Search at edX

Background

There are a number of search implementations within edX, all built upon Elasticsearch. This document collects together best practices learned from these different features.

Search Implementations

The following is a list of features that are currently using search

• Forums
  • Discussion Forum Architecture Notes
• Courseware Search
  • Content Search Technical Proposal (Draft)
  • Notes on search implementation
  • OpenedX Course Discovery Search
• Teams
  • Teams Search
• Student Notes
  • Student Notes Architecture
• Bookmarks
  • Search + Bookmarks Experience

Search Technologies

There are two main technologies that are used by edX:

• Elasticsearch - https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch
• Haystack - http://haystacksearch.org/
  • This library simplifies the process of indexing and searching Django models
  • Note: it is not designed for use with Mongo (see the Haystack FAQ)

We are currently stuck on an old version of Elasticsearch because of a Forum's Ruby library that can't be upgraded. See: 

• Dependencies for Upgrading Elastic Search