|
Filling in the Database Search Form |
| There are 8 fields
where you may enter criteria for conducting a search on
the database. Only the first field for entering your own
search keyword(s) is optional - the other 7 fields have
default values which are displayed and will be used unless
you select otherwise. The 8 database search form
fields are: |
- Enter keyword(s) for search:
You may optionally enter your own keyword(s) in one
or both of the 2 textbox areas provided. If only one
textbox is needed, use the leftmost one. You may enter
a word, part of a word, or a phrase in either textbox
to a maximum of 30 characters. A search on any text
entered is case insensitive. The search engine will
look for any occurrence of the text you enter in the
titles of courses and in the course descriptions -
wherever your entered text may appear within the title
or description. For example, if you entered the text
child, your search would retrieve courses
with the titles "Child Development", "Creativity and
the Young Child", and "Early Childhood Education,
Past and Future Trends".
The default value for the Boolean operator that connects
the two textboxes is AND which causes your search
to be limited to courses that contain both text strings
entered. If the OR option is selected, courses will
be retrieved if only one of the text strings is matched
(although courses will also be retrieved if they contain
both text strings). If the rightmost textbox is left
empty, the Boolean operator is ignored.
- Subject: Use
the dropdown arrow to select a subject from the alphabetical
list provided. This will limit your search to courses
in that subject area only. By choosing one subject
and leaving the rest of the fields as their default
values, you will retrieve all courses under that subject.
The default value is ALL which allows you to broaden
your search to include any subject. The subjects are
those that have been assigned in the print version
of the directories; some subjects are actually program
titles.
- Course Level:
This field allows you to search for college courses
only, university courses only, or both college or
university courses (the default value).
- Institution:
Use the dropdown arrow to select an institution from
the alphabetical list provided. This will limit your
search to courses only from that institution. By leaving
the other fields as their defaults, you may retrieve
all courses offered by that institution.
- Availability:
There are 6 options plus the default value ALL in
this field. The 5 geographic options apply to college
courses only - do not select one of these options
if you are searching for university courses. The option
regarding 1st year student suitability applies to
university course only - do not select this option
if you are searching for college courses. If the default
value ALL is used, your search will not be limited
by any of the above options.
- Language of Instruction:
The field refers to the language in which the course
is taught. There may be some courses in specific language
subjects which are taught in a third language (e.g.
Introductory Italian).
- Sort Results By:
Your search results will be sorted alphabetically
based on one of the 3 options selected.
- Display Maximum Of:
Use this field to limit the number of courses displayed
that result from your search. This field does not
limit the number of courses that match your query
- only the maximum number that will be displayed on
the Database Search Results page. Use caution when
selecting an option for this field because search
results are sorted alphabetically, and not ranked
according to their relevancy to your search criteria.
|
Press
the Search for courses button to execute your
search (using the ENTER key on your keyboard does not
activate this button). Press the Clear form button
to reset all fields in the form to their default values,
which includes clearing all keywords entered in the
Enter keyword(s) for search textbox(es).
Go to top of page |
|
The Database Search Results Page |
| The values for
each of the Database Search Form fields that were used
in your search are displayed at the top of this page.
It is followed by the total number of courses that match
your query, not the total number of courses that
are displayed in the results table. The results table
displays courses that exactly match your search criteria
(with the maximum number displayed dependent the option
chosen on the Database Search Form page). It includes
the course title, the institution which offers the course,
and the code number which that institution has assigned
to the course. Click on the course code to display additional
information about that course. Click on the institution
name to display additional information about that institution.
If your search does not retrieve any courses, click
on the Modify your search button to return you
to the Database Search Form with your initial search
criteria remaining in the form. Pressing the Return
to Database Search Form button at the bottom of
the results table will have the same effect.
Go to top of page |
|
The Course Information Page |
This page displays
information about a course selected from the Database
Search Results table. If a course description has been
provided, it will appear at the bottom of the page.
Click on delivery mode key in the middle of the
bottom row of the Node banner at the top of the page
to display a key which identifies the meaning of the
code letters used in the Delivery Mode field.
