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Moodle Quickstart Guide for Faculty

Creating a Course Backup File

A course can be saved with some or all of its parts by using the course backup. Typically, the site administrator will set a schedule of automated course backups for the whole site. A teacher can create a backup or download an existing backup for safekeeping, or for use on another Moodle site.

The backup file that you obtain is similar to a .zip archive file and is a way to save the information from an entire course - including student data - in one compressed package.

If you want to import files and activities from one course to another, without including most student data, you can opt for the Import option instead.

 
Backing up a course
  • You can access the Backup from the More... tab on the course navigation menu:


  • There, on the drop down menu, you will select Backup

 

Settings

  • Initial settings - Select activities, blocks, filters and other items as required then click the Next button. 
  • Schema settings - Select/deselect specific items to include in the backup, then click the Next button.
  • If desired, select specific types of activity to be backed up by clicking the link Show type options.
  • Confirmation and review - Check that everything is as required, using the Previous button if necessary, otherwise click the Perform backup button. Here you can also edit the filename.
  • Complete - Click the Continue button

The final screen that appears is for managing your backup files. The Course backup area will show all the backup files for the course. 

As the backup files tend to take a lot of space within the platform, it is good practice to save them locally (possibly on multiple locations, such as cloud drives), rather than keeping them in the user private backup area. Once you have downloaded the backup file, you can click the Manage backup files button right below the backup area, click the name of the backup file, and click Delete on the pop up menu.


You can use the backup file to restore a course to a previous version of it or to populate a new empty course to include student data.

Need More Help?

For 24/7 help on using Moodle features:

 

 Use the official Moodle documentation pages.

 

For help Monday-Friday 9am-8pm:

 

Email moodlesupport@johncabot.edu

Schedule an appointment https://johncabot.libcal.com/appointments/moodlesupport