Atomic Search

Atomic Search is a tool available to students to make it easier to find specific content in Canvas. This tool allows you to search across all of your Canvas courses or within a single course.

When you search, the tool will look for the text string you input within Canvas pages, files (PDF's, MS Office, text, and HTML documents), quizzes, modules, external URL's, announcements, discussion titles and descriptions (not posts), and within your syllabus content.

You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to find words with various endings.

For example, if you were to type 'patho*', your results will match with 'pathology,' 'pathogen,' 'pathologist,' etc.

You can also use quotation marks ("") around a phrase to return results that only contain the specific phrase.

For example, if you were to type '"writing center visit,"' your results would have to include that exact phrase. On the other hand, if you didn't include the quotation marks, then that phrase might pick up something like 'writing center tutoring session.'

How to Use Atomic Search

1️⃣ Log in to Canvas

image showing the Canvas dashboard after you log in

2️⃣ Access Atomic Search

image that shows where to access atomic search, located on the bottom left of the side bar

3️⃣ Enter Your Search Terms

image showing what the results look like after searching for a term with atomic search

4️⃣ Filter the Results

image showing where the filter options are for filtering your atomic search