Best Practices for Search
This article is useful for any end user who needs to search for syllabi stored in Concourse–administrators, instructors, IT professionals, and students.
Overview
Concourse allows institutions to store syllabi in a variety of organizational approaches. Depending on the choices your institution has made about its Concourse instance, you may need to search for syllabi using different criteria to find the information you need.
Before You Begin
Before you begin searching for syllabi, keep in mind that your institution determines whether you are able to access the search panel. If you are not able to navigate to the search panel by following the directions below, your next step is to reach out to the IT department or Concourse administrator at your institution for assistance.
Please note that if you are able to access the search panel, your search results will list every syllabus in Concourse that matches your search criteria. However, if your group permissions do not allow you to view the syllabus you select, you will receive an error message when you attempt to open that syllabus.
About Keyword Search
Concourse’s keyword search is not a strict match; it does not target combined strings of words in a specific order. If you enter multiple search terms in the Keyword(s) field, your search results will include all syllabi in the system that include the entered terms based on the Keyword Mode selected:
- All words: search results include all syllabi that include all the words entered in the Keyword(s) field, regardless of the order in which they were entered. For example, a search for “Robert Smith” will return syllabi that include the instructor named “Robert Smith,” as well as syllabi with an instructor named “Robert Jones” and a textbook written by “Herb Smith.”
- Any word: search results include all syllabi that include any of the words entered in the Keyword(s) field, regardless of the order in which they were entered. For example, a search for “Robert Smith” will return syllabi that include the meeting location “Robert Hall” but do not include the word “Smith.”
It’s important to note that keyword search also returns results that include the search term’s roots and derivatives. For example, if a user attempts to locate kinesiology and recreation courses by searching for “bowling,” they will also find search results for art courses where an assignment is to make a ceramic “bowl.”
Keyword search does not support special syntax, such as quotation marks or wildcard symbols (e.g., %). Adding special characters to search terms will not impact the results returned.
Searching for Syllabi
If you would like to search for syllabi in Concourse, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the search panel. If your Concourse interface doesn’t automatically direct you to the search panel, you can get there by selecting the magnifying glass in the upper-right corner of your Concourse screen.
- In the search panel, select + Advanced to access more criteria for your search.
- You may then enter the course title, subject, course number, instructor, session (term), year, number of credits, or delivery method.
- Select Search.
- On the subsequent page, the syllabi matching your search terms will appear on the right side of the screen under the Results heading.
- You may sort the search results by selecting the preferred sorting criteria in the upper-right corner of the Results pane.
- Once you have located the syllabus you would like to access, select the hyperlinked name of the course (e.g. American Literature I).
Best Practices and Recommendations
To make the most out of your search experience, we recommend the following practices:
- We do not recommend using the quick search function (the search bar next to the magnifying glass in the upper-right corner of the Concourse screen). Quick search is a keyword search, which yields less precise results.
- If you are searching for courses or syllabi to which students can register (live courses), in the search panel, select Non-templates under the Templates drop-down menu.
- If you search by course title, the course title you enter must be exact, without typos. For example, if you search for “Composition,” your system may return results such as “Composition I” and “Composition II.” However, if you search for “English 1301” in the Course Title field, you will not receive any search results even though “English 1301” is the same syllabus as Composition I.
- The more specific criteria you enter, the more precise your search results will be. Try searching for more than one parameter at a time to find the syllabi you need quickly.
Good luck and happy searching! We hope your Concourse experience is positive and that you’re able to find the information you need efficiently.
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