You can search the content repository for a specific module or a collection using the Search button and text box in the upper right of the Connexions web pages. Type in a name, keyword, collection title, module title, text string, or object ID in the Search text box and click Search. Connexions will display a list of all modules and collections that match your entry. You can sort and filter these results by various criteria. To view a module or collection, click its title.

Figure 1: Search bar.

Select the Content tab (above the You are here Breadcrumb bar) to display the browsing interface screen. This page also allows you to search for modules or collections by title, author name, or subject area.

Figure 2: Search bar and interface.

Or you can use the Connexions Browse feature to display a listing of all content by subject, title, author name, keyword, popularity, language or revision date.

Figure 3: Browsing interface

Figure 4: Browsing interface and refinement.

On the right side of the browsing interface screen is the Repository portal. Use this to jump to a random module or random collection in the repository.

Figure 5: The repository portlet with links to random content.

There are several pages on Connexions where you might see a list of content like those shown below. Some of the pages are the results of searching or browsing Connexions, but you will also see these lists through lens pages, author profiles, and elsewhere. This interface allows you to choose multiple views of the content listings, sort them by various criteria, and even quickly checkout or derive a copy of content to one of your Work Areas.

A typical listing is shown below. Notice the left side includes basic metadata like the title, author, summary, etc. and the right side includes further metadata which you can sort by.

Figure 6: Detailed search returns.

Sort by

You can choose a new sorting criteria from the Sort by dropdown at the top of the listing. You can sort by:

Figure 7: Search returns with "Sort by" list shown.

Views

On the left side above the content listing, you should see View: Detail | Compact | Statistics. Clicking on one of these changes the view. Often, the default view is "Detail". When you click on "Compact", you can view a compact listing of the content, which only shows the title and author on the left, and your current sorting criterion on the right.

Figure 8: Compact search results.

Finally, the statistics view gives you a bit more information behind Connexions "Popularity" ranking. You can see the total number of times the content has been viewed, the average number of views/day, how high the content is ranked (a rank of "1" means that content is the most-viewed content in the Connexions repository), and the rank percentile (a percentile of 98.72% means that 98.72% of the content in the repository is ranked lower than the this content).

At the top of the statistics view are links that allow you to download a spreadsheet of the statistics, either for the past week or for all time.

Figure 9: Search returns with statistics.

If you are looking for quality content on a certain subject, or tailored for a certain audience, there are other ways to find what you are looking for.

Through content

You can use the Related Material portlet to find content similar to the content you are viewing. The "Related Material" portlet also lists other collections which include this content.

Through lenses

When viewing content, you can use the Lenses portlet to find lenses which include this content. Those lenses are likely to have similar content of high quality. You can also use the Tags portlet to search the repository for other content included in lenses that is associated with this tag.

You can always browse our list of public Lenses to find lenses related to the subject you are searching.

Through member profiles

If you enjoyed one module or collection, you might enjoy more content by that author. Click the author's name to go to the author's profile, where you will find links to all of their modules, collections, and lenses, as well as links to the profiles of any coauthors whom they authored content with.

Figure 10: Author profile, with link to author's statistics.

In this figure, a link (view statistics) is circled in red. Click this to go directly to the popularity statistics of this author's content. Rank them by popularity to find the content by this author most visited.