Glossary Table of Contents GLOSSARY About this Tutorial Creating a Glossary General Grade Common module settings Glosary Main Page To update settings Adding Entries to the Glossary Creating Categories Browsing and Searching for Entries Editing, and Deleting Entries Adding Comments Exporting Entries from a Secondary to a Main Glossary Exporting and Importing To export all entries To import entries
Printing the Glossary Roles Sources GLOSSARY A GLOSSARY is a Short list of words related to a specific topic, with brief definitions, arranged alphabetically and often placed at the end of a book. www.usd.edu/library/instruction/glossary.shtml In Moodle, a glossary is the same thing except that it isn t placed at the end of a book. Use the glossary tool to help your students learn the vocabulary and terminology of your course and encourage them to experiment new terms and concepts. About this Tutorial This tutorial was designed in a "book" format, which includes chapters and sub chapters organized under the table of contents. To navigate this book Chapters and sub chapters can be navigated easily by clicking on the chapter name on the left hand side table of contents. In addition to the links in the table of contents, you may move through the book using the arrows located to the top-left and bottom-left of the content. To print this book You can print the entire book with all its chapters or you can choose a selected chapter to print. Click on the appropriate icon found on the top of the screen. To save a copy of this book Click here to download the PDF version of this book. Creating a Glossary Log on to Moodle and open the course you want to add your glossary tool to. Select Glossary from the Add an activity drop down menu. Give a descriptive name to your glossary in the Name field. Write a description of the glossary in the Description box. General
Entries shown per page This allows you to set the maximum number of entries you want your students to see when they view the Glossary Glossary type: Secondary glossary You have two types of glossaries, the Main Glossary and the Secondary Glossary. You can have only one main Glossary and as many Secondary Glossaries as you want. Before Moodle 1.7, only Teachers could edit the main glossary. In Moodle 1.7 and later, if you wish to control who can edit any glossary (including the main one) you need to use the Override roles interface. Duplicated entries allowed: This allows you to give more than one definition/description for the same term/entry name. This option also comes in handy if you decide to import entries into a glossary at some point. In this case, you might want to pay attention to duplicate entries. Allow comments on entries: Students and teachers can add comments to glossary entries. If you select No in this case, students will not be able to comment however the instructor can. If you select Yes a student can add comments, however it is important to know that a student has a time limit after which he/she cannot edit the comment, but can only delete it. This time limit is set by the system admin. Allow print view: This provides you with a printer friendly view of the glossary entries. Automatically link glossary entries: This option will link the entry name that you add to same words in your course. It is useful if you are using the glossary as a word database or as a dictionary. To be able to test this feature make sure you include an internal course content (built within Moodle such as a web page, forum activity ) that contains such terms. You can choose to link entries, categories, and even keywords. The linking order of precedence in case you have a concept, category name, and keyword all identical would be as follows: concept > category > keyword. Approved by default: If students are allowed to add entries then you can allow entries to be automatically approved or you can force entries to be approved by you before being displayed to others. In this case, entries will be queued up waiting for your approval. Show Special link: This will display a link called Special that allows students to browse the glossary using special characters such as $, %, #. Display Formats: You have different formats for word glossaries: Continuous without author - this presents the terms as one big page and sorts the terms by date. The author is not indicated. Encyclopedia - this presents the terms like an encyclopedia. All uploaded images are seen in this article, and the author is indicated. Entry list - this presents the terms as a list of terms with no definitions. FAQ - this presents the terms as a frequently asked questions forum. Full with author - this is similar to the encyclopedia setting, except attachments are seen as links instead of being in definition, author information is given. Full without author - this is the same as Full with author, except no author information is given. Simple, dictionary style - this presents the terms like a dictionary, in alphabetical order. Any attachments are shown as links. Author information is not presented. Show Special link: This will display a link called Special that allows students to browse the glossary using special characters such as $, %, #. Show alphabet: You can use this option to display the alphabet for easier glossary browsing. Show All link:
