User guide

Introduction

This is a platform presenting geographical terminology in English, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, and Afrikaans. It will be expanded in the near future to include more indigenous South African languages. It consists of a glossary — a list of terms with definitions and cross-references — covering a selection of terms used in geography, the environmental field and geographical information systems (GIS).

The selection of terms relates to the undergraduate modules offered by the Department of Geography at the University of South Africa (Unisa), with aim to support the teaching and learning project of the department within a multilingual context. The glossary will assist you with the correct use and understanding of terminology in the subject fields which are covered. It will not only be of value to Unisa Geography students, but also to lecturers and students at other universities, school teachers and learners, and a wide variety of stakeholders in civil society and industry.

Each term is briefly defined, described and/or explained. In most cases examples are included to enhance the definitions, descriptions, and explanations. This helps to convert abstract concepts to the realities of the world. A variety of examples are included, since this increases the chance that an example with which users are familiar might be mentioned. Preference was given to examples from South Africa and Southern Africa, where most of Unisa’s students reside. Where applicable, cross-references to other terms in the glossary have been provided.

No references to other literature are cited in the text although a multitude of seminal and authoritative works have been consulted to compile the definitions, descriptions, and explanations for each term. References to the literature have deliberately been omitted in order to avoid cluttering and to make the text readable. A list of the sources consulted is included in the section for Acknowledgements on this platform. The people who initiated the project and provided major input into the development of the glossary on which this platform is based, are also acknowledged in the latter section. Similarly, acknowledgement is provided for permission by authors and institutions for the use of extracts from published or unpublished term lists and glossaries of related terminology.

Apart from browsing the glossary and viewing separate entries, you can also search for a term in any of the four languages covered. There are 300 entries, each fully multilingual (currently English, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, and Afrikaans) and consisting of terms, definitions, descriptions, explanations, and cross-references. We'll dive right in, but if you're not sure about what exactly we mean by concepts, terms, or glossaries, feel free to read this section first.

Contents

The home page

For easy navigation (and if you ever feel lost) use the home page to orient yourself. From any page, you can go there by clicking/tapping on the banner on the top of the page, or on the smaller "Home" just below.

From the home page, you can access all features that are required in a typical workflow. You can do the following:

  • You can search for a term, using the normal search box or advanced search with more filters.
  • You can open the glossary list, from where you can click/tap on any term or set of terms to open its concept page. Note that this list — which is sorted alphabetically and numbered from 1 to 300 — is only in English, which is regarded as the source language. However, you can (1) search for terms in other languages and (2) see what the equivalents are for any terms in any of the other languages.
  • You can view and click/tap on a randomly generated term that will take you to its concept page. Refresh the page to see a different term.
  • You can view this user guide.
  • You can visit other pages: acknowledgments, the license agreement, as well as the contact page on which you can send feedback to us.

It is also simple to navigate from other pages to your desired location. Most links should be in blue and underlined. Apart from going back to the home page, you can do a lot of other things!

The concept and definition pages

Each term or set of terms has its own concept page, for all of the languages. From this page, you can obtain a definition for the term(s) for each language. But how do we find such a concept page in the first place? There are a number of ways:

  • The easiest way is to click/tap on the randomly generated term on the home page, just a little down from the top. If you're not already on the home page, click/tap on the banner at the top to take you there.
  • Another way is to first open the glossary list. Go to the home page and click/tap on Go to the glossary. You will see a list of terms. Click/tap on any of them!
  • If you think that the term you're looking for may be in the list, or if you just want to check, you can run a search instead of browsing the list. Go to the home page and type in your search in the text box that says "Term to search for". Or, if you're on another page, click on "Search" at the top of the screen below the banner. This will take you to the advanced search, but you can use it just like a normal search. If you want to make your search more refined, feel free to make use of the filtering options below (more on that later).
  • If you are already on a definition page for a specific term (i.e. a page with a full definition for that term in a specific language), you can either click/tap on Back to main concept page or on the name of the concept on the top of the screen below the banner. For example, if you see something like Home » Geography » #169: lambert conformal conic projection, click/tap on #169: lambert conformal conic projection.

Now that you've found the concept page, you'll see a few different things.


