Joe,
If the RSS feeds are allowed by the site Administrator, they are available.
There are email notifications in several different areas that I know of:
- subscribed forums get emails whenever anyone posts
- After grading assignments, most will notify the participant that there it feedback on their assignment.
- Teachers can set up assignments so that when a student posts, they are emailed.
- There is also an internal messaging system that will also email participants when a message is posted.