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Glossary

Summary

A glossary is a list of terms and definitions in the “Tools” area of Blackboard. You can either type in your glossary in the Blackboard Control Panel, or upload a comma-separated values (csv) file. You can also download your glossary, enabling you to use the same file across different papers.

Resources

Using the Glossary feature

In this method, you will type the terms and definitions directly into Blackboard. If you have already uploaded a glossary (see below), you can also use this method for adding more terms.

To create a glossary manually (adding each term separately):

  1. Go to the Control Panel > Course Tools and click Glossary.
  2. Click the “Add term” button.
  3. Enter the term and definition
  4. Click Submit.
  5. Go back to the “Edit Mode off” to view your Glossary as a student.

To create a glossary automatically (adding terms altogether):

  1. If you want to use Excel (or another spreadsheet application), type your term in the first column, and your definition in the second column. Use the “Save As…” feature in the File menu to save the file as a comma separated values (csv) file. Remember to add the extension if you’re a Mac user.
    OR
    If you want to use a plain text editor, use the following format. Put each term/definition on a separate line.
    Term 1, This is a definition that doesn’t contain any commas.
    Term 2, “I have to surround this definition with quote marks, because this sentence contains a comma.”
    Use the “Save As…” feature in the File menu to save the file as a comma separated values (csv) file. Remember to add the extension if you’re a Mac user.
  2. Go to the Control Panel > Course Tools of your course and click Glossary.
  3. Click Upload/Download > Upload Glossary.
  4. Click “Browse” and locate the file on your computer, then double-click it to select
  5. Choose either “Add the terms in this file to the existing Glossary” OR “Remove all existing Glossary terms and replace with the terms in this file” by clicking on the appropriate radio button.
  6. Click Submit.
  7. Go back to Edit Mode off to view your Glossary as a student.

Note: If terms are present in the uploaded file which are already exist in the Glossary in upper, lower, or mixed case, the definitions in the uploaded file will replace those in the Glossary. If duplicate terms exist within in the uploaded file, the last definition in the file will be used.

Downloading a Glossary

There are a few reasons for downloading your glossary: you can edit your entire glossary in one go, then re-upload it and replace your original definitions, or you can download it so that you can upload it into another course. To download your glossary:

  1. Go to the Control Panel > Course Tools of your course and click Glossary
  2. Click Upload/Download > Download Glossary