Copying course materials from one Moodle course to another

Copying course materials

Course data can be copied from one Moodle course to another by using the Import function found in the gear menu. This allows you to copy all or select course resources and activities to a different course site. Note that following these instructions will copy all course content (files, forums, etc.), but will NOT copy enrollments or any student data (forum posts, submitted assignments, etc.).

1. Go to the new course.
2. Make sure the new course has the same course format as the old course (i.e. Grid, Custom sections, etc). If necessary, click on [Edit Settings] in the gear menu and change the “Course Format” setting, then click [Save and display] at the bottom of the page. This is especially crucial if you are importing a course that used the Grid format; that is, make certain the new course is switched to Grid before performing the import.
3. Select the “More” tab, then click Course reuse.
4. Choose “Import” from the Course reuse page.
5. Select which of your previous courses you would like to import. If the list is long, you can type the name of the course in the search box to find it. Click the [Continue] button.
6. On the next page, click the [Next] button.
7. On the next page, you will see all the resources and activities in the course. If you wish to copy over everything, scroll to the bottom of the page and click [Next]. You may also choose to copy specific items only by checking or un-checking the boxes to the left of items.
8. On the next page, scroll to the bottom and click [Perform import].
9. Allow Moodle to finish restoring the course (this may take a few minutes), and then click the [Continue] button at the bottom.
10. You’ve copied your course data, and it should now be visible in the new course.
11. 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, then clicking “Dates”.  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 bottom.  You can easily repeat this for other activity types.

Note: To successfully import a course, the imported course must have section labels for all course sections. If you don’t want to display a title in a particular section, you can enter an HTML non-breaking space entity, which is  , as the title.