Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by Dan Marsden -
Number of replies: 8
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Here at Lincoln University, NZ our definition of a course is different to that of Moodle - we use the term "course" to define what is also referred to as a Degree Programme, or collection of subjects. 

we use "subject" to refer to a single paper.

In Moodle under admin > site settings, we have the ability to define what our words for "teacher" and "student" are. - could we add the ability to define what our word for "course" is?
-another alternative to this is to use to apply a stylesheet that is applied after the site stylesheet that includes the changes, but how many places is "course" or "courses" listed across all the stylsheets? - my guess is many!

does anyone else in use different terminology than "course" in their organisations?

smile

Dan

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In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by Przemyslaw Stencel -
You can change the word "course" into anything else throughout Moodle by editing the language files (Administration » Configuration » Language » Compare and edit current language). Remember, though, that during upgrade, language files are overwritten with new versions. To avoid this, you can create your own language pack (by just copying the 'en' folder and renaming it to something else). Then make that new langauge pack the default for the site and edit this custom language.
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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by Dan Marsden -
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opoops! - did I say "stylesheets" in the above post!? - I meant Lang packs......it's hitting the fan around here - registration week...

hmmm- I have a feeling copying the en folder isn't really the best solution - lang packs can have "parents" - so all I would need is the updated strings in a lang pack and call the "En" pack as the parent.

- I'm really wondering if this is a bigger issue than just our institution - it would be really simple to add something to the site config page to allow "course" to be defined, but if I'm the only one then I'll continue to use a child lang pack

thanks,

smile

Dan

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In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by koen roggemans -
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The word "course" is also used in the help files, the documentation etc and they are plain HTML. So it's not a five minute hack to make it variable all over Moodle.

If you need more info on creating a child lang pack, read translation.html in the lang/docs folder.
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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by Gordon McLeod -

I've just added a tracker request for this for 2.x - local contextualisation is vital to engage staff and reduce barriers. Surely being able to more easily define such a contextually-loaded term as "course" sitewide with a local meaningful term is worth some further thought?

http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-32424

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In reply to Gordon McLeod

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by Mary Cooch -
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I just read your tracker item - but if you customise the language locally (via Settings>Site administration>Language>Language customisation) then the changes are kept when you upgrade from one version to another, so that would be better than doing it directly in the language files. I appreciate however your point about changing it in a number of places.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by Gordon McLeod -

Hi Mary,

Thanks for clarification. From the first item in the language pack core section there are 3 long pages where the word "course" appears - so I thought GULP (and it will appear in other places). Still a big job if you need to go through everything and rename - but if the local file is retained during upgrades at least it's only done once.

A bit more disappointing was that the tracker item was closed almost immediately and marked "won't fix". A bit of dialogue to understand why users might consider this an issue would have been welcome - a closed attitude towards the end user experience isn't what I expect from a development project heavily invested in community...

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In reply to Gordon McLeod

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Hi Gordon,

a simple serach and replace will wotk for english language, but not genelly for all languages. I'm one of the maintainer for the German language packs. In German the terms can change depending of the subjects. An example:

  • der Kurs -> die Community the article changes depeneding of the subject
  • ein Kurs -> eine Community

In German wie have a lot of combined words. In english the words stay seperated:

  • Kurs: Kursbereich, Kurskategorie, Kursschlüssel, Kursabschnitt

Lots of languages have similar grammar structures.

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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Terminology - what do you define as a course/subject?

by koen roggemans -
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Same in Dutch: all words in Dutch.

3 pages is quite reasonable - it's only 300 strings, say max 2 hours to alter them. Most of them will be in core, may be in core_admin aswell (but that is probably not important). Compare it with translating a whole language pack which is +17000 strings ...

To my opinion, the "won't" fix is justied clearly in the tracker issue: it can't be fixed due to the internationalisation capabilities of Moodle. That capability provides in one go a very feasable sollution for your problem.

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