Editor’s note: Grace Kwan is a summer intern at Coursera and has been instrumental in creating student tools to help each of the 4 million Courserians navigate their courses with more efficiency. In this post, Grace will tell us about a new feature she has built called In-Class Search.
One of the awesome characteristics of online courses is how easy it is to offer a wide variety of content. With tools like in-video quizzes and peer grading, MOOCs are a far cry from the traditional chalkboard lecture. But as the weeks go on, it can be a challenge to keep track of everything you’ve seen in a course. We’ve all been there: “just when was it that the professor mentioned underwater basket-weaving techniques…?”
That’s why we’ve been working on a new feature to save you the trouble of re-watching all those videos and rereading all those forum threads. With In-Class Search, we hope that anything you’re looking for will only be a few keystrokes away.
The feature’s already been enabled in a few classes, and the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. If In-Class Search has been enabled for your class, you’ll see a search bar just under the course picture in the left-hand navigation:
Simply type in your query and hit the magnifying glass to get started.
If you’d like to narrow down your search, you can use our handy filters to display either Discussions (forum posts and comments) or Course Content (everything else). This is helpful if you know exactly what you’re looking for!
Is search enabled on your class? If so, we want to hear what you think! Please try it out and leave us your two cents below (no actual cents required). If your class doesn’t have it enabled yet, you can see how it works by clicking on the button below.