Creating and Restoring a Course Backup File

Creating a Course backup file

The process described below is necessary only when trying to retain a course before it is sent into the Moodle Archive.

1. Log in to your Moodle site, which is located at either moodle.lafayette.edu (course sites) or spaces.lafayette.edu (non-course sites).
2. Navigate to the appropriate course.
3. Select the “More” tab on your main course page.
4. Select “Course Reuse”.
5. Choose “Backup” from the “Course reuse” page.
6. Navigate to the bottom of the “Backup Settings” page and click the [Next] button.
7. On the “Include” page, you may want to uncheck all the items in the course by clicking “None”. You can then recheck only the items you wish to back up. Click the [Next] button.
8. On the “Filename” page, you can edit the file name of the backup file, or you can leave the default.
9. Scroll to the bottom and click the [Perform Backup] button. Click [Continue].
10. Click [Download] on the final screen by your course title, which should begin with “backup” and end with “.zip”. This should prompt your browser to download the file.

Restoring a course backup to another course

You will first need to create a course backup file of the original course (see “Creating A Course Backup File” above) and then restore the backup file to another course.

1. Log in to your Moodle site, which is located at either moodle.lafayette.edu (course sites) or spaces.lafayette.edu (non-course sites).
2. Navigate to the appropriate course.
3. Select the “More” tab on your main course page.
4. Select “Course Reuse”.
5. Choose “Restore” from the “Course reuse” page.
6. Drag the backup file directly from your computer (it starts with “backup” and ends with “.mbz”) into the “Files” area of the “Import a backup file” page. It may take a few moments for the file to upload; there is nothing to indicate the progress of the uploaded file.
7. The file upload limit in Moodle is 250MB. If your backup file is larger than 250MB, contact the Help Desk at help@lafayette.edu for assistance restoring your course.
8. Click the [Restore] button once the file name is displayed in the “Files” area.
9. Scroll to the bottom and click the [Continue] button.
10. Under the “Restore into this course” section, choose to either merge this backup with what is currently on your course site or choose to restore your course while deleting any content you may have already placed on your current course site.
11. Click the [Continue] button in the “Restore into this course” section.
12. Click the [Next] button. Uncheck the boxes beside any items you do not wish to import and click [Next].
13. Scroll to the bottom and click the [Perform restore] button.
14. Click the [Continue] button to return to the course page.
15. If you have any “timed” elements, such as assignments with a specific due date or other resources that become visible/hidden at a particular time, you can adjust them for the current semester by selecting the “Reports” tab and then “Dates”.
16. On the resulting page, select the “Activity type” (such as Assignment) from the dropdown box, then click “Expand all”.  You should see a list of all activities that have a date associated with them and can adjust them as necessary.  When finished, click [Save changes] at the top or bottom.  You can easily repeat this for other activity types.