This will display a link called All that allows students to browse through all glossary entries at once. Edit always: If you choose Yes, this will allow the students to edit their glossary entries at any time. If you choose No, then the student can edit the entry before a time limit is reached. This time limit is specified by the Moodle system administrator. Grade Allow entries to be rated: You can choose to rate the entries, and choose who is allowed to rate, whether instructors or everyone. You can also choose the rating scale and the rating period allowed: Common module settings Visible to students: If you choose Hide, then students will not be able to view the glossary. Thus if you want the glossary to be visible to students, select Show. ID Number: Setting an ID number provides a way of identifying the activity for grade calculation purposes. If the activity is not included in any grade calculation then the ID number field can be left blank. The ID number can also be set on the edit grade calculation page in the gradebook, though it can only be edited on the update activity page Grade Category: You can assign a grade category for the glossary. Grade Categories need to be first created from the Grade Book. Click on Save and Display when done. Glosary Main Page After you clicked on Save and Display, the Glossary window will open:
There are 8 different options in the glossary s main page: Add a new entry: Use it to add new entries and their corresponding description. Import entries: Allows you to import glossary entries from within this course or from other courses. Export entries: Allows you to export glossary entries. Browse by alphabet: When you select this tab, you can look for glossary entries by the first letter of the word. Browse by category: If you have created categories in your glossary, your students will be able to browse for entries according to which category they belong to. Browse by date: Over here you can view entries based on the date that they were added/last edited. Browse by Author: As you remember, you can allow students to add entries. Thus, if you click on Browse by Author, you can keep track of who added which entry. Waiting approval: When you set the Approved by default setting to No. All entries will be awaiting your approval and will be listed in this area. NOTE: This link will not appear unless a student submits an entry to the glossary. To update settings Notice the Update this Glossary on the top right of the screen. Anytime you want to change the settings of the glossary, click on this icon. If you are outside the glossary activity and you want to edit it from the course homepage, you can click on the
edit icon that appears beside the glossary name. Adding Entries to the Glossary Below is a description of how to add entries to a glossary. Both instructors and students can add entries the same way. Remember that students can add entries only if instructors allow them to. 1. Click on Add a new entry 2. Provide a name in the Concept field, a Definition and Keyword(s). 3. If you have created Categories then you can click on the correct category name to add the entry to it. 4. Select This entry should be automatically linked if you want similar words in your course to link to this concept. You can also choose to make This entry case sensitive and choose to Match whole words only. 5. If you have a file that you want your students to read when checking out this entry, you can attach it. Click on Save changes. Creating Categories
You can create categories to help organize your glossary entries. Select Browse by category Choose Edit categories then Add Category. Type in a name for the category and choose whether you want it to be automatically linked or not. This option will link the information you enter to same words in your course. The linking procedure is case sensitive. Click on Save changes when done. Click on Back to go back to the Glossary options page. Browsing and Searching for Entries Besides browsing for an entry by category, you can browse either by alphabet, date, or Author. In the search field, you can type in the keyword(s) that you selected. If you have the Search full text checkbox selected beside the Search text box, then Moodle will search for similar terms or parts of terms/words in the concept and description fields. If it is deselected then the term will
be matched against similar terms in the concept and keyword(s) fields. Editing, and Deleting Entries To edit an entry, make sure you are viewing it in the alphabetical mode (Browse by alphabet). Below your entry, you have the comment (in case you set Allow comments on entries to Yes ), edit, and delete icons. Adding Comments If you enabled Comments on the glossary entries, users can annotate the definitions in the word list. When you look at the word glossary list, you will see a little cartoon speech balloon in the lower right-hand corner of the definition block. When you click on the balloon, you ll be taken to the comment entry page. From here, you can add a comment to the entry and then click Save changes. Once you have saved your comments, Moodle will display all the comments for the entry. Moreover, you can now click on the Add comment link that appears on top of the newly added comment to add more comments. Of course, you can edit and delete a comment by clicking on the corresponding Edit/Delete icons. Students can edit and delete their comments as well, however they have a time limit of 30 minutes (which is set by the system admin) after which they cannot edit the comment any longer, but rather can always delete it. Exporting Entries from a Secondary to a Main Glossary You can export entries from a secondary glossary that you have created into a main one. Make sure that you have a main glossary added to the course beforehand. If a student added an important entry and you want to move it to the main glossary, you would have to export it from secondary to the main glossary. If you go to your secondary glossary (after having added a main glossary) you will notice a new icon beside the delete and edit icons. It has a red plus sign: To export an entry from a secondary to main glossary: 1. Click on the red plus (Export to main glossary).
