[Courses] Comprehensive Course Search Tool (Searching Course Content for a Topic)

[tweiler]

I always find it useful to search for content using an index or an actual search tool rather than just scrolling through all of the pages one by one to find what I need.  I can see many uses for this:

1. As a student, I know that a particular topic was covered but I'm not sure where.  I can search the course for the keyword and the page hits will come up.
2. As an instructor, I want to know where else these students have seen a particular concept.  I can search a bunch of courses for a keyword and the courses and page hits will come up.
3. As a student, as I am trying to integrate information from multiple lectures within a course or within multiple courses, it would be useful to see where a particular concept has been covered.

Tracey

[aeagle]

Here is yet another useful idea that was posed 7 years ago and nothing has been done about it. I know that Canvas can only do a finite number of things, but surely this is something that would be more useful than a new discussions platform, icons, and emojis. 

[calexander]

Here, here, aeagle! Why is this not on the front-burner. I see so many features being added that seem to be specific to a small group. I can't believe that the developers do not see this function as useful to everyone!

[dloomis]

Yes, please develop a native search function in Canvas. This is the number one complaint we hear from students using Canvas - why can't they search? External tool options are expensive when this should be part of the LMS itself.

[tkoning]

Problem statement:

I met with a teacher earlier today who was hoping there was a way to search multiple Canvas courses for content at once. She has been with the district for 8-9 years, so she has tons of old semester and trimester courses. She wants to be able to search through all of those old courses for useful content that she can't recall the year/section it was used. She doesn't want to go class by class, tri by tri looking for things because that just feels really overwhelming.

Proposed solution:

If teachers had a way to search multiple former courses at once, it could save them a lot of time when trying to build a course for the upcoming semester. Often a teacher will have made an assignment or quiz once and would like to use it again in a later course. But often that can be difficult for teachers that have been teaching a subject for a long time and may not remember exactly when/what course that assignment was made for. It can be frustrating trying to search that many courses and sections, so having a more simplified way to narrow down the file a teacher needs would be great.

User role(s):

instructor