Glossary


Index for Content Module

About Glossary

Use Glossary to create a fully-searchable glossary for your course. It can contain images as well as text, so that illustrative glossary definitions are possible. Before you and your students can use Glossary, you must add it to your course. The course Glossary link can appear on:

  • the Course Menu
  • the Homepage
  • an Organizer page

For more information, see Add Page or Tool.

The Glossary tool can also be added to the Action Menu of your Content Module. For instructions, see Changing what appears on the Action Menu. Students can access Glossary directly from any content page by clicking the Glossary link in the Action Menu. Entries are organized in a Glossary index alphabetically. Students access individual Glossary entries and their definitions by clicking the first letter of the keyword in the Glossary index. They can also see individual glossary definitions by clicking keyword links embedded in the text. For more information, see Linking glossary entries to course content pages.

The course Glossary and the Content Module Glossary are one in the same. Edits to the Content Module Glossary affect the course Glossary and vice versa. Note: If you have edited the glossary from the Content Module, update the student view to make the changes available to students.

What do you want to do?

Accessing the Glossary | Top

To access the Glossary Keywords screen, do one of the following:

  • From the Course Menu, Homepage or an Organizer Page, click Glossary. The Glossary Keywords screen appears.
  • From within a content module:
    1. From the Table of Contents screen, click a page of content. The Content Page Settings screen appears.
    2. Under Action Menu, click Glossary. The Glossary Keywords screen appears.

Adding new glossary entries | Top

You can add entries to the glossary individually or by importing a file.

  1. From the Glossary Keywords screen, under Options, click Add keyword. The Add Keyword screen appears.
  2. In the Keyword text box, enter the keyword of the glossary entry. If you are using a Language Plug-in, see the Note below. If not, go to step 5.
  3. In the Definition text box, enter the description of the glossary entry, and click Add. The Glossary Keywords screen appears with an updated list of Glossary keywords.
  4. To preview the glossary:
    1. Click the View tab. The Glossary Keywords screen appears displaying the Glossary index.
    2. Click the letter that corresponds to the first letter of the new keyword. A list of all keywords starting with that letter appears with their corresponding definitions.

Note: With some Language Plug-ins, and depending on administrator settings, you can organize your keywords within a Latin alphabet index by entering the phonetic version of the keyword. For example, if the phonetic version of a Japanese keyword starts with the letter "t", you can place the keyword under "T" in the Latin alphabet index. To determine whether or not the Latin alphabet index is available in your Language Plug-in, click the View tab.

To add a keyword to the Latin alphabet index, in the Classification keyword text box, enter the phonetic version of the keyword.

Importing glossary entries | Top

To import glossary entries from a file:

  • The file must be a text file (.txt format).
  • The entries must be in a specific format:
    • Each keyword must be preceded by a colon (:). Note: The glossary entry or description may contain a colon. Only lines beginning with a colon will be interpreted as containing a new glossary entry.
    • The keyword must be in a separate line on its own.
    • The lines following the keyword must contain the glossary entry description.


    This example illustrates how to add a new glossary entry:

    :new entry
    This is the new glossary definition for the glossary entry named "new entry".

Note: Ensure that you have uploaded the glossary file from your local computer to your My-Files folder before you begin. For more information, see Uploading Files.

  1. From the Glossary Keywords screen, under Options, click Import keywords from file. The Import From File screen appears.
  2. In the Filename text box, enter the path and filename of the file to be imported, or to locate and select the file, click Browse. The WebCT Browser appears.
  3. From the Import from File screen, click Import. The Import Confirmation screen appears.
  4. Click Continue. The Glossary Keywords screen appears.

Editing glossary entries | Top

You can change keywords and descriptions which have already been entered into the glossary.

  1. From the Glossary Keywords screen, under Glossary keywords, select the glossary keyword that you want to edit.
  2. Under Options, click Edit. The Edit keyword screen appears.
  3. In the Keyword and Description text boxes, enter the changes that you want to make and click Update. The Glossary Keywords screen appears with an updated list of Glossary keywords.

Deleting glossary entries | Top

You can delete glossary entries individually or by deleting all of the entries.

