Manhattan College Knowledge Base

Importing Moodle Courses

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Moodle offers two ways that older courses can be copied and reused:

  • If the older course is still located on the current Moodle server, it can be imported into a new Moodle course site.
  • If the course is no longer on the current Moodle server, it has been moved to the archive Moodle server. It will need to be backed up on the archive server and restored into the new course on the current Moodle server.

This tutorial will cover the importing process.

1. Begin the import process

Navigate to the course site that you would like to copy content into.  In the Course Menu select More and choose Course reuse.

2. Select course reuse method

A dropdown menu menu at the top of the screen allows you to choose the course reuse method you would like to use.  By default, Import will already be selected.

3. Locate the course to be imported from

The next screen will ask you to search for the course to copy content from.  

  1. Enter part of the name of the course -- e.g., RELS 110 -- in the search box and click the Search button.
  2. When you find the course you want, click the button next to its name, then Continue
  3. If you have trouble finding the course you want to import from, you can search using its "Course short name," which will be unique to it.  To do this:  In a separate window, navigate to the course you want to import from and click on Settings.  The course's short name is the second item in the list.  Enter that into the search box for Step 1.

4. Initial settings

The next step is Initial settings.  In nearly all cases, the default settings on this screen can be left unchanged.  Scroll down to the bottom of the screen.

  1. If you want to import all of the course content in its entirety, select the Jump to final step button. Course content importing will begin immediately. Skip ahead to Step 6.
  2. If you want to select only specific course items for importing, select the Next button.

5. Schema settings

On this screen, you can choose individual items to include or exclude from your import.  To import all class content, leave all items selected and click on Next. If there are items that you do not want to import, click on the check mark beside that item to deselect that item. Deselecting the bold section headings (e.g., "General" in the below example) will remove all items in that section from the import.

6. Confirmation and review

This screen allows you to double-check the settings you've chosen.  When satisfied, click the Perform import button at the bottom of the screen.  

7. Import Completion

When the import is finished, a confirmation message will appear. Click on Continue to view the course with the newly-imported content.

8. Cleanup

Review your course to see if there are any updates you want to make for the new semester.  For example, check that links to online resources still work.  Also, the importing process often results in courses having two Announcements forums.  Delete one to avoid confusing students.

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