a Link in the Header

This method will place the RSS feed icon in the upper right corner of the page rather than creating a link the body of the page.

Example: <link rel= "alternate" type= "application/rss+xml" title="UWF News Highlights" href="#RootDir#/podcasts/uwf_feed.xml"/>

D. Archiving

All podcasts should be created with an archiving plan in mind. Feed files tend to grow quite large and need to be periodically archived.

Podcasts for Classroom Sessions

Instructors producing podcasts for classroom sessions should place a copy of the feed file (.xml) in the section directory at the conclusion of the class and begin a new feed for the new session.

Other Podcasts

At least once a year, the podcast feed file should be archived and a new feed file should be created. This will keep the size of the feed file from growing too large. You do not need to move your audio/video files in order to archive the feed. Simply rename the original feed (example: myfeed_archive.xml), and create a new feed with the same name as the original feed (example: myfeed.xml).

For a typical podcast consisting of weekly episodes, the feed file may be expected to grow by as much as 5k per month, resulting in approximately 60k of data per year. For more frequently updated podcasts, the feed file should be archived if it grows larger than 200k in a single year.