2. You will see a confirmation page. If you are sure you want to export the entry click on Yes. Once it is exported, you will still be able to see the entry in the secondary glossary, however, you will not be able to edit or delete the entry. You can only add comments to it. Viewing the exported entry in the main glossary: Go to the main glossary by clicking on Glossaries from the breadcrumbs. Notice that beside the main glossary the number of entries in that glossary has increased by 1. This is because the exported entry has now become part of this glossary. In the main glossary you can see the exported entry. Notice that you can edit the entry unlike in the secondary glossary. You can also delete it if you click on the red minus sign. Deleting the entry in this case removes it from the main glossary but restores it back into the secondary glossary. In other words, it won t be deleted from the secondary glossary. To delete the exported entry from the main glossary: 1. Click on the red minus. 2. You will see a confirmation page. To proceed click on Yes. Now the entry is deleted from the main glossary. After deleting an entry from the main glossary, it will be restored in the secondary one. You can edit and delete it in the secondary glossary as you could prior to exporting it. NOTE: You cannot do the reverse: export from main to secondary. Another feature we will learn is how to export and import all entries of a glossary Exporting and Importing After Creating a glossary, you might want to keep a copy of it on you local hard disk. Or copy entries from it to another glossary in another course. The following two sections describe how you can export and import the entries in a glossary. To export all entries 1. Make sure you have the glossary you want to export all entries of open. 2. Click on the Export entries button on the top right. 3. Then click on Export entries to file. A file is generated automatically. This file contains all entries in this glossary. You can save this file on your computer and import it into another glossary or course at some other time. 4. To save this file, click on Save. Save it on the desktop. The default name is name of your glossary with.xml added in the end. To import entries 1. Go to the glossary you wish to import the file containing all entries into. 2. Click on the Import entries button on the top right.
3. Beside File to import click on Browse. Browse for the glossary file that you saved on your computer. 4. You can choose to have the new entries imported into the Current glossary or into a New glossary. 5. If you want to import the categories as well, select the checkbox beside Import categories. 6. Once done Click on Save changes. A report will be displayed. You can see the total number of entries and categories being imported. When importing into the Current glossary, you have to pay attention to duplicate entries. Remember that in the settings of a glossary there is an option called Duplicated entries allowed thus make sure you set this option to Yes or No accordingly. If you enabled duplicate entries, the import process will add all of the new definitions even if they already exist. Otherwise, it will not allow you to import duplicates. Printing the Glossary There is also an easy tool for printing a glossary. Select Browse by alphabet, date, or Author. At the top right you will see a little printer icon. Click on the icon and Moodle will open a new window displaying a printer-friendly version of the page that you were last viewing. Roles When your course is created, you have the role of an Instructor. When students enroll in your course, they will have the role of Student. Other roles that exist in your course are Non-editing instructor and Guest. So a role is the collection of permissions that defines what you can do in the course which you are assigned to. As an instructor, you will be able to Override roles either on the course level or on a specific activity like Forum and block level like Calendar for the following roles: Non-editing instructor Student Guest To override roles click on Update this Glossary, now select Override Permissions and change the roles. Basically, roles simply give you the flexibility to decide who gets to do what. The following example shows the benefit of overriding roles in your Moodle course: You can decide to override any permission in the student role for a specific glossary and keep the normal role
for other glossaries. Such as managing entries, import or export entries. Sources Part of this tutorial was adapted from a tutorial by Humboldt State University. See its complete version at:http://www.humboldt.edu/~moodle/