Adding/editing a glossary

Adding a new glossary to the course, you will define several fields, beginning with the most straightforward ones: Name and Description (where you should describe the purpose of the glossary, provide instructions or background information, links etc.).

Entries shown per page defines the number of entries shown per page. The glossary can be configured to restrict the number of entries shown per page. If you have a large number of automatically-linked entries you should set this number lower to prevent long loading times.

Administrators can define a glossary to be global. These glossaries can be part of any course (but particularly the front page). The difference to a normal local glossary is that the entries are used to create automatic links throughout the whole site (and not just in the same course the glossary belongs to).

Defining the main glossary of the course The glossary system allows you to export entries from any secondary glossary to the main one of the course. In order to do this, you should specify which glossary is the main one. Note: You can only have one main glossary per course and only teachers are allowed to update it.

Approved by default This setting allows the teacher to define what happens to new entries added by students. They can be automatically made available to everyone, otherwise the teacher will have to approve each one.

Allow duplicated entries If you turn this option on, then multiple entries are allowed to use the same concept name.

Students can post entries You can specify whether a student can or cannot add, edit or delete his/her own entries. Entries exported to a main glossary can be updated or deleted by teachers only, so this setting only applies to secondary glossaries. Note: A teacher can edit or delete any entry at any time.

Allow comments on entries Students can be allowed to add comments to glossary entries. You can choose whether this feature is enabled or disabled. Teachers always can add comments to glossary entries.

Display format

This setting specifies the way that each entry will be shown within the glossary. The default formats are: Simple Dictionary: looks like a conventional dictionary with separate entries. No authors are displayed and attachments are shown as links. Continuous: shows the entries one after other without any kind of separation but the editing icons. Full with Author: A forum-like display format showing author's data. Attachments are shown as links. Full without Author: A forum-like display format that does not show author's data. Attachments are shown as links. Encyclopedia: Like 'Full with Author' but attached images are shown inline. FAQ: Useful for displaying lists of Frequently Asked Questions. It automatically appends the words QUESTION and ANSWER in the concept and definition respectively.

Defining the number of entries shown per page The glossary can be configured to restrict the number of entries shown per page. If you have a large number of automatically-linked entries you should set this number lower to prevent long loading times.

Browsing options in Alphabet Display You can customize the way a user can browse a glossary. Browsing and searching are always available, but you can define three more options: SHOW SPECIAL Enable or disable browsing by special characters like @, #, etc. SHOW ALPHABET Enable or disable browsing by alphabetic letters. SHOW ALL Enable or disable browsing of all entries at once.

Enabling automatic linking in a glossary 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. Note that enabling linking for the glossary does not automatically turn on linking for each entry - linking needs to be set for each entry individually. If you do not want particular text to be linked (in a forum posting, say) then you should add <nolink> and </nolink> tags around the text. Note that category names are also linked.

File to import Select the XML file on your own computer which contains the entries to import.

Importing categories By default, all the entries will be imported. You can specify if you want the categories to be imported as well (and the new entries will be assigned to these).

Defining the destination of imported entries You can specify where you want to import entries to: Current Glossary: Will append the imported entries to the currently open glossary. New Glossary: Will create a new glossary based on the information found in the selected import file and will insert the new entries into it.

RSS feed for this glossary This option allows you to enable RSS feeds from this glossary. You can select between two types of feeds: With author: Generated feeds will include the name of the author in every article. Without author: Generated feeds won't include the name of the author in every article.

Number of RSS recent articles This option allows you to select the number of articles to include in the RSS Feed. A number between 5 and 20 would be normal for most glossaries. Increase the number if the glossary is updated frequently.

Enabling automatic linking in a entry Turning this feature on will allow the entry 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. If you do not want particular text to be linked (in a forum posting, say) then you should add <nolink> and </nolink> tags around the text. To be able to turn on this feature, auto linking must be enabled at glossary level.

Keywords Each entry in the glossary can have an associated list of keywords (or aliases). Enter each alias on a new line (not separated by commas). The aliased words and phrases can be used as alternative ways to refer to the entry. For example, if you are using the glossary auto-linking filter then the aliases will be used (as well as the main name of the entry) when deciding what words to link to this entry.

Case sensitive matching This setting specifies whether matching exact upper and lower case is necessary when performing automatic linking to these entries. For example, if this is turned on, then a word like "html" in a forum posting will NOT be linked to a glossary entry called "HTML".

Whole words matching If automatic linking is enabled, then turning this setting on will force only whole words to be linked. For example, a glossary entry named "construct" will not create a link inside the word "constructivism".