This quick post - culled from an email message that was part of another discussion - builds on some of the thoughts introduced in an earlier post Managing Bookmarks and considers some of the ways we might manage 'Live Bookmarks' in our online courses...
The question at hand was the extent to which we could use a ROUTES-like bookmark management system to keep links in e-course materials current, e.g. by using a ROUTES XML feed to populate the weblinks for the site (example feed). This would be handy for course teams because it means that the Library could keep an eye on the weblinks for the site as part of the normal linkchecking'n'fixing workflow applied to ROUTES links...
Another way of looking at it would be for ROUTES to replace all the external URLs with equivalent ROUTES redirect URLs: as T846 have done with their Links to referenced material.
Something else to consider is the extent to which a level of indirection between links in the course materials, and the final pages would allow for easier link checking.
(I don't know the extent to which ROUTES uses DOIs, or the extent to which ROUTES references can be treated as persistent URLs in their own right, but there is probably some scope here for thinking about persistent, indirect addressing.)
As well as allowing persistent (if indirect) links in the course materials, this indirection/intermediation potentially opens up other benefits...
For example, in some parts of the course, we have what effectively amount to 'Suggested further reading' weblinks. Some of these may date, deprecate, move etc, at other times the author may wish to add links that are current or particularly topical (notwithstanding the upset this is likely to cause in editorial quarters)
To recap, then, one way forward for link management is towards a bookmarking service that feeds links in to a page.
So for example, a list of 'Further Information' links at the bottom of a page could be replaced with something like:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/rssViewerJS.php?rssURL=http://del.icio.us/rss/T184/automation%2Bcourselink"></script>
There are issues of course - to use the service, you need to be online. Cookies can hold up to about 4k, so this may provide one way of storing link info in the user's offline cache. Alternatively, if we install other s/w, then a set of 'default', or 'core' links could be installed to provide some recommended links when the student is offline.