Glossary: remote side gig, IT skill and cloud terms
Plain explanations of 25 terms used in the quizzes and guides, from remote side gigs and online learning to IT and cloud basics.
Work and side gigs
- Remote work
- Working from home or another place over the internet instead of going to an office. Most communication happens in chat, email and video calls, so writing clearly matters.
- Side gig
- Work done in addition to a main job or studies. Before starting, check whether your employment rules allow it and whether the hours will affect your main work or health.
- Freelance contract
- Taking on a specific task or deliverable under a contract rather than as an employee. Confirm scope, deadline, number of revisions and payment terms in writing first.
- Employment rules
- The rules an employer sets for its staff. They may say whether side work is allowed, how to report it, and limits on competing work. Students should check school rules too.
- Portfolio
- A collection of samples you made—writing, designs, code. Adding a short note on the goal, what you tried and which tools you used makes your skills easier to understand.
Learning
- Online course
- A course taken over the internet with videos, text and exercises. They range from free intros to paid structured programs; checking how recently they were updated and whether they include exercises helps you choose.
- MOOC
- A Massive Open Online Course offered by a university or company that anyone can join. Many are free to take, sometimes with a paid certificate of completion.
- Learning roadmap
- A plan that lists what to learn toward a goal, in order and with rough timing. This site shows three stages—basics, practice, publishing—plus a first four-week plan.
- Vendor certification
- A certification from a cloud or software company that recognizes knowledge of its products. Levels range from foundational to specialist; scope and fees change over time.
- National IT exams
- Government-run exams on IT knowledge. Japan, for example, has exams on IT fundamentals and on information security basics, which are a vendor-neutral way to structure learning.
- Hands-on
- Learning by actually doing the steps rather than only reading. In cloud and programming, something you build in a hands-on session can become a sample.
IT and cloud
- Cloud
- Renting servers, storage, databases and more over the internet, as much as you need. You can build environments without your own hardware, but usage is billed, so watch costs.
- IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
- Ways cloud services are delivered. IaaS is infrastructure such as virtual servers, PaaS is a platform to run apps, and SaaS is ready-to-use software. The lower the layer, the more you manage yourself.
- Free tier
- An allowance cloud providers offer for learning and trials, free up to a limit. Going over the limit or period is billed, so set budget alerts and delete resources you no longer use.
- Static hosting
- Publishing a website by serving prepared files such as HTML, CSS and images as they are. It is fairly simple to set up and often used to publish pages built while learning.
- Frontend
- The part of a website or app that people see and use. HTML, CSS and JavaScript are the core technologies, and usability and accessibility are key concerns.
- Backend
- The part behind the screen that stores data, runs logic and handles sign-in. It covers server-side languages, databases and API design.
- API
- An agreed way for pieces of software to exchange data or functions. On the web, it often means sending a request to a URL and getting data back.
- Database and SQL
- A database stores information in an organized way, and SQL is the language used to query, add and update that data. It is often one of the first things learned for data analytics or backend work.
- Git
- A version control system that records changes to files so you can go back to earlier states and combine work from several people. It also serves as a record of your learning.
- No-code
- Tools and an approach for building apps or workflows by clicking rather than writing code. They make it easy to start with small automations and forms, but permissions and sharing need care.
- Generative AI and prompts
- Generative AI creates text, images and more from instructions. A prompt is that instruction; stating the goal, constraints and output format makes results more consistent. People still need to fact-check the output.
- Multi-factor authentication
- Signing in with a password plus another factor, such as a code on your phone. It is a basic defense against account takeover; turn it on for practice cloud accounts too.
- BI tool
- Business intelligence tools turn data into charts and dashboards so trends are easy to see. They usually read data that was prepared with spreadsheets or SQL.
- Test automation
- Using programs to check software behavior automatically and repeatedly. End-to-end tests that replay screen actions are one kind; they work best alongside manual exploratory testing.