Summary
Course backups are a useful tool that allow you to backup a full course (or part of) along with the user data associated with the course. This can be useful if you require changes to be made on the course and you want to reduce the risk of data loss or losing specific course features. Alternatively, backups can be used to make a copy of the course in order to add the course (or specific elements) to a new course. This guide will show you how to backup an existing course.
Step 1 - Navigate
There are two areas on your platform where you can go to perform a backup. We’ll touch on each of these below and how the process is initiated within each:
Creating a backup from within a course
To perform a backup from within a course page you need to go to:
*Course name* > More > Course reuse
From there you need to use the dropdown in the top left to select “Backup” this will then automatically load the backup settings.
Creating a backup from the Manage courses and categories page
To perform a backup from within the manage course and categories page you need to go to:
Site administration > Courses > Manage courses and categories > *Course name*
From there you need to click on the “Backup” button for that particular course, this button can be found in the navigation menu for the particular course you’ve selected, as shown below:
Step 2- Performing the backup
Once you’ve selected the Backup option from either of the routes mentioned above this will automatically load the backup settings page. The process to complete the backup is then as follows:
- Initial settings - These can typically be left unchanged, the only key change you’ll need to make is to tick or untick the second clickable box to either include or exclude enrolled users when making a backup of the course. If you choose to include enrolled users then any users enrolled in the course will be brought over in the backup file. Once you’re satisfied with the settings, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Next”.
- Schema settings - Here you can select the course content (topics and activities) you want to include in the backup. All of the content is ticked by default, if you wanted to deselect all of the content to start with you can select “None” under the “Select” heading and then go through and select the content you do want added to the backup. Once you’re satisfied with the settings, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Next”.
- Confirmation and review - This section will allow you to alter the name of the backup file. It is also at this stage that you can check through all of the backup settings and content to be included in the backup before proceeding to start the backup process. After you’ve double checked all of the above, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Perform backup”.
Step 3 - Backup complete
Having followed each of the steps above the backup file should have been created and you’ll be presented with the following page to confirm this:
If there are any error messages shown, then you will need to address these issues and repeat the backup process.