Click on the name of the institution in the Institution
field to display additional information about that institution.
Go to top of page |
|
The Institution Information Page |
| This page displays
information about an institution selected from either
the Database Search Results page or the course information
page. Click on the address in the Email field to
send an email message to that institution (if your browser
supports this function). The address in the Web Address
field is that for the distance education page of the institution's
web site, if the address for their distance education
page is known or available. Otherwise, the address indicates
the home page of the institution.
Go to top of page |
|
Choosing Search Keywords |
This topic pertains
to entering search criteria in the Enter keyword(s)
for search field in the Database Search Form. You
may enter single words, phrases, or parts of words in
either of the 2 textboxes provided. The search engine
will locate courses where the exact text you enter is
found anywhere within the course title or course description.
Therefore, you should enter as little of a word or phrase
as will be necessary to locate that word or phrase.
For example, if you wanted to search for courses on
computers, do not enter the keyword computers
because you would not retrieve courses with titles like
"Computer Programming". Instead, you would enter the
keyword comput to increase the number of possibly
relevant courses, i.e. courses with titles like "Computer
Programming", "Computers For Business Applications",
or "Computational Analysis Using Your PC".
See the help section on this field in the Filling
in the Database Search Form section for more information
on using this field.
Go to top of page |
|
Searching by Subject |
The Database
Search Form contains a Subject field for specifying
a search for courses in that subject. Each course in
the database has been assigned to a subject, although
some subjects represent program titles. Unless the subject
area in which you wish to search is well defined, it
is probably better to leave this field at the default
value of ALL and to try to conduct your search by entering
appropriate keywords in the Enter keyword(s) for
search field.
See the help section on this field in the Filling
in the Database Search Form section for more information
on using this field.
Go to top of page |
|
Limiting Your Search |
Use the Database
Search Form fields Subject, Course Level,
Institution, Availability, and Language
of Instruction to limit your search to the various
options available in these fields. The default values
for each of these fields, except for the Language
of Instruction field, will result in the broadest
possible search. Otherwise, selecting any one of the
other available options will limit your search to courses
that exact match that option.
Go to top of page |
|
Entering Diacritics |
| Diacritics are special
markings that appear on certain French-language letters.
Examples of these letters are é, as in the word
études, and ô, as in the word rôle.
It is important that diacritics are included when
entering search keywords because diacritics are preserved
in any record that contains French-language text. Therefore,
searching for the keyword mathematiques
will not retrieve records that contain the keyword
mathématiques.
There are 2 solutions available to ensure that records
indexed with words that contain diacritics will be retrieved
:
- Whenever a letter with a diacritical symbol must
be entered, use the ALT key equivalent for
that letter. For example, to enter the letter é,
hold down the ALT key while entering the digits 0233.
You can view a table for
some common ALT key equivalents.
- If your keyboard does not properly map to the ALT
key equivalents, and/or you do not know how to determine
them, replace the diacritical letter with the percentage
sign, i.e. %. For example, you could conduct
a search by using the keyword math%matiques
to retrieve records that contain the word mathématiques.
However, caution should be exercised when using this
method because records will be retrieved that have
any text string in place of the percentage sign. For
example, if the keyword r%le were entered,
records that contained the word rôle
would be retrieved, along with records that contained
the word principle or the phrase
Real Estate for Legal Secretaries.
| Letter |
ALT Key Equivalent |
| à |
ALT + 0224 |
| â |
ALT + 0226 |
| ç |
ALT + 0231 |
| è |
ALT + 0232 |
| é |
ALT + 0233 |
| ê |
ALT + 0234 |
| ô |
ALT + 0244 |
| ö |
ALT + 0246 |
| û |
ALT + 0251 |
| É |
ALT + 0201 |
Go to top of page |
|
Need More Help? |
If you need more
information about any of the courses listed in this
database, contact the institution(s) offering the course(s)
directly. You will find a complete list of institutions
represented in this database by clicking on contact
us at the top of each page. To get more information
about the institution offering a specific course in
the database, click on the Institution Code
which appears on the search
results page.
Go to top of page |
|
