Glossary

Searchable glossary containing hundreds of definitions and descriptions of education terms, acronyms and abbreviations used by the LTS online service and in Scottish education.

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Jainism	Jainism is an ancient religion from India that teaches that the way to liberation and bliss is to live lives of harmlessness and renunciation. It started as a reformation movement but soon found itself as an independent religion based upon the teachings of its founder, Mahavira. The essence of Jainism is concern for the welfare of every being in the universe and for the health of the universe itself. There are about 3.2 million Jains in the world.
JANET	JANET is the UK's education and research network. It connects the UK's education and research organisations to each other, as well as to the rest of the world through links to the global internet.
Java	A programming language used to write programs that can be downloaded from the internet. These programs will run only if you have a Java compatible browser.
JEGS (Job Evaluation and Grading Support)	This is the training to enable people to qualify to become teachers. In Scotland it is provided by seven universities through their faculties of education.
Jigsawing	A co-operative learning strategy that structures positive interdependence among pupils in a class. Different groups or individual pupils work on different aspects of a learning task or research project, perhaps using different resources. They are expected to know their part of the work well enough to teach to others. The pooled learning then constitutes a totality to which the different groups or individual pupils have contributed separate elements.
JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee)	JISC works with further and higher education by providing strategic guidance, advice and opportunities to use ICT to support teaching, learning, research and administration.
Jot time/jotting time	Where pupils are given time to think of an answer and to note their thoughts before speaking.
Journals	Diaries kept by pupils or teachers for recording critical incidents, with a specific emphasis on reflection. Certain types of journal can also be known as learning logs.
Jpeg	Joint Photographic Expert Group. A file format for images. The file size is reduced as a JPEG.
Judaism	Judaism is around 3500 years old. A person who subscribes to this faith is called a Jew. Jews believe that there is only one God and that the Jewish People were specially chosen to receive God's guidance. Judaism is divided into Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism. There are approximately 12 million Jews worldwide.