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Create a Course Glossary

Learn how to create and manage a course glossary.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to create and manage a glossary activity in a Moodle course.

Procedure

Create a Glossary

  1. At your course page, turn Edit mode on.

  2. Click the plus sign in the area you want to place the activity and then click Activity or resource in the section you want to place the glossary.

    Activity or resource link.

  3. Select Glossary from the Activity Chooser and click Add at the bottom of the page.

    Glossary tile in Activity Chooser.

  4. Title the glossary, add a description, and adjust the additional page settings as desired. NOTE: The default is “Secondary glossary” so this may need to be changed to “Main glossary” via the dropdown

    Title and description boxes with red arrows pointing to them

    Dropdwon menu with Main glossary option selected.

  5. Click the Save and display button at the bottom of the page.

  6. Click the link for the resource on the course page and then click the Add entry button to add items to the glossary.

    Add entry button.

  7. Title the item and include the definition in the Definition field


    ​Tip: You can insert photos or audio files in the definition area using the editor

    Entry for Kafkaesque with definition and photo of Franz Kafka.

  8. Adjust the additional settings as desired and click Save Changes

  9. Repeat steps 6 through 8 to add more entries

Entries for Irony and Kafkaesque.

Export a Glossary

When you complete a course copy, glossary entries are not imported. This is because the activity is designed to allow students to participate. Regardless, you can export the entries from one course to another with a couple of extra steps.

  1. After a course copy, go to the course that already contains glossary entries.

  2. Click on the glossary on the course page. Click the dropdown menu in the upper right side of the glossary page and choose Export.

    Button labeled Import entries and link labeled Export

  3. Click on the Export entries to file button. This will download an .xml file. Remember where this file is saved on your computer.
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    Button labeled Export entries to file

  4. In your new course, click on the glossary. You’ll see it was copied from the original course, but it’s empty.

  5. Click on Import entries button on the glossary page.

  6. Proceed with the Upload file process: Locate the XML file on your computer. Finally, click the Submit button to insert the entries into the glossary.
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Contact us if you need help with glossaries!

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