An automatic course backup of all Moodle courses is created overnight if there are changes. The last three versions are kept. These automatic backups serve as an emergency backup and can be used by admins to restore course content and participant data. The backups are also deleted when courses are deleted.
When course owners back up a course, user data is not backed up, e.g. test results, submitted assignments, forum posts, votes, content in wikis, Etherpad, glossaries or databases. Some of these activities have their own backup functions, see result backup.
Use course backups to reuse a course or parts of a course in other Moodle systems. Course owners (“Teacher” role) can save courses in whole or in part. Such course backups contain set up activities with the settings made as well as materials, but NOT work results or contributions from participants.
On the course overview page, click on the tab “More” in the course navigation and then select “Course reuse” at the bottom. You will now see a drop-down menu from which you can select “Import” or “Backup”.
Select Backup: The Backup settings overview is displayed and guides you through the process. In the backup settings, select the items to be backed up. (The selection “Include enrolled users” is not available). Click on the “Next” button.
You can select which content is to be included in the backup. Individual activities (without user data) can also be backed up and reused. Click on “Next”. You will see an overview and can adjust the file name of the backup (the numbers stand for the course ID and the date and time of the backup). Click on the “Perform backup” button. After a successful backup, you will see the message “The backup file was successfully created.”.
The backup section for each course is currently hidden for course owners to prevent accidental deletion of course backups. Contact Moodle Support if you need a backup file.
With “Import” you can insert course content or individual activities and materials from one course room into another course room (as long as source and target course are in the same Moodle system).
Enrolled participants and their data (forum posts, submitted assignments, etc.) are not imported.
You need the role “Teacher” in the target and source course.
On the course page, click on the tab “More” in the course navigation and then select “Course reuse” at the bottom. You will now see a drop-down menu from which you can select “Import”, the overview opens.
You will now see the “Initial settings”. Decide whether you want to include blocks, activities and filters (default = yes).
On the “Schema settings” page, you have the option of defining exactly which parts of the source course you would like to import.
An overview of your selection will then be displayed.
The import is now carried out. Completion is confirmed with: “Import complete”.
Click on “Continue” to return to the course.
If you have entered your own subject headings, they will not be imported. If you have created many and/or extensive headings, you should choose the way “Save course content - Restore”.
Saved items are always restored in the same topic section as in the source course (e.g. “Section 3”). If necessary, move them afterwards (switch on editing and move them using drag & drop, for example).