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Journals

You can embed content from your journals in various ways in a page:

  • display an entire journal
  • display only one journal entry
  • show the latest journal entries
  • display journal entries with a specific tag

You must create at least one journal in order to see anything in this block.

You can allow the copying of your journal (entries). Choose this option wisely because once a user copied your journal content into their portfolio, it looks as if they had written the journal entries. This could lead to plagiarism. However, it can be used very nicely to create templates and to scaffold learning.

Journals exist in all areas of Mahara:

  • Personal portfolio
  • Groups
  • Institution level
  • Site level

You can display journals or journal entries in these different contexts the following way:

  • Personal journals: You can include personal journals and journal entries in your own portfolios and in group portfolios. If somebody else changes the block configuration in a group portfolio, they will not be able to choose your journals or journal entries though. Only you can place them there.
  • Group journals: You can display group journals and entries only in the group in which they were created.
  • Institution journals: An institution’s journals are only available for inclusion in pages for that institution.
  • Site journals: You can add site journals only to site portfolios.

Journal

Display an entire journal on your portfolio page.

Configure the journal block

Configure the Journal block

  1. Block title: The title for the block is chosen automatically from the title of the journal unless you provide a different one.

  2. Journal: Select the journal you wish to display. If you have many journals, you can also search for the one you want to use.

    The search is performed in the title, description, and tags.

  3. Entries per page: Decide how many entries you want to display. Entries beyond this number are accessible via a navigation bar.

  4. Block copy permissions: You decide what shall happen with this block when you allow other users to copy your page. The options are:

    • Skip this block entirely when copying the page
    • Others may display your journal in their page
    • Others will get their own copy of your journal

  5. Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

    • No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.
    • Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .
    • Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon  to view its content.

  6. Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

  7. You can also click the Close button  in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

If you share the page publicly in which you make an entire journal visible, your journal receives an RSS feed address to which your readers can subscribe in their favorite RSS readers.

Once you have included the Journal block into a page, you can create a new journal entry directly from that block when you are in the Edit mode for the page. When you click the New entry button, you will be taken to your journal and a new entry is started for you. It is then added to the journal automatically.

Create a new journal entry directly from the *Entire journal* block

Create a new journal entry directly from the Entire journal block

Journal entry

Display one journal entry on your portfolio page.

Configure the journal entry block

Configure the Journal entry block

  1. Block title: The title of the journal entry is chosen automatically unless you provide a different one.

  2. Journal entry: Select the journal entry you wish to display. If you have many, you can also search for the one you want to use. You always also see the title of the journal in which the entry appears.

    The search is performed in the title, description, and tags.

  3. Block copy permissions: You decide what shall happen with this block when you allow other users to copy your page. Options are:

    • Skip this block entirely when copying the page
    • Others may display your journal entry in their page
    • Others will get their own copy of your journal entry

  4. Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

    • No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.
    • Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .
    • Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon  to view its content.

  5. Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

  6. You can also click the Close button  in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Recent journal entries

Display recent journal entries across all your journals on your portfolio page. You can use this block also in group, institution and site pages.

Configure the recent journal entries block

Configure the Recent journal entries block

  1. Block title: Choose a title for your block.

  2. Journals: Select the journal(s) from which you wish to display the latest entries. If you have many journals, you can also search for the one(s) you want to use.

    The search is performed in the title, description, and tags.

  3. Entries to show: Decide how many entries you want to display.

  4. Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

    • No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.
    • Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .
    • Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon  to view its content.

  5. Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

  6. You can also click the Close button  in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

If you have multiple journals, you can display recent entries from all of them.

Once you included the Recent journal entries block into a page, you can create a new journal entry directly from that block when you are in Edit mode for the page. When you click the New entry button, you will be taken to your journal, and a new entry is started for you. It is then added to the journal automatically.

Create a new journal entry directly from the *Recent journal entries* block - one journal only

Create a new journal entry directly from the Recent journal entries block - one journal only

If you enabled multiple journals and selected more than one for which to display recent journal entries, you will see a slightly different display.

Create a new journal entry directly from the *Recent journal entries* block - multiple journals available

Create a new journal entry directly from the Recent journal entries block - multiple journals available

  1. Choose the journal to which to add your entry from the drop-down menu.
  2. Click the Add button to create your new entry.

Tagged journal entries

Display tagged journal entries across all your journals on your portfolio page.

