Search the Item Library

If your course provides auxiliary materials, select either the main textbook or the auxiliary source.

Depending on the book/source, this menu could have a different name. Your options in this menu typically include:

No chapter specified

Choose this option if you added items to the library ( My Items), but did not specify a chapter association. If you'd like, you can associate these items with a chapter.

Introduction to Mastering

When you create a course, an Introduction to Mastering assignment is automatically included. Items in this assignment provide guidance and working examples for students to learn how to answer assignment questions online in the Mastering application. Depending on the discipline of study, these items might explain how to enter acceptable numeric or symbolic values, insert chemical notation, draw a graph, or other.

Consider trying out the introductory assignment to learn how to work through assignment items as a student. You might also want to re-assign one or more of these items later in the course to remind students of how to complete particular items.

Chemistry Review or Mathematics Review

Choose this option to see tutorials on basic topics such as:

• Chemistry: atoms, molecules, bonds, reactions, pH, and organic molecules.
• Math: square roots, percentages, decimals, fractions, metric conversions, and scientific notation.

You might want to assign these tutorials to students at the beginning of your course. More about finding math remediation items

Numbered chapters

These correspond to chapters in the Table of Contents of the book/source.

Self-Guided Tutorials (for some Mastering Astronomy courses)

Self-Guided Tutorials, which are also available for self-study in the students' Study Area, are designed differently and listed separately from other Tutorial items. Choose this option to add these to an assignment for grading purposes.

If the Mastering chapter contains sections or other subdivisions, like concepts, you can select All or an individual subdivision. In the search results list, the items are grouped below the subdivision title.

If Learning Outcomes are provided for the selected book/source, you can find items associated with the publisher-provided outcomes. Doing so can help you select items for the outcomes you want to assess. User-created learning outcomes ( My Learning Outcomes) are not included in this list.

If you select a specific learning outcome, filtered items associated with the outcome appear below that named learning outcome, similar to a chapter section grouping.

Use the My Favorites filter to find items you’ve already previewed and tagged as favorites. You can assign these items later or possibly refer to them during class.

• Availability of your personal My Favorites items: These are available to you across all of your courses based on the same book/resource within the product, like Mastering Chemistry.
• Places where you can save an item as a favorite: You can save an item as a favorite from either List View or Card View of the item library, as well as when you preview an item in Standard View (what students see).

  

To save items as My Favorites: Select Click to save as a favorite. The star turns blue.

To remove items from My Favorites: Select Favorite. The star becomes blank again.

One or more of these options appear when they apply to items in the chapter and sections or learning outcomes you selected in the source section.

• New Items have been added by the publisher in the past 12 months. If you’re working in a copied course, consider searching on New Items to find the latest content.
• Mobile Items can be completed by students using a mobile device, in addition to a computer.
• Randomizable Items can present the same problem with variables that show different values for different students. To randomize the values in assigned items, on the Organization page, select the Randomize Variables check box for each randomizable item.
• With Feedback can help to guide students to the correct answer if they answer incorrectly.

Use the keyword search to find items in the currently selected chapter resource that contain a particular word, phrase, or expression. The matching content can appear anywhere in the item, such as its title, introduction, part, hint, or in the answer. When you preview the found items, note that the matching content is NOT highlighted.

• You can enter almost any character for keyword search. Basic TeX formatting is supported for mathematical or chemical notation, such as to indicate a subscript (_).
• Multiple search terms are treated as a single string. For example, if you enter “water molecule“ or “Chapter 1 Reading Quiz”, items in the search results will contain the exact series of words, not instances of the individual elements.

To search by keyword:

Enter a search term or phrase in the Keyword box and either press Enter or select .

The keyword appears in quotes in the Selected Filters area.

To clear the keyword search filter only:

Select . To clear a selected keyword together with other filters, select Clear All.

The options available in the Item Type, Answer Type, and Special Features pick lists are based on your source selections. In some courses, you can also filter for items that evaluate Bloom's Taxonomy levels.

Featured items are top performing items, shown to help students learn faster. They provide students with hints, wrong answer feedback, and extra support. When featured items appear at the top of your search results list, you can assign them with confidence.

• Featured items are selected by discipline experts with guidance from Mastering instructors.
• Don’t see any featured items? Either you’ve already assigned items from this list or the search selections you’ve made don’t include this type of content.

A maximum of 10 items are shown in the Featured Items area, based on the selected chapter or section. Select Click to collapse or Click to expand, as needed. The same featured items are also listed in the found items organized by section below the Featured Items area.