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Canvas Search

Search Canvas course content with Atomic Search

Canvas Search, powered by Atomic Search, is a tool available to students and faculty to make it easier to find specific content in Canvas. This tool allows you to search across all of your Canvas courses or within a single course. The results can be filtered by “Current course or My courses,” “Relevance or Recency,” and types of contents in the Canvas course, including modules, pages, submitted assignments, discussions, files, etc.


 
Search Summary

What content does Canvas Search allow you to search?

Canvas Search allows you to search for the following types of content:

  • Pages
  • Files (PDFs, MS Office format files, text files, and HTML documents)
  • Assignments
  • Quizzes (Students cannot search questions or answers; teachers can).
  • Modules
  • External pages
  • Announcements
  • Discussions (Title and the prompt. Not posts.)
  • Syllabus

Canvas Search shows results specific to the type of user doing a search. Students only see search results for content that is published, whereas teachers and admins see search results for content that is both published and unpublished.

You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to find words with various endings.

  • For example, if you were to type 'patho*', your results will match with 'pathology,' 'pathogen,' 'pathologist,' etc. 

You can also use quotation marks ("") around a phrase to return results that only contain the specific phrase.

  • For example, if you were to type '"writing center visit,"' your results would have to include that exact phrase. On the other hand, if you didn't include the quotation marks, then that phrase might pick up something like 'writing center tutoring session.'

Canvas Search can be accessed from different locations in Canvas, including the blue global menu by clicking the Search icon, on a course menu by clicking Search, or from the search box at the top of most screens. 

Canvas Search options identified on Canvas screen. Global navigation, course menu, and top of screen.

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What can students search?

In order for a student to be able to search content, it must be:

  • In a course that the student is enrolled in.

  • Linked to from somewhere in the course or course menus.

  • Published.

  • Not restricted to access because of date based assignment or module release restrictions.

  • Not restricted to access because of module item prerequisite requirements.

How do I view previous search results or commonly searched terms? 

With the word cloud option enabled Canvas Search displays a word cloud showing the most common student-initiated searches in the course. Clicking on a search term will run a search using that term. This feature can be toggled on a course-by-course basis by going to the Course Settings in the menu in the upper right for that course.

There must be at least 50 student-initiated searches within a course in order for the word cloud to begin generating. The word cloud updates in real-time as searches take place.

Does multi-course search take into account a user with different roles in different courses?

Yes. If you are a teacher in one course and a student in another course when you do a multi-course search, results from the course you are a student in will only include published items; results from the course you are a teacher in will include published and unpublished items.

Does Atomic Search comply with accessibility standards?

Yes, Atomic Search complies with WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. For more information, please see: https://www.atomicjolt.com/atomic-products/atomic-search-vpat

Does Atomic Search comply with FERPA?

Yes. Atomic Search does not index or allow searching of student content or any other student information.

 

Walker Center for Teaching and Learning

Walker Center for Teaching and Learning

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