M12 - Glossaries

What is it?

A glossary is a course-specific list of terms and definitions. Entries can be linked to words that appear within Moodle, so the definition pops-up when someone hovers their mouse over instances of the word.

Why do it?

• To provide contextualised definitions for difficult course terms and avoid repeatedly answering similar questions.
• It can enable students to contribute and become familiar with course concepts.

What can it be used for?

• A reference for common terminology contributed by staff and/or students.
• A way to display a searchable list of FAQs.
• Staff ask all students to submit their definition for a particular term and either marks the responses, or chooses the best to publish to the group.
  • Note: This requires multiple instances of the same term to be enabled in the settings.

Who can use it?

• Tutors can add terms.
• Students can (optionally) also add terms, with or without approval from a tutor.

Further information

Glossary entries can be searched or browsed within the Glossary activity as well as set to appear as pop-up definitions whenever the term appears in texts created within a given Moodle course e.g. emails in forums and Moodle web pages (not in uploaded PDFs or Word Docs).

It can be a very useful tool, for instance, where subject specific words and definitions are used 'loosely' in a given field but need to be agreed on for the purposes of group discussion – in this case a tutor may stipulate definitions within a glossary or use the tool to ask students to reach a consensus. Options include being able to moderate student entries and allowing student to comment upon entries.

Before I start?

Think about:

• this
• that

How do I set one up?

Add a Glossary quick guide

1. To add a glossary to your course, Turn editing on, then click on the Add an activity or resource link and select Glossary.
2. Enter a Name and Description (which you can display if you wish).
3. Leave all the option settings as they are, including:
   • Automatically link glossary entries - This means if an instance of a term appears in your course it is highlighted with the option to click and see a pop-up definition).

   • Approved by default - This means student entries will appear immediately and don't need to be approved by a tutor first.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and display.

 Detailed step by step guidance on how to set up and use the glossary activity Glossary_settings@moodledocs

If you find any inaccurate or missing information you can even update this yourself (it's a communal wiki).

If you have a specific question about the tool please contact the Digital Education team.

Caveats

Examples and case studies

The following example shows the pop-up entry, which appears after clicking on the term 'active learning' in a forum post.

:

Questions & Answers

Add a new entry

1.  To add glossary entries to your new glossary, click on the name of the glossary.
2. Click Add a new entry.
3. Enter the Concept (this is just the word or phrase) and Definition.
4. If you would like to categorise the entry, choose the category.
5. Enter any Keywords (aliases) that should also link to this entry.
6. Select whether or not This entry should be automatically linked, this refers to this specific entry (remember we have also enabled this at the glossary level, too). Note you can:
   1. Select whether the automatic linking is case sensitive.
   2. Select whether the automatic linking should Match whole words only.

7. Click on Save changes.

   Tip:*Autolinking *will link enabled terms to the text of quiz questions - if this risks giving unintended assistance you can use the <nolink> your tem to not link </nolink> tags around the relevant text using the HTML view of the text in the Moodle editor window.

    

   Make changes to the glossary

8. To edit a whole glossary, for example to change its name or description, turn editing on and click on the Edit icon next to its name.
9. To edit a glossary item click on the glossary name, navigate to the glossary entry you want, and then click on the Edit icon, to the bottom-right of the glossary item. You can also delete the item entirely by clicking (X).

Show glossary entries directly in the course

If you are using the glossary you might want to add the Random Glossary Entry block (see Miniguide M07 to find out how to do this). This block can be used to display random entries from your glossary. This block can be adapted to provide a 'Quote of the Day' or a random picture gallery that changes each time the page is refreshed, the example above is random entry from a glossary of LaTex markup. Before using the Random Glossary Entry block you have to configure it using the Edit icon.

Automatic linking of glossary entries

If switched on, automatic linking will occur whenever the concept words and phrases appear throughout the rest of the same course within Moodle. This includes anywhere the text editor is used to enter text such as forum postings, labels, web pages, books and so on. Files and external websites will not be linked.

1. Entering these extra tags is done using the Edit icon to edit the text as normal. Then in the text editor,  usingthe tool to view the HTML of your content

1. Type in <nolink> and </nolink> tags around your text.
2. The link will no longer appear for words that appears within these tags.