Tiered Dictionary Module ?

Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Jamie Glase -
Number of replies: 29

I think a good module would be a Glossary/Dictionary. There could be a site glossary to go over terms that are inclusive of the entire site/school, and each teacher could create a glossary (like creating a forum or chat room) for their specific class.

In this way the teacher can upload or input several terms that are pertinent to the course material to assist students. It seems to be that an additional table would have to be added to be able to link it with the course table. Unfortunately I am not a coder yet, but I have plenty of ideas! ;)

Anyone else interested in this type of module?

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In reply to Jamie Glase

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

If no one minds, I want to give it a try.

Will

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Jamie Glase -

Give it a few whacks. ;)

It's beyond my scripting capabilites right now so anything you do would be an improvement on what I could achieve!

Later on in the thread someone mentions plugins for moodle at a different point than resources or such. I don't understand what all that means but I think it means the dictionary will be more functional

I don't think students should be able to alter or add dictionary entries (or if they do, they should be moderated by the teacher before appearing live in the class dictionary)

Just my two cents

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In reply to Jamie Glase

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Well... I'm a bit excited about this module because this is my first try to create a module for Moodle.

Although my module could not be the final one, I would like to receive comments and suggestions on what I did... how could it be done, how should it be done.. Anything to improve my knowledge on Moodle would be nice... and highly appreciated.

This is just a beginning: It allows you to create glossaries and add entries to them. You can specify if the student can or cannot add entries to the glossary.

I think this module has a high potential.. Here are a couple of thoughs:

  • I'm planning to add an optional image field to each entry.
  • Perhaps, user entries could be graded... and make their entries private or public.
  • In the same vein, the glossary could have a start and due date.

What I think needs to improve (or to finish):

  • The way the entries are shown. I think they should be shown in a more "moodled" way.
  • Edit and delete entries...
  • The icon... I have a white paper with "A B C " on it in my mind... Working with icons is beyond my capabilites so any help will be also appreciate.

Any, ANY comment will be appreciated as this is my first module and I want to learn the how-to's of Moodle.

Thanks in advance,
Will

PS: I'm still working on it.. The only thing that is still not finished (to the current scope of the module) is to edit and delete entries...

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Fast work! I've not tried the module yet, but since you seem to be working on it, you might want to keep in mind ways of making it able to develop into a completely general data-storage module.

See: http://moodle.org/bugs/bug.php?op=show&bugid=224

The idea is that a teacher can set up the fields they want, and then allow people to fill them in. Such a module would have many uses beyond a glossary.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Thanks... Please, let me know when you check this out and post any suggestion/comments about it..

The data module is a big league module! I'm not even in the triple A division yet! smile Allow me to create a basic module like this one, that works the way it should works, and then I could try a bigger one...

However, I will try to extend the capabilities of this module in order to make it more flexible.

And for the record... There was another moodler who shows interest in this module also... I'm not putting this module under my arm... it's just that I was looking for a module easy enough for me to code and it seemed to fit in that category as soon as I read the initial message of this thread. To him, don't stop becuase I'm coding it already... It would be nice to see different approach to create this module.

C ya,
Will

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

An update.

The following features are now finished:

  • Now it allows to update and delete entries.
  • Improved look of the entries
  • Entries are sorted now (I forgot to do so in the previous version.. wink )
  • Glossaries are backed up with the backup module.

The following features needs to get finished:

  • Restore the backups (I think I'll need the help of Eloy)

I think that with it, the current scope of the module is achived.

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I'll put it in CVS for you so you can work on it
there if you want ... if so, send me your sourceforge username!

http://moodle.org/doc/?frame=cvs.html
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Thanks... I've installed Tortoise and followed the steps in that page...

When I click on fetch list, I keep asking my password.

What am I missing?

Will

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by John Gone -
Do you have a sourceforge user name? If so then use your SF p/w. If you haven't yet registered at SF you'll have to do that first so that you can update and commit content back into the Moodle CVS.
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In reply to John Gone

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -
Yes.. I have an account on SF... but tortoise does not accept it... sad
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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
That's why I said "send me your sourceforge username" ... so I can add you to the project.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Oops... Sorry. willcast is my username.

