Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Troy Patterson -
Number of replies: 11

Currently, the only way to sort a Glossary is by chronological order. This sort can be either by "Last update" or "By creation date". While this can be useful, it is also useful for sort by other fields. 

For example, if the teacher wants to review the entries by a particular student, it would be useful to sort by author. This can be very, very helpful if the teacher has asked students to post a certain number of concepts.  

Alternatively, let's say that a teacher has challenged the class to define a specific concept. The teacher will then approve the "best" definition of the concept. Being able to sort by concept would make this much easier. (Yes, you can limit concepts by a specific letter, but even these are not in alphabetical order, they are in "update" or "creation" order. 

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In reply to Troy Patterson

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Jon Bolton -
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You can add the “Browse by Author” tab and other tabs using the site administration settings for the Glossary activity - see https://docs.moodle.org/37/en/Glossary_settings#Site_administration_settings
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In reply to Jon Bolton

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Troy Patterson -
Once approved, entries can be sorted in a variety of ways. Prior to approving entries, chronological order is the only option.
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In reply to Troy Patterson

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Troy Patterson -
I left out a very important piece of information for this post. The situation in the Glossary explained above is for Glossary entries that have not been approved. That is prior to approval, all potential Glossary entries are ordered by chronological date only.

I'm afraid I was a bit too deep in the problem and didn't accurately nor completely describe the issue.

Students are creating "personally" glossaries. This is accomplished by setting the Glossary to need approval and then not approving entries. This way, only the teacher and the individual student can see entries. However, this makes follow up for the teacher hard. Glossary entries can only be viewed in chronological order, not by student. Additionally, the teacher would like to approve certain exemplars for the entire class to see. Thus, viewing by Concept alpha order would be beneficial.
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In reply to Troy Patterson

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by John Provasnik -
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How many students?

Would you consider making a glossary per student (each restricted to a unique student) and set to automatic approval? Then when students post an entry, they would appear to the teacher in the GradeMe block provided you have a rating set. 

Though it would be a lot of front end work, each student would then still only see one glossary but could also utilize the built in organizational features.

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In reply to John Provasnik

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Troy Patterson -
Great suggestion. However, there are about 150 students in the class. This would be unwieldy pretty quickly.

We don't use Grade Me block. (We are currently on Moodle 3.7, and it looks like Grade Me is limited to 3.5).

I do greatly appreciate the suggestions.
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In reply to Troy Patterson

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by John Provasnik -
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What are your other reasons for using glossary - other than just for a place for students to store their entries? How do you want students using the glossary once they've entered all of their entries?

Would you consider using Wiki, which is designed for exactly what you're needing (every student has their own space).
Same with Journal - every student has their own space.
Both can be graded (not not individual entries like Glossary allows).

Then there is Forum - when set to "Forum - Each Person Posts One Discussion" you an individually rate the posts and set the forum to separate groups (and with the drop of a CSV, you can quickly assign all users to a unique group while creating the groups at the same time - then you can turn on separate groups mode (just be sure to add yourself to each group in the csv too) and then you'll get closer to what you're desiring the glossary to do.
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In reply to Troy Patterson

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Randy Thornton -
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If only Glossary had Group mode like other activities, you could use Separate Groups with one student per auto-created group. I've had people request this before, but Glossary has been waiting over 12 years now since this was first requested: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-10728
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In reply to Randy Thornton

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Mary Cooch -
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I just commented in that tracker issue - it would be nice if it could be picked up again and worked on in the coming months.
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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Randy Thornton -
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Thanks, Mary. I had actually forgotten that Glossary didn't have Groups. I have used the Separate Groups this way in Forums, Wiki, and Database before. Using Glossary this way would be useful too. I will vote that up. Randy
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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Sort Glossary by Author or Concept

by Troy Patterson -
That would be awesome. I'd add the ability to sort Glossary submissions (prior to approval), in the same way that approved entries can be sorted as well. That is, the ability to sort by author would be extremely useful prior to approval.
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