What is Atomic Search?

Think of Atomic Search as a search engine just for Canvas content. No longer do you have to painfully search through each of your courses for a particular file, page, assignment, etc. You can use Atomic Search (Search) to help you look. You can search within an individual course or search all of your courses at the same time.

Use Search to look for:

Announcements
Assignments
Discussions -
- Title and the prompt only.
- Posts are not searchable.
External Pages
Files -
- PDFs, MS Office format files, text files, and HTML documents
Modules
Pages
Quizzes -
- Students cannot search for questions or answers
Syllabi

Essentially, Search makes finding content fast and easy!

Where can I find Atomic Search?

There are three ways to access Search, depending on what you are seeking.

Course Navigation

Top of most pages (including assignments, discussions, etc.)

Search as it appears at the top of the various pages within Canvas.

Global Navigation (blue bar)

Search icon as it appears in the Global Navigation bar

Soundless looping video showing the locations of Atomic Search within Canvas.

How do I use Atomic Search?

Great question! Using Search is the same as using any web-based search engine, only the results will be limited to Canvas content and not the entire web.

Important Note:

As a student, you can only search for content in the courses you are enrolled in.

In addition, as a student you are only able to search for content that is published and that you can already access in your courses.

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

In a course that you are 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

Course-Based Searches

If you are looking for a piece of content within a specific course it's best to access Search from either the Course Navigation within the course you're wanting to search or use the search bar located at the top of any page within that course, as that will limit the search to just that one course.

Whether searching from Course Navigation or the search bar, it will yield the same results.

Searching from Course Navigation

Select Search from Course Navigation
Enter your search criteria
- You can do wildcard searches (e.g. mus*) and phrase searches (e.g. “music history”)
Either click on the magnifying glass or Enter on your keyboard

Upon clicking the magnifying glass or 'Enter' on your keyboard, Search will display your results. Once your results have been returned, it's at this time Search allows you to further filter those results.

On the results page, you will see:

Filters
Number of results based on your search criteria
Title of the result, which also serves as a link to the result
Type of result
- Assignments
- Discussions
- External URLs
- Files
- Modules
- Pages
- Syllabi