  • First, you'll see the regular banner at the top and the top section with the links. In that top section, you'll see a path to the page you're on, e.g. Home » Geography » #1: abiotic component. If you click/tap on abiotic component, the same page will just open. If you click/tap on Geography, it will take you to the Geography glossary, i.e. the term list. If you click/tap on Home, it will take you right back to the home page.
  • Underneath, you'll see the entry number of the term or term set, followed by a colon and the terms themselves. Note that this is the general concept page where the terms listed in this header are always in English. However as mentioned earlier, you can look up the equivalent terms in other languages and you can also search for terms in those languages.
  • Below, you will see a list, where each item starts with the name of a language, followed by the term or terms that are the equivalent of the English terms in that language. Clicking or tapping on the name of the language takes you to an entry page dedicated to the term(s) for that language. Apart from the term(s), you can read its definition, look at its equivalents in the other languages, or go back to the main concept page.
  • If you go back to the main concept page, you will see two links, "Previous concept" and "Next concept", which will take you to the previous or next concept in the glossary list. You will notice that at the first concept, there is only a "Next concept", and at the last one, only a "Previous concept".
  • Below this, you may see a title, "Related concepts", followed by a list of concepts that are deemed to be related to the current one (not the terms in the blue box — see below). Some concept pages have them and others do not. You can click/tap on any of the related concepts to visit their pages.
  • Then at the bottom on mobile devices, and to the right on PC, you will also see a blue box. This is separate from the related concepts. This is a simply a "slice" from the glossary list — in other words, the ten concepts that are closest to the current one in terms of its position in the list. If you just want to browse and also want to see what your next concept will be before clicking/tapping on it without having to go back to the list, this is one way to do it.
  • On both the concept page and specific definition pages, you can access this blue box, and also browse previous and next entries.

Searching for terms

If you want to search for a specific term in any of the four languages, either navigate to the home page and type in your search term, or click/tap on Search at the top of most pages (to be found in a text box on the home page). In this last case, you will be directed to the advanced search page. You can use it just like normal search, but you have the option to refine it in a few ways. But first about the results of your search.

After searching, and if you don't get the message No results found, a results list will display, where on each line, the associated term or terms are displayed next to the code of the language in which they appear, in brackets. Below the term(s), a truncated form of the definition also appears. This is so that you can quickly view multiple search results in one page, as well as get an idea of what the concept is about. Click/tap on any of the terms to take you to the relevant definition page.

To perform an advanced search, either go to the home page and click/tap on advanced search that forms part of the message You may also try the advanced search, just underneath the search box, or go to any other page and then click/tap on Search at the top just below the banner.

Once you're on the advanced search page, you can do any combination of the following:

  • Just search for a term and click/tap on Search to perform a normal search.
  • Click/tap on the checkbox next to Show partial matches in terms to turn off partial matching of words, which is on by default. So for example, if you search for "ozon", the entries for ozone and i-ozoni will appear, but by turning it off, this will not happen.
  • Click/tap on the checkbox next to Show partial matches in definitions to also search within definitions themselves.
  • If you click/tap on the checkbox next to Case sensitive, you won't be able to find the entries for GIS (geographic information system), if you type in "gis". However, in the case where the use of small vs. capital letters can mean different things, this can help you to shorten the results list.
  • Finally, you can choose to ignore specific languages in your search result by unchecking any of the checkboxes next to Filter by language.

Terminology of this platform

A glossary is a collection of related concepts in a subject field. Each concept can be expressed as one or more terms in each language. Whereas a term is usually short (one or a few words only), a definition is a fuller explanation of the concept.

A term can be understood as a word or phrase with a single, unambiguous meaning when used within the subject field. Although it may have synonyms, it is always understood as referring to a specific concept, and is always translated to the same term or set of terms in another language. The definition field provides a definition and optionally, some background information with the purpose of clarifying the definition.

Feedback

We want all users to have a positive experience while using this service. If you have any criticism or suggestions, or if otherwise you would like to contact the developers for any reason, please visit the contact page, linked on every page. It contains a text box in which you can type your message. You can also add your name and email address in different fields, so that we can get back to you. Click/tap on Submit at the bottom to send the message, or Home (top left) to return.

About this platform

This platform was built with the Terminator software. It is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3. It was converted to its current form by the Department of Geography at the University of South Africa. The glossary data is licensed under CC-BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence).