How does the twillo search work?
You can use two different searches on twillo: First, the search via the OER search index OERSIwhose results include OER published on twillo as well as educational materials from other OER portals, and secondly, the twillo internal search with which you can only find materials that have been made available directly on twillo. Which search is available to you depends on whether you have a twillo account and which functions of the portal you use.
The OERSI search
You can search using the OER search index OERSI without being registered or logged in to twillo. If you enter a search term in the search bar on our homepage or select one of the subject area tiles, you will be taken to a large number of search results from various sources (e.g. twillo, ORCA, ZOERR). The small banner OER-finden also takes you directly to the OERSI integrated in twillo.
If you are logged in, you can also access the OERSI search via the Advanced search tab in the area selection.
In the search results, materials published on twillo are marked below the preview image with the small twillo icon (two circles connected by a vertical line). Materials from other sources are indicated as such by the OERSI logo (several dots connected to form a network)
If you move the cursor over the tile of a search result, you can scroll through the metadata of the respective material. The individual OER are opened by double-clicking on the preview image or selecting the Go to material button.
Various filters are available on the left-hand side to refine your search. For example, you can limit the search results to a specific subject (the Destatis university subject classifications), a specific license (e.g. Creative Commons, MIT) and a specific type of material (e.g. video, presentation, script) or search specifically for materials that were developed by a particular author or at a particular institution. The language of the material can also be filtered. Finally, you can use the Origin filter to determine whether only OER published on a specific platform (e.g. twillo, TIB AV-Portal, ZOERR) should be displayed.
Below the search results you will find collections of materials in which users have summarized OER published on twillo according to content or didactic aspects. The Show more button takes you to an overview of all collections on twillo.
It is currently only possible to search for a specific collection using the twillo internal search. However, materials contained in the collections are displayed in the OERSI search results.
All information about collections can be found in our FAQ What are collections and how do I use them?
The twillo internal search
The search function within twillo is only available after logging in. If you use the search bar in your workspace, you will be shown materials published on twillo that match your search term. You can use the gear icon to select which information should be displayed on the search result tiles and you can set the sorting of the results by clicking on the file name option. For differentiated filter options, please use the OERSI search described above.
What the twillo internal search is used for
You may now be wondering why this division exists. Quite simply, many of the functions that twillo offers you (e.g. creating collections or variants) are only possible with materials that are located directly in the portal or are linked there. If you use one of these functions, the system uses twillo's internal search function to display the material.