A Different Kind of Text: Students’ Glossaries in Moodle

The popular course management system Moodle features a very useful yet underestimated module for compiling glossaries. The aim of this paper is to share positive experience of using the Glossary module in the training of translators and interpreters at the Department of Modern Languages of the University of Helsinki. Moodle’s Glossary module was originally designed for providing definitions of difficult concepts. However, it can be used for presenting other useful types of information in the entries as well, including translation equivalents, usage labels, examples, and so on. However, the structure of the entries and layout conventions have to be properly planned and explained to the students in the compilation manual. In this paper, I discuss lexicographic issues that have to be taken into account when setting up a bilingual glossary in Moodle and providing students with compilation instructions.