[BETA] Course Search - Product Release Notes
The Redwood Release includes a beta release of the new Course Search feature. Course Search enables course authors to conduct searches within a course, or across courses, to find content. While it is in Beta, Course Search is not enabled by default, but Operators can choose to enable it. See here for more details about how to enable.
Consult with your IT team to determine if the new technology that powers Course Search, known as Meilisearch, can be installed on your Open edX environment. If you encounter reasons why it cannot be installed, we’d love to learn more - please reach out in the discussion forums or in the #wg-product-core Slack channel.
If it can be, we encourage you to use this feature and provide your feedback to the Open edX community in the discussion forums or in the #wg-product-core Slack channel. This feature is in beta and hasn’t yet seen widespread testing, so you may encounter bugs, unexpected behavior, or incomplete results. However, we are confident that, even if you encounter a bug or two, that overall this feature will enhance your use of Open edX Studio.
What is Course Search?
With Course Search, authors can conduct searches for content in Studio. Searches can be conducted within a single course, or across multiple courses. Results turn up at all levels of the course content, including individual component blocks, units, subsections and sections.
Course Search makes it easy and quick for authors to find content that they may wish to edit or reuse. This is particularly helpful for authors who are staff members on multiple different courses, or on courses that have been built by multiple authors.
New Functionality
Search bar
Search refinements
Search results
Details
1. Search Bar
The search bar is accessible from the top header in Studio, via the search icon. It can be accessed from Studio Home or via any Course Outline Page.
When accessed via Studio Home, searches are automatically conducted across all courses that the user has staff access to. When accessed via a Course Page, the user has the option to conduct the search within that course or to expand the search to all courses.
2. Search Refinements
Search refinements can be applied after a search has been conducted, in order to refine the results. Refinements can also be used without search terms, so users can effectively apply filters across all of their content.
There are two ways to refine content:
By type: Refine your content or your search results by component type (text, video, problems) or by content type (units, subsections, sections).
By tag: Refine your content or your search results by tag. If multiple tags are chosen as refinements, only content which matches all of the selected tags will be shown in the search results (that is, the tags are using an AND filter). For more information on tagging, see Content Tagging Release Notes.
3. Search Results
Search Results are displayed based on relevance. Each result contains a link out that takes the user directly to the content, in a new tab. Results also contain breadcrumbs to provide context for which course the content is coming from, and where in the course it can be found.
4. Advanced Operators
In the search keywords field, you can use "double quotes" to search for an exact phrase. For example, a simple search for Adam Smith would include results with text like “Adam Sandler and Will Smith co-starred in...”. To make the search more specific, use double quotes (i.e. "Adam Smith") so that only results with that exact phrase will be included.
You can also use negative keywords: a search for Homer might return results relating to both a Greek poet and a yellow cartoon character. But a search for Homer -Simpson will exclude any results that include the word “Simpson.”
Leveraging Course Search with Tagging and Copy/Paste
When used in tandem with Content Tagging and Content Copy/Paste, the search feature is a powerful tool for course teams to easily find content, manage content, and reuse content, all contributing to authoring efficiency and velocity.
The content tagging feature enables authors to add tags to course content. Authors can tag individual course components like videos and problems, or full units, sections and subsections.
The copy/paste feature enables authors to copy any part of the course and paste it into any other course. Authors can copy individual course components like videos and problems, or full units, subsections and sections.
Taken together, these 3 features yield powerful results. For example, content authors may wish to find all of the videos in their courses that cover the subject of “factoring binomial equations”. When all of the relevant videos are tagged for “factoring binomial equations”, authors can conduct a search and easily find this content. If they wish to reuse a particular video, they can then copy it and paste it into any other course.