Languages

With the exception of the Intro text, the External Resources link, and Related Course Materials, all other content is dynamically displayed on the page from other types of content.

Core Language Skills tab: populated with Resource - Core Language Skill nodes that are related to the language

Culture & Everyday Life tab: populated with Resource - Culture & Everyday Life nodes that are related to the language

Course Materials tab: populated with Course Syllabus nodes that are related to the language

Courses

Updating Courses

Provided the weekly assignments and study guides do not change once a course has been created, updating the courses from semester to semester should just require the following:

  1. Go to the Global Settings page (Configuration > Global Settings) and select the current term (Fall or Spring) and add the specific dates for either the Fall or Spring Instruction Weeks
  2. Use the Managing Courses admin view in the Shortcuts menu to bulk update the courses to designate which ones are currently taught and which ones are not.  

If a course is designated as currently taught, the dates for the current term will be applied on the front-end with the relevant break (Thanksgiving or Spring Break) inserted into the correct location. If a course is not designated as currently taught, the course syllabus will still be visible on the website but no dates will be applied. Instead, the weeks of instruction will just be labelled "Week One", "Week Two", etc.

Creating a New Course

  1. Courses can be created by starting from scratch
  2. If an existing course is similar to what the new course should be, you can clone the existing course and then make the necessary changes

The Course page is where you will add the following information:

  • Specific assignments and study guide links for each week of instruction (NOTE: a "week of instruction" is not the same thing as a calendar week. For example, the 13th week of instruction might happen in the 14th week of the fall calendar because Thanksgiving week gets inserted into the course schedule
  • The Self-assessment link that applies to every week of instruction
  • Textual content for the Description & Materials section - because of the data structure on course syllabus pages, do NOT use Heading 2 for formatting and styling content or it will fail accessibility tests.
  • The links to the shared Requirements and Policies content - if either does not already exist for the new course, a new Requirements node or new Policies node will need to be created first before it is available to select.
  • The Course Contact - if a course contact needs to be edited or a new one added, go to Structure > Taxonomy > Course Contacts. 
  • You can also flag a course as being currently taught directly on the course page.

The Global Settings page is where you add the following information since this information applies to all courses on the site:

  • Select the Current Term as being Fall or Spring
  • Apply the correct dates for current or upcoming Fall instruction weeks.
  • Apply the correct dates for the current or upcoming Spring instruction weeks
  • Apply the current dates for Thanksgiving and select where Thanksgiving will fall within the course schedule. For example, Thanksgiving is likely to fall after the 12th week of instruction
  • Apply the current dates for Spring Break and select where Spring Break will fall within the course schedule. 

Books

Coming soon

Resources - Culture & Everyday Life

Culture & Everyday Life Resources include the following content options:

  • An intro text field
  • There are media fields for videos, audio, images, and an image group that can display several images together as a group with a common heading. If media elements already exist on the site, they can be selected. If they do not, they can be uploaded directly on the page and made available for selection.
  • There is a Postscript section for text that will be displayed after the media elements or for selecting an "acknowledgement" that is shared across resources. 
  • Related Resources

Resources - Core Language Skills

Depending on the type of language skill, these types of resources might be created solely with the Resources - Core Language Skill content type, or have their parts first created via "language-skill" specific content types and then assembled into groups on the Resources - Core Language Skill content type.

Grammar Resources

These types of resources can be created directly on the Resources - Core Language Skills page and you will find the necessary media elements in the Grammar section of the page. In addition to a video(s) field, there are also audio and images fields in case future grammar resources require media other than video.

Vocabulary Resources

Each individual vocabulary exercise must first be created via the JS Vocab Exercise content type and then assembled into "exercise groups" in the Vocabulary Exercises section on a Resources - Core Language Skills page. 

Note: We migrated the instructional text from the Drupal 7 vocabulary exercises into the optional Intro and Postscript sections on the Resources - Core Language Skills page as an example of how you might display this text and move the exercise links closer to the top of the page. 

Dictation Resources

Each individual dictation exercise must first be created via the Dictation Exercise content type and then assembled into "exercise groups" in the Dictation Exercises section on a Resources - Core Language Skills page. 

Dialect Comparison Resources 

Each set of dialect comparisons must first be created via the Dialect Comparison content type and then assembled into "comparison sets" in the Dialect Comparison section on a Resources - Core Language Skills page that are part of a specific "comparison collection" and are related by topic within that collection. For instance, all the dialect comparison sets that are part of the Colloquial Arabic collection and are related to the topic "Greeting and Partings" (Good morning, Good evening, Good night, etc) would be added to a Resources - Core Language Skills page with a display name of "Greetings and Partings." However, the individual comparison sets of "Good morning", "Good evening", "Good night", etc would be created via the Dialect Comparison content type where they can also have a dialect group assigned (ex. Levantine Arabic Dialects, Eqyptian Arabic Dialects, etc).

Ordering Items on the Page

  • For resource and course pages that are referenced in the lists on Language pages, the default order is alphabetical but can be overwritten on the resource/course page itself by using the Order field.
  • For items that are a part of a multi-value field (ex. the dictation audio in Phrase Groups, etc),  the order is set in the field itself by dragging the items into the desired order.