Taking Notes in a Course

As you work through a UC San Diego Online course, you may want to highlight a particular passage or make a note about what you have read. In some UC San Diego Online courses, you can highlight passages and make notes right in the course.

When a course includes the notes feature, every page has a Notes page at the top and a pencil icon in the lower right corner.

Your notes can contain text as well as tags that help you organize and find your notes. You can see individual notes inside the course content, or you can see a list of your notes on the Notes page.

In courses that offer a notes feature, you can use either the mouse or keyboard shortcuts to create, access, and delete notes. For more information about using keyboard shortcuts, see Keyboard Shortcuts for Notes.

To highlight a passage or add a note that includes text and tags

1. Select the text that you want to highlight or make the note about. You can select as much text as you want.
2. When a pencil “edit” icon appears above the selected text, select the icon to open the note editor.
3. When the note editor opens, enter your note and any tags that you want to add. You can also save the highlight for the passage without entering a note or tag.
   • To highlight a passage without adding a note or tag, select Save or press Enter. When you move your cursor over the highlighted text, the note field contains the words “no comment”.
   • To enter a note, select Comments, and then type the text of your note. Your note can contain as many words as you want.
   • To add one or more tags, select Add some tags here, and then type any tags that you want to add.
   • Tags cannot contain spaces. If you want to add a tag that has more than one word, type multiple words as one word with no spaces, or use hyphens (-) or underscores (_) to separate words in the tag.
4. After you finish writing your note and adding tags, select Save or press Enter. The note editor closes, and the text that you selected remains highlighted.

You can use keyboard shortcuts to create, edit, and delete your notes.

Before you use the following keyboard shortcuts, you must make sure that notes are visible. To show or hide notes, press Ctrl + Shift + left bracket ([).

To create a note using the keyboard

1. Enable caret browsing mode by pressing the F7 key on your keyboard. (If you're using Chrome, you'll need to install the Caret Browsing extension first.)
2. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the left of the text that you want to highlight.
3. Hold down Shift + right arrow to select the text.
4. Press Ctrl + Shift + right bracket (]) to open the note editor. The note editor opens with the cursor in the text field.
5. In the text field, type your note.
6. To add tags, press Tab to move to the tag field, and then add your tags.
7. To save your note, press Tab to move to the Save button, and then press Enter.

To close the note editor without creating a note, press Tab to move to the Cancel button, and then press Enter. You can also press Esc to close the note editor. 

To edit or delete a note using the keyboard

1. Press Tab to move focus to the note that you want.
2. Press Ctrl + spacebar or Ctrl + Enter to open the note editor.
3. Press Tab to move the cursor to the text field or the tag field, and then make the changes that you want.
4. Press Tab to move to the Edit, Delete, or Close button, and then press Enter.

After you create a note, you may want to edit or delete it. 

To edit a note

1. In the course body, move your cursor over the highlighted text until your note appears.
2. When the note appears, select the pencil icon in the upper right corner to open the note editor.
3. In the note editor, edit your note, and then select Save. 

To delete a note or highlight

1. Move your cursor over the highlighted text until your note appears.
2. When the note appears, select the trash icon in the upper right corner to delete the note or highlight.

You can view your course notes in two places:

• Where you created the notes
  To see your notes, go to the unit that contains your note and move your cursor over or select the highlighted text. When you select the highlighted text, your note remains open until you move outside the highlighted text. 

• The Notes page
  The Notes page provides a list of the notes you have made in your course. Each note includes a link to the note's location in the course, the time and date you last edited the note, and any tags that you added. You can also search your notes and tags on this page by entering text in the Search notes for... field. 

Show or Hide Your Notes

By default, you can see all of your notes. You can hide your notes, and show them again, by selecting the pencil icon in the lower right corner. When the pencil icon has a dark gray background, notes are visible. When the pencil icon has a light gray background, notes are hidden.