Global search feature which was introduced in Moodle from Moodle 3.1 version onwards used the Apache Solr as the default search engine. Moodle contains a Search API through which the Moodle’s global search capabilities can be extended to include other search engines.
Recently, a new Moodle plugin is released in the Moodle plugins directory which allows the Moodle administrators to set up the Elastic Search as the search engine for Moodle’s Global Search. Elastic search is another Open Source search engine developed in java and released under the terms of Apache license. Elasticsearch is the most popular enterprise search engine followed by Apache Solr, which is the default search engine in Moodle.
You can download the Elastic Search Moodle plugin from the Moodle plugins directory here. The plugin is developed by Catalyst IT and Matt Porritt. The elastic search plugin allows the following functionality:
- Multiple versions of Elasticsearch
- File indexing
- Request signing, compatable with Amazon Web Services (AWS)
The plugin is compatible with Moodle 3.2 and 3.1 version and supports the following versions of Elastic search:
- 2.3.4
- 2.4.4
- 5.1.2
The plugin uses Apache Tika for file indexing support. Tika parses files, extracts the text, and return it via a REST API. The installation instructions are mentioned on the Plugin homepage. I am not able to test out the plugin myself because of the technical incompetency of setting up everything.
Are you using Global search on your Moodle site? Are you also looking for using Elastic search with Moodle? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
[ulp id='ntmi4JeMQ49mpBRm']
