For students researching courses starting in 2019, the search tool is available from Tuesday 8 May 2018. Check out what’s new to make sure you and your students understand and maximise the tool’s additional features.
What’s new?
We've gathered a large amount of feedback which has allowed us to evolve the search tool, and determine what filters and ways of sorting offer the most value to students.
New and improved features:
Enhanced filtering and sorting options
- Search by qualification – including foundation degrees, HNC or CertHE, HND, DipHE, bachelor’s degrees, and master’s degrees.
- Search by location:
- Students can now select multiple regions in the location filter.
- ‘Which location would you like to study in?’ now shows location of study, rather than a provider’s main location.
- Search by course vacancies – allowing users to filter courses with relevant vacancies, based on where they live. This includes courses in Extra (however, there is no specific ‘Extra’ filter) as seen below.
- Synonyms added – allowing users to search by additional search terms, such as ‘PPE’ for ‘Philosophy, Politics, and Economics’, and ‘pop’ for ‘popular’.
- Auto suggest has been reordered – 1. Course title 2. Provider 3. Subject. The list has also been updated, and will no longer show multiple entries if different cases are used e.g. ‘Business Studies’ and ‘Business studies’ will now show as one single entry.
Additional minor enhancements to improve user experience
- A link to the apprenticeship search tool from the main search bar.
- ‘Browse subjects guide’ allows a user to view the subject guides, giving them a better understanding of the courses they wish to study.
- Clearer messaging has been added to the ‘How to apply’ section for undergraduate courses, to inform students they can still apply after the equal consideration deadline.
- Provider logos have been added by providers to make course listings more personal.
- English language requirements are showing on the course details page in the search tool.
- Courses taught in Welsh can now be found when the English title field in the collection tool matches a search result e.g. courses with the title ‘Hanes’ will be returned when the English title ‘History’ is searched for.
What's coming up next
- Group by provider filter – we’re currently developing a ‘Group by provider’ filter, which will become the default view when you land on the search results page from the ucas.com search tile. This will display courses by default of A-Z by provider, and within the provider, the courses will be returned based on the relevancy of the search term. There will still be the option of viewing the course list separate to the ‘Group by provider’ list. We’ve now removed course options from the initial course results list, to only show the course title alongside the outcome qualification. This is so a provider with lots of course options isn’t taking up all the course listing space.
- Introducing a course summary page – we’re introducing a course summary page, where a user can view all relevant course options in a course. Selecting a course option will allow the user to see additional information about the course.
- Filter by entry requirements – students will soon be able to filter results by entry requirements.
- Unistats widget – we’re updating the Unistats information on the course details page, to give better visibility of some key statistics.
View the 2018 search tool guide for additional support.
We’re constantly developing the search tool, and value your feedback as an adviser supporting students through the process. If you have any suggestions, let us know by using the red feedback button at the top-right of any page in the search tool.