Configure the tagged journal entries block

Configure the Tagged journal entries block

  1. Block title: Choose a title for your block.
  2. Display entries tagged with: Choose the tags that you want to use to filter all your journal entries for display. Only tags you used on journal entries are available. You can include or exclude tags. See below for more information.
  3. Block copy permissions: You decide what shall happen with this block when you allow other users to copy your page. Options are:
    • Skip this block entirely when copying the page
    • Others will get a copy of the block configuration: The block is copied, but not the journal entries. When the user creates journal entries with the tag(s) used in the block, they will be displayed.
  4. Items to show: Decide how many entries you want to display.
  5. Show journal entries in full: If you switch this option to “Yes”, your journal entries will be displayed. Otherwise, only their titles are shown and people need to click on them to read your entries.
  6. Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:
    • No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.
    • Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .
    • Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon  to view its content.
  7. Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.
  8. You can also click the Close button  in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Add new tagged journal entries directly from a page

Once you have included the Tagged journal entries block into a page, you can create a new journal entry directly from that block when you are in Edit mode for the page. When you click the New entry button, you will be taken to your journal and a new entry is started for you. It is then added to the journal automatically with the tag(s) whose journal entries are displayed on the page.

Create a new journal entry directly from the *Tagged journal entries* block - one journal only

Create a new journal entry directly from the Tagged journal entries block - one journal only

If you enabled multiple journals and have a minimum of two journals, you will see a slightly different display.

Create a new journal entry directly from the *Tagged journal entries* block - multiple journals available

Create a new journal entry directly from the Tagged journal entries block - multiple journals available

  1. Choose the journal to which to add your entry from the drop-down menu.
  2. Click the Go button to create your new entry.

Select tags to include or exclude

When you want to choose which tags to use in your block, you can select multiple tags to include or exclude. That way you can be very flexible in which entries to display in your block and which ones to leave out. You must have tagged your journal entries beforehand. If you haven’t done that, please go to your journal entries and tag them. You can find them under Main menu → Create → Journals.

Display all the tags that you used on journal entries

Display all the tags that you used on journal entries

  1. Click in the text field for the tag entries. You can start typing the tag that you are looking for if you know it. The result list that you see underneath gets shorter based on what you type. If you want to exclude a tag, type the minus sign and then the tag.
  2. In the tag result list, click the tag that you want to include. If you want to exclude a tag, type the minus sign and then select the tag.

Once the tags are in the field, you can see directly which ones are included and which ones are excluded.

A selection of tags for the tagged journal entries

A selection of tags for the tagged journal entries

  1. Tags that are excluded from your journal entries are displayed in red.
  2. Tags that your journal entries must have are displayed in light grey.
  3. You can remove any tag by clicking the x to the left of it.

tags mentioned in journal entries

When you display your page that has a tagged journal entries block, you see which tags are used to filter your journal entries. For example: Journal entries with tag “learning” but not tag “conference”.

Know which tags to include and exclude

You can add multiple tags to limit the results as well as indicate which tags you want to ignore. If you select multiple tags, a journal entry must match all selected tags in order to be listed.

Let’s assume, you tagged your journal entries with the following tags:

  1. learning, formal, education
  2. learning, formal, education, music
  3. learning, formal, education, language
  4. learning, nonformal, education
  5. learning, nonformal, education, music
  6. learning, nonformal, education, language
  7. teaching, nonformal, education
  8. teaching, nonformal, education, music
  9. teaching, nonformal, education, language

When you select:

  • the tag “education”, all journal entries would be displayed in the block.
  • the tags “learning” and “language”, journal entries 3 and 6 would be displayed, i.e. the entries that are tagged “learning” and “language”.
  • the tags “education” and “language”, journal entries 3, 6, and 9 would be shown, i.e. the entries that are tagged “education” and “language”.

You can also exclude tags from the results by putting a minus sign before the tag you want to select.

If you select:

  • the tag “learning” and exclude “formal” (exclude the tag by typing “-formal” without the quotation marks), journal entries 4, 5, and 6 would be displayed. You search for journal entries tagged “learning” and not “formal”.
  • the tag “nonformal” and “education” and exclude “music” and “language” (exclude the tags by typing “-music -language” without the quotation marks), journal entries 4 and 7 would be shown. You search for journal entries tagged “nonformal” and “education” and not “music” and not “language”.

The operators and and not are two of the so-called “Boolean operators”.

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