  1. From the Glossary Keywords screen, under Glossary keywords, select the glossary keyword(s) that you want to delete. To delete all of the glossary keywords, do not select any keywords.
  2. Delete the entries:
    • To delete individual entries, click Delete. A warning message appears. Click OK. The Glossary Keywords screen appears with an updated list of Glossary keywords.
    • To delete all entries, click Delete all. A warning message appears. Click OK. A final warning message appears. Click OK. The Glossary Keywords screen appears and the Glossary keywords list is empty.

Downloading glossary entries | Top

If you have a number of glossary entries to edit, you may want to use a text editor of your choice, rather than edit each entry individually in WebCT. You can do this by downloading the glossary entries onto your own computer, making your changes, uploading the file to WebCT, and then importing the glossary entries. Note: The glossary is downloaded in plain text format (.txt).

  1. From the Glossary Keywords screen, under Options, click Download. Your computer's file download screen appears. Save the file on your computer. You can now edit the file, upload the revised glossary to WebCT, and import it to Glossary.

Linking glossary entries to content pages | Top

You can create links from words in a page of content to corresponding glossary entries.

Note: The content page must be in HTML format. Since this function only applies to content pages, you use the Glossary tool in Content Module to add the links. For more information on adding the Glossary tool to your Content Module, see Changing what appears on the Action Menu. This option is not available for the course Glossary tool.

Adding a glossary link to a content page

  1. From the Control Panel, click Content Module. The Content Module screen appears.
  2. From the Table of Contents, click the page of content. The Content Page Settings screen appears.
  3. Under Action Menu, click Glossary. The Glossary Keywords screen appears.
  4. Under Options, click Page Links. The Manage Page Links screen appears. Any glossary keywords in the text are hyperlinked, with a radio button next to them. These words are also listed at the bottom of the page, under Unlinked Keywords in the page.
  5. To activate the link, select the keyword in the text, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click Update. The Glossary Keywords screen appears and the link is added to the page.
  6. To make the changes available to students, update the student view.

Removing a glossary link from a content page

  1. From the Control Panel, click Content Module. The Content Module screen appears.
  2. From the Table of Contents, click the page of content. The Content Page Settings screen appears.
  3. Under Action Menu, click Glossary. The Glossary Keywords screen appears.
  4. Under Options, click Page Links. The Manage Page Links screen appears.
  5. Remove the links.
    • To remove a link, scroll to the bottom of the screen, and under Unlinked keywords in the page, select the keyword(s) that you want to remove. Click Update.
    • To remove all links, do not select any keywords first. Click Remove Links.
  6. To make the changes available to students, update the student view.

Linking glossary definitions to other glossary entries | Top

You can create hyperlinks from words within glossary definitions to corresponding glossary entries.

Note: Since this function only applies to content pages, you use the Glossary tool in Content Module to add the links. This option is not available for the course Glossary tool.

Adding a glossary link to a definition

  1. From the Glossary Keywords screen, under Glossary keywords, select the glossary keyword containing the glossary definition to which you want to add a link.
  2. Under Options, click Manage keyword links. The Manage keyword links screen appears. The words in the definition that are existing glossary keywords are hyperlinked, with a radio button next to them. These words are also listed under the definition, as Unlinked Keywords.
  3. To activate the link, select the keyword in the definition, and click Update. The Glossary Keywords screen appears and the link is added.

Note: If you decide to edit the glossary definition in the future, all the Keyword Links will be removed; you must use Manage keyword links to recreate them.

Removing a glossary link from a definition| Top

  1. From the Glossary Keywords screen, under Glossary keywords, select the glossary keyword containing the glossary definition from which you want to remove a link.
  2. Under Options, click Manage keyword links. The Manage Keyword Links screen appears.
  3. Remove the links:
    • To remove a link, scroll to the bottom of the screen, and under Unlinked keywords in the page, select the keyword(s) that you want to remove. Click Update. The Glossary Keywords screen appears and the link(s) are removed.
    • To remove all links, do not select any keywords first. Click Remove Links. The Glossary Keywords screen appears and all links are removed.