In this article, we discuss how some aspects of the catalog widget impact the search results that are displayed when a learner searches in the catalog.
Use Case Information
Understanding how the catalog widget works is crucial to helping learners seek out and find the content they need. For example, if you can anticipate how learners will search for content or what terms they use, you can harness existing content fields to hold these terms so the search results are most relevant to learners so they can find what they need quickly and efficiently.
Which content fields are used to produce catalog search results?
Read each field and description to understand which content fields' text is searched when a learner completes a catalog search. Below each group of content fields are the images and click paths that show where to edit these fields in a course outline.
Title
The title of the content item
Path: Content > Manage Content > Select Course Title > Design > Edit Catalog Settings > Catalog
Note
Courses must be released in order for learners to search for them in the catalog.
Description
The description of the content
Path: Content > Manage Content > Select Course Title > Design > Edit Catalog Settings > Catalog
Custom Fields
Custom content fields consist of a field and the value. For example, a field for "difficulty" might have values of "easy" or "challenging". Learners can click on any value to filter all related content. Learn how to create and apply custom content fields in this article.
Path: Content > Manage Content > Select Course Title > Design > Edit Catalog Settings > Catalog
Meta Title
The meta title is SEO-related text that is shown to users when they locate your page in search engine results. It tells learners what the topic of the page is.
Path: Content > Manage Content > Select Course Title > Design > Edit Catalog Settings > SEO
Meta Description
The meta description is SEO-related text that describes and summarizes the contents of your page in search engine results.
Path: Content > Manage Content > Select Course Title > Design > Edit Catalog Settings > SEO
Source
The values you add to the source field. For example, you might attribute the source of the content item to a specific organization (TED Talks), expert (Neil deGrasse Tyson), or a publication (Harvard Business Review).
Path: Content > Manage Content > Select Course Title > Design > Edit Catalog Settings > Advanced Settings
Tip
The source field is often repurposed for information like content length, so it displays to learners as 60 minutes in the catalog, for example.
Author
The values you add that indicate the author of the content item.
Path: Content > Manage Content > Select Course Title > Design > Edit Catalog Settings > Advanced Settings
Course Content Search on Catalog
The course content search on catalog function is an optional feature that allows learners to search terms that are contained on specific course pages, like text pages. The search results will populate content where the search term is present in the course, even if the search term is not in another field like the content title.
This function indexes the first 1,000 characters on a course page, so only these characters are searchable. Make sure critical search terms are added higher up in a page's text block so the words will be indexed and searchable.
Course Content Search is behind a feature flag.
Reach out to your Thought Industries representative for assistance to enable this feature in your platform.
How Will My Results Display to Learners?
When my learners search in the catalog widget, what pops up and why? Take a look at the examples below to get an idea of how sort options apply to your learners' search results when we searched a sample catalog for the term "authoring".
Results Sorted Alphabetically by Title
Notice that results are alphabetized by title.
Results Sorted by Publish Date
Note that results are sorted by the date the content was published (though learners cannot see this detail).
Results Sorted by Relevance
These results prioritize the course whose title contains the word "authoring". Consider including key words in your content titles so learners can find results based on relevance.
Display and Sort Options
Display Options
Search results will display to learners based on the way you configure your catalog's display settings (e.g. in a list, as a grid, or in a calendar), so be sure to review these settings. Set up a default display option and give learners the option to select a different display option when browsing the catalog.
Sort Options
Sort options allow learners to sort content in the catalog, so consider which options are most effective for your learners to use in relation to your content. Set up a default sort option (results will display this way first) and give learners the option to select different sort options for ease of browsing.
Use Enabled Sort Options (discussed in this article) to choose which sort options are available to your learners.
- Last Updated: Sort content items by the date they were last updated
- Most Recent: Sort items by when they were created
- Title: Sort content alphabetically by content title
- Publish Date: Sort content by the date it was published
- Start Date: Sort content by its access start date
- Relevance: Sort by the word a learner uses in a keyword search. We recommend always having this sort order enabled. For example, if a learner searches for "bananas", if the catalog is sorted alphabetically, it will sort the results alphabetically instead of by relevance (e.g. where "bananas" is included in the content title).