This activity allows students to create and maintain a list of definitions, as in a dictionary. The definitions can be searched or browsed in many different formats, and can be linked from other places on the site.

Creating a Glossary

General

Give your glossary a descriptive name and, optionally, a brief summary. Also, decide how many entries should appear per page.

• Glossary type: Glossaries can be main or secondary. Entries can be moved from secondary glossaries to the main one, but not the other way around. Furthermore, there can only be one main directory, and only the professor can edit it.
• Duplicated entries allowed: Turned on, this will allow more than one entry to have the same name.
• Allow comments on entries: This refers to permission for students only. Professors always have the ability to comment on entries.
• Allow print view: Also for students. Professors can always use the print view.
• Automatically link glossary entries: Turning this feature on will allow individual entries in this glossary to be automatically linked whenever the concept words and phrases appear throughout the rest of the same course. This includes forum postings, internal resources, week summaries and so on. However, enabling linking for the glossary does not automatically turn on linking for each entry. Linking will need to be set for each entry individually.
• Approved by default: Turned off, each entry submitted by a student will have to be approved by the professor before it is visible to other students. Otherwise, entries are automatically approved and appear to other students immediately.
• Display format: This setting specifies the way that each entry will be shown within the glossary. Click on the blue Help button next to this option to see a list of default formats.
• Show "Special" link/Show alphabet/Show "All" link: You can customize the way a user can browse a glossary. Browsing and searching are always available, but you can define three more options. To see them and their descriptions, click the blue Help button next to any of the options.
• Edit always: Turned on, this will allow students to edit their entries at any time.

Grade

Decide if you would like to have ratable entries. If you do, you can decide whether you want to allow students to rate each others' entries, and how to deal with grading. Additionally, you can restrict rating to entries from a certain time period.

Common module settings

To make this glossary visible to your students when you are done editing it, set Visible to "Show."