Will

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -
Any update on this?
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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
It's now in CVS under /contrib/glossary, and you should have access. It's also on the download page now, so there's no need to post it here any more.
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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Jamie Glase -
Pardon my ignorance, but I am getting some errors. Also, this one will be short cause I just wrote out this big long detailed explaination, and then like doof, pasted a snippet instead of copying my content subsequently erasing everything I just wrote AARRGH!!!#$%@#

Install when nice. I drop your files and folder structure under /mod/glossary

update of the tables when fine.
when I created a glossary in a course, there were brackets around the options list items for student control of the glossary. I still successfully created a glossary. When to click on the glossary to see the page of terms (not there yet) and it spit out a parse error: unexpected '/' in view.php in line 140

Any suggestions for this PHP newbie on what I did wrong or what I should do to erradicate this error message?
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In reply to Jamie Glase

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Hi,

Well... Step by step.

I think the brackets around the literals are there because you do not drop the languages files in its folders. In the zip are a folder named lang which in fact should be in moodle/lang folder. It has lang. files to "en" and "es". I invite you to edit the english language because my english is far from perfect... blush.gif

The error in the line 140 of view.php was a end of string/end of sentence that I missed... sad sorry.

However, I think the module is almost ready to go... Here's the full list of current features:

  • Create/delete/update glossaries (with a little help of moodle's core.. ;) )
  • A first level of custuomization where the teacher could specify:
    • If the studen can or cannot add their own entries (and edit or delete them).
    • If the gloosary will allows duplicated entries... I think that someone might need duplicated entries for whatever reason.
    • Two display formats for entries: With or without the user who created it.
    • A future feature: To specify if the current instance of the module is the main one of the course. It will be used to add a little hack to moodle in order to highlight the terms in a text if they are included in that text. The hach will only highlights the terms defined in the main glossary.
  • A full "moodle" way to display entries... smile
  • A search box. It will returns all terms that contains the pivot term in the concept field OR in the definition field... A more flexible search criteria could be implemented in the future (look for several terms, conditionals AND & OR, etc).
  • Links to letters: Shows the entries that begin with that letter.
  • A teacher could edit/delete any entry.
  • Students could edit/delete only their own entries.
  • The glossaries could be backed up and restored (*) as any other module.
  • An ugly icon. A caritative soul.. PLEASE!!! ;)

(*) The backup process works smooths. However, the restore process restores only the entries created by teachers... Eloy is giving me a hand on this...

If you downloaded and installed an old version, you will need to pay a visit to the admin area after you uploaded all the files again... I made some changes to the tables.

I hope it helps... And wait for your comments.

Will
PS: I hope I could get that CVS program to work soon...

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Well... I think the current version is stable enough.

Updates:

  • Improved search. Now it use the moodle standard algoritm of searching... that implies that you can look for several items and the system will return all entries that matches with those terms, highlighted.
  • Backup/restore process finished (you can restore all entries or teacher entries)
  • Finally an icon that let me live in peace with myself... smile

Works in progress:

  • Making the glossary a graded activity (optional as usually in Moodle).
  • Importing entries from a .csv or tab-separated file... In fact, the user will be able to stablish the delimiter.

By the way, making this activity a graded one, could transform the whole concept of the module... It could be used as a way to create long-answers quizzes... which are not supported in the current version of the quizz module.

Anyway...

Thanks to all of you for your comments, and to Eloy and Benito for his thoughts and suggestions.

Regards,
Will

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Terry Collings -
Hi Will,

I think you did a fantastic job with this module. I am having one problem though, the search function is not working. I created some entries and then tried to search for them but the search doesn't find them. Did I perhaps make a mistake in the installation?

Thanks for all your good work.

Terry Collings
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In reply to Terry Collings

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Thank you for your kind words.

Yes, I noted that the searching logic behind this module should differs from the searching logic in forums. Anyway, it is now on CVS with that solved. Let me know if you have further problems with it.

Regards,

Will

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Terry Collings -
I downloaded your changes and now the glossary works perfectly.

Thank you!

Terry
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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Przemyslaw Stencel -
Great job, Will. It's going to be very useful in my classes.

One thing that doesn't seem to work for me is for the student to update entries. The teacher can update/delete any entry, but there are no edit/delete links for the student. I know students shouldn't be able to edit each other's entries, but the links do not show up even for own entries.

A small comment - most people will not need the "Ñ" letter. On the other hand, some languages other than English or Spanish might need other non-standard letters. The display of these letters could be language-dependent, that is, the "Ñ" would show only if the current language was Spanish, the "Ł" only if the language was Polish, etc.

