Filtering Search Results

Search now includes several filtering and sorting features to help you refine results by term, organization, course, content type, context, and publish status.

Search includes several filtering and sorting features to help you refine results by term, organization, course, content type, context, and publish status. These tools give you more control over the content you see and ensure results align with your role.

Opening the Filters Panel

From the Search page, click the Filter button next to the search box.
The filter controls will expand beneath the search box.
- If your course has semantic search enabled, it will appear before the filters expand and shift to the right when filters are shown.

Important: Changing filters does not immediately trigger a search when you are on the main search screen. Filters are only applied when you click Search, and your selections carry over to the results page.

Filtering by Content Type

There are two ways to filter by Type:

Before searching: Use the Type filter in the expanded filter panel to choose one or more content types. If multiple are selected, the dropdown label will display Selected Types.
After searching: A Type filter is displayed directly below the search box.
1. Open the Type dropdown.
2. Select one of the types listed.
3. Results will narrow to that content type.
The list only shows the content types that were found for your search term, and may vary depending on the results.

For a full list of supported content types, see [What content does Atomic Search allow you to search?].

Filtering by Context

You can filter content by context depending on where you started the search. The Context dropdown (e.g., My Courses) appears above the results list.

Available contexts include:

Current Account – Displays results across the current sub-account and its child sub-accounts. For more information on sub-account filtering see this article.
Selected Accounts - Allows admins to filter by canvas subaccounts.
My courses – Displays results from your current course and all courses you are enrolled in.
Selected courses – Displays results only from the course you are in.
Institution courses* – Displays results from your current course, your courses, and courses set to institution visibility.
Public courses* – Displays results from your current course, your courses, institution-visible courses, and public courses.

* Contact support if you’d like to enable Institution or Public search contexts at your institution.

Filtering by Subaccount

Launch Atomic Search from the account or global navigation in Canvas.
1. Sub-account admins will only see the Selected accounts scope option for accounts they are an admin of and can only access it through the account navigation.
Run a search and open the My Courses dropdown at the top of the search page.
Select Selected accounts.
A modal window will open, showing a hierarchical tree of your available sub-accounts.

Note: You must be an administrator in the Canvas account to see this option. Students and instructors will not see the Selected accounts scope option.

Filtering by Academic Term (Admins Only)

Canvas admins can filter search results by Term when searching at the account level.

From the All Terms dropdown, select a specific term.
Results will filter to courses within that term.
To filter by multiple terms, select Selected Terms, check the desired terms in the modal, then click Apply.

When multiple are chosen, the dropdown shows Selected Terms.

Sorting by Relevance or Recency

By default, search results are ranked by Relevance.

Relevance: Items most relevant to your search terms appear first. Item titles are weighted more heavily than the body of the content.
Recency: Items most recently added to Canvas appear first.

You can switch sorting at any time from the dropdown at the top of the results.

Filtering by Organization Units (Brightspace Admins Only)

When launching search in Brightspace from the root org or sub-org, admins can filter by organizational units. Options include:

Selected Department Orgs
Selected Course Template Orgs
Selected Program Orgs

Semesters are excluded here since they already have a dedicated term filter.

These options do not appear for students or course-level admins.

Filtering by Courses

The Courses filter now supports multi-select:

Open the Courses dropdown.
Select Selected Courses.
A modal will list your enrolled courses.
Select one or more, then click Apply.

Results will show only the selected courses. This option is available in Canvas and Brightspace.

Filtering by Publish Status (Admins and Instructors Only)

Two filters are available under the More button:

Item Publish State – filter by published or unpublished items.
Course Publish State – filter by published or unpublished courses when searching at the account level.

Permissions:

By default, admins/instructors see both published and unpublished content.
Students never see unpublished content.
Users with mixed roles (instructor in one course, student in another) will only see unpublished results where they are instructors.