Learn@Illinois Moodle - Autolinking and Preventing Autolinking

Learn how to prevent autolinking on the individual, activity/resource, and course site levels.
For a permanent link to this information, please use: http://go.illinois.edu/MoodleAutolinking

An autolink is a link that is created automatically when the title of an activity or resource is typed in the course site. If one were to add a PDF file to a course and name it "Syllabus", every time the word "Syllabus" were used, it would link to that PDF. It is not case-sensitive, but extra spaces, non-standard spaces, and punctuation will thwart autolinking.

For this reason, it is strongly recommended that common words or phrases not be used as titles. For example, in a biology course, an instructor might rename a resource about evolution from being called "Evolution" to "Unit 1 Lecture: Evolution". This way, they can be deliberate about when they would like the system to create an autolink (every time they type the phrase "Unit 1 Lecture: Evolution") rather than triggering an autolink inadvertently (every time they use the word "evolution"). Autolinking can be turned off on the individual level, activity/resource level, and course site level.

Preventing Autolinking in a Single Sentence

In this example, assume you have an activity named "Attendance". You want to use this word, but you do not want it to link to the activity.

  1. Highlight the word "attendance". 
  2. Click the Prevent automatic linking button (which is an icon with !).
    autolinking button

Note: This will add a bit of code to prevent this from autolinking. You not be able to see this from the editing page (unless you look at the HTML), but once you've saved you will see that no link has been created.

(For the HTML savvy, the proper code is <span class="nolink">attendance</span>)

Preventing Autolinking throughout One Activity or Resource

This method prevents anything within an activity or resource from autolinking. This may be helpful in a quiz, for example, when you do not want students to link to other resources. 

  1. Click on the activity/resource you want to alter.
    Assignment
  2. In the navigation bar at the top of the activity, click More. From the drop-down menu, select Filters
    Filters
  3. On this page, find the filter called "Activity names auto-linking" and from the drop-down menu, select Off
    Activity name autolinking off

Preventing Autolinking on the Course Site Level

This is the same as above, only you will select the filters on the course homepage and not in the activity/resource. Once set at the course level, nothing in the course site will be autolinked. 

 

Moodle.org Documentation



Keywordslink, autolink, prevent, boost   Doc ID71335
OwnerATLAS-TLTGroupUniversity of Illinois LAS
Created2017-03-03 14:28:49Updated2023-03-09 16:45:17
SitesUniversity of Illinois Liberal Arts and Sciences
Feedback  0   0