Another, very minor, comment - the appearance of the entries does differ a little from the way forum posts are displayed in Moodle (it seems you were using forum posts as a model). The glossary entries do not make use of css classes and you've used rowspan for the table cell with user picture. You can see the difference in the attached file. Of course this is a really minor thing and I'm sure you'll find more productive ways of spending time than fixing this smile

And finally, a feature request - Andrew Redkin mentioned (somewhere else in this thread) the possibility to link from resources to glossary entries. I've used this feature in WebCT, and I think it would be great to have it in Moodle. Whenever a text/wiki/html resource is added Moodle could search the resource text for words which appear in the glossary and (optionally) link from these words to the entries. The entries could then be displayed to the student in e.g. pop-up window. Additionally, there could be a possibility to link to glossary entries manually, which would be useful in cases when the glossary entry is not exactly the same as the word in the resource text. You might, for example, want to link from word "broken" to the glossary entry "break". I realise this feature would require quite a lot of work, but you did ask for comments and suggestions, didn't you? wink

Once again, thank you for this great module smile
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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Hi,

Sorry for the late... I didn't receive the usual email about this post... Weird... :/

Anyway...

"but the links do not show up even for own entries": That feature seems to be working for me. Are you sure you specify the proper setting the configuration of the glosary?

"Ñ": Yes, that's absolutelly right. Martin has posted a great solution to this in the japanish forum cool.gif. It will solve this... and the use of this module in other languages that uses other alphabets... smile

entries does differ a little from the way forum posts are displayed in Moodle: This is (somehow) solved already and will be available in the next realease.. The way entries are shown is now modular so anyone will be able to show them the way they prefer... Three ways will be "builded-in": With user data (author's data), without it, and "plain".

the possibility to link from resources to glossary entries: Yes, this is a high concern to me... But it is a feature that will be fully dependant of the Moodle's core so this should be developed in accordance with Martin... I think he's working on a standard API to all data-providers modules (Library, Glossary, etc) so I think a solution is on its way.

but you did ask for comments and suggestions, didn't you?: Sure I did! smile

Thanks a lot for your comments...

Will

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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Williams Castillo -

Hi again.. Just an update... to close some open points here.

"but the links do not show up even for own entries": I would like to know if you are still having problems with it.

"Ñ": Martin gave a great solution to my question about how to make this module useful to languages that uses different alphabets (Japanese, chinese, etc)... Well... It also worked to solve this problem. The alphabet is now an new string in each language package so you should only ned to update and that's it.

All the best,

Will

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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Przemyslaw Stencel -
I would like to know if you are still having problems with it. No, not anymore. I updated the installation and now it works fine. smile

The alphabet is now an new string in each language package so you should only ned to update and that's it. Great!
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In reply to Jamie Glase

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Andrew R -

Yes, I think it's good idea. smiley.gifSuch a module is very helpful for student and for teachers. It'll be better if teachers can share their dictionaries.

I'am interested in programming such module, but I'am doubt of many things.mixed.gif

What is the most comfortable way to browse dictionary?

Should it's items be in XML or other format?

Who can edit dictionary?

Should teacher make links to dictionary entries in his resources or system will make it automatically?

I'am interested in your ideas.

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In reply to Andrew R

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Gustav W Delius -
Andrew asked: "Should teacher make links to dictionary entries in his resources or system will make it automatically?".

I think it would be nice if the system would automatically link all words that appear in the dictionary. This of course requires a modification of Moodle's output.

Rather than modifying the output routines in weblib just for this purpose, I would propose to modify weblib so that it provides for the possibility of plug-ins. Moodle already allows plug-ins (modules) for Resources and for Authentication, I would like something similar for output. Actually, I will post this idea in a separate thread.
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In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Ger Tielemans -
  • Only automatic if I can switch it off.. ..and replace it by my own handmade links
  • Or  you design a leveling of definitions and the teacher (or maybe even better: the student) can choose the level of Definititions:
    • 1= show core words of the domain of this course only,
    • 2= show words from all the domains of all the courses in the central glossary
    • Moodle should remember automatic which course was at the origin of that word
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In reply to Jamie Glase

Re: Tiered Dictionary Module ?

by Ger Tielemans -
  • One of the discoveries you will do is that in different courses teachers use different definitions, and - for example in Psychology - you even will find different definitions for the same word, for example IQ. Your system must handle that. Nice option would be to see the different definitions on one scree after a query..
  • It would be interesting to give students the possibilty to bring in definitions and others to comment on it (sounds like a forum) At the end you need a kind of clearinghouse that approves the accepted definitions..
  • How can two or more courses share the content of such a module? (At the end the you wish a menu were you as teacher can choose whinc dictionary you wish to share in your course  

I will play with it a little more, Thanks for your effort

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