What is Atomic Search?
Atomic Search is a comprehensive search tool that allows instructors and teaching assistants to search Canvas courses.
What content is included in Atomic Search results?
Users are able to search through content located in Canvas sites in which they are enrolled with the role of Teacher, TA, or Designer. The returned results contain content created or stored in Canvas native tools like Canvas Announcements, Assignments, Discussions, Files, Pages, Quizzes. Atomic Search will not return results for content stored in third party tools like Ed Discussion, Gradescope, Harmonize, TopHat, etc.
Who can use Atomic Search?
Any Brown University user who has the role of Teacher, TA, or Designer* in at least one Canvas site will be able to use Atomic Search to search through content in those courses where they have one of those roles.
| Note: At this time, Atomic Search is not yet available for users with only student enrollments and will not provide search results for courses where a user is enrolled with a student-type role. |
Using Atomic Search
To use the search, simply click on the Search button in the left-side global navigation menu [A] or click on the Search button located in your Canvas course site's course navigation menu [B]*. On the subsequent page, type your search terms in the provided text box and click the search button (or hit Enter on your keyboard).
Choosing a search method
When deciding which Search button to use, keep in mind that:
- Using the Search button from the left side Global Navigation menu [A] will provide search results from all courses where you have a Teacher/TA/Designer role.
- Using the Search button from the Course Navigation menu [B] will by default provide search results from only the current course - but you can use the filtering tools to expand your results to include content from all courses where you have a Teacher/TA/Designer role by selecting "My Courses"
Note: The course navigation Search button is only visible to users with the role of Teacher, TA, Undergraduate TA or Designer in the course. If have one of these roles and do not see the search button in the course navigation menu it may be because:
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How to Filter Search Results
Once you have entered your search, the page will refresh to display the results of your search. At the top of the list are some filtering tools [1] you can use to limit your search by:
- Content Type (e.g. Announcements only, Assignments only, Files only, Syllabi only)
- Relevance (better match) / Recency (most recently create/added/edited)
- Current Course (if applicable) / My courses (all courses in which you have a Teacher/TA/Designer role).
With the search results, you will be able to see the title of the content [2] (which is also a clickable link that will take you directly to the content), followed by the type of the content indicator [3], and if the content is not published, you will see an unpublished indicator [4].
Resources
| The Digital Learning and Design (DLD) team is piloting this tool and welcomes any feedback. Please write to dld@brown.edu with your comments or questions. |