Search

You can use the Search tab in the PDP to find records by specific keywords or phrases. See below for help constructing a search, navigating your results, and reading a full citation.

Constructing a Search
You can construct a search on the search screen by using a combination of the search fields below. No field is required. A blank search will return all records in the focus area(s) selected under additional search criteria. A question mark icon next to each search field pops up a help window for that specific field. To submit a search, select the submit button to the right of the Keyword field. Directly to the right of the submit button, a reset link will clear the screen to its default settings.

Keyword(s): The keyword search field executes a full text search across several index fields in PDP resources including Title, Description, Main Subject, Additional Keyword, and Source. You may add additional search criteria by making selections in fields below the keyword field. You can also leave the keyword field blank to filter results only by additional criteria. Keyword searches are not case-sensitive.

The Keyword search field supports supports the following Boolean operators:

Operator	Behavior	Example
(no operator)	By default (when neither + nor - is specified) the word is optional, but the results that contain it will be rated higher.	apple banana Find results that contain at least one of the two words.
AND	Finds results that contain both words	apple AND pear Finds results containing both words.
OR	Find results that contain either word.	apple OR pear Find results that contain either word.
+	A leading plus sign indicates that the word following the plus sign must be present in result returned.	+apple +juice Find results that contain both words. +apple macintosh Find results that contain the word ``apple'', but rank results higher if they also contain ``macintosh''.
- NOT	Either a leading minus sign or the word NOT indicates that the word following must not be present in any result.	+apple -macintosh +apple NOT macintosh Both examples above find results that contain the word ``apple'' but not ``macintosh''.
"	A phrase that is enclosed within double quote characters matches results that contain the phrase literally, as it was typed.	“course management system” Finds results including that phrase but does not retrieve results including these words
( )	Parentheses are used to group words into subexpressions. Parenthesized groups can be nested.	cat AND (dog OR puppy) Finds results with cat and either the word dog or puppy.
*	An asterisk is the truncation operator. Unlike the other operators, it should be appended to the word.	apple* Find results that contain words such as ``apple'', ``apples'', ``applesauce'', or ``applet''.
> <	These two operators are used to change a word's contribution to the relevance value that is assigned to a row. The > operator increases the contribution and the < operator decreases it.	+apple +(>turnover <strudel) Find results that contain the words ``apple'' and ``turnover'', or ``apple'' and ``strudel'' (in any order), but rank ``apple turnover'' higher than ``apple strudel''.
~	A leading tilde acts as a negation operator, causing the word's contribution to the row relevance to be negative. It's useful for marking noise words. A result that contains such a word will be rated lower than others, but will not be excluded altogether, as it would be with the - operator.	+apple ~strudel  Will find results containing both terms but will be ranked lower than “apple turnover,” for example.

Focus Area: Under additional search criteria, you may limit your search to one or more focus areas. If you are not logged in to the PDP, all focus areas are automatically selected. If you are logged in and have selected preferred focus areas in your profile, only these focus areas are preselected. You may add additional focus areas to your search by checking the relevant box. See below for more information on each focus area.

Administrative Development
Administrative Development covers topics associated with departmental chair and dean development such as budgeting, leadership skills, strategic planning, tenure and promotion, and more.
Libraries
The Libraries focus area includes resources to support the work of college and university librarians. Topics cover acquisitions, cataloging and indexing, digital collections, instructional services, vendor relations, and more.
Staff Development
Staff Development addresses human resource issues of interest to university HR departments as well as the faculty and staff they support. Topics include benefit programs, diversity, nonprofit management, funding opportunities, and more.
Teaching and Learning
The Teaching and Learning focus area incorporates professional development resources for faculty teaching with or without technology. Sample topics include active learning, assessment, course management systems, large enrollment courses, and service learning.

Resource Type: You may further limit your search to one or more resource types. Use control + click to select multiple types (or cmd + click for Mac users). The PDP automatically searches all resource types if none are specified. For more information on resource types, see below:

Centers, Organizations, Interest Groups: Entries range from UNC campus centers and interest groups to national and international organizations
Conferences, Meetings and Events: Entries provide dates, times and expanded information on local, national or global conference and events. (If selected on the search screen, you will be able to select past, future, or all conferences under the resource type box. Future is the default selection.)
Grants and Funding Sources: Entries range from local departmental grants and resources to federal and global resources
Networking and Sabbatical Opportunities: Entries include opportunities for faculty within their own campuses and across all UNC campuses.
Online Collections: Entries contain links to comprehensive online resources including databases, directories, and lists.
Policies: Entries include policies related to local campuses and UNC, and state and federal policies.
Publications: Entries include published or unpublished articles, white papers, and similar resources.
Vendors: Entries point both to software, hardware and technical service information and providers.
Workshops and Training Materials: Entries contain materials that can be used for workshops and training.
Other Resources: Includes resources that did not fit into other types.

Sort by: By default the PDP sorts search results by relevancy. If you would prefer to see your results sorted by date submitted or title, you may select that here. If you are logged in and have specified a preferred sort in your profile, that preference will be reflected here by default.

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