The LMS provides the ability to back up and restore existing courses. This can be used to quickly create a new version of the existing course. It can also be used to back up a course to be used as a template course to quickly generate a course page.
This guide provides a breakdown of how the backup and restore features work within the LMS, including their structure, options, workflows, and best practices.
This process consists of two parts:
- Backing up a course
- Restoring the course
What is Course Backup within the LMS?
Course backup is the process of creating a packaged snapshot of a course, which can later be restored within the LMS.
Backing UP a course:
To perform the backup of a course, first navigate to the course page which is being copied. Under the course admin settings, navigate to Backup - Course administration > Backup - and select this option.
There are two approaches to backing up a course page: quickly backing up a course and manually selecting the sections/details which you wish to back up. Below is an outline of both:
What Gets Included in a Backup?
Below is an outline of what would be included within the course backup file:
- Course Structure
- Course settings (name, format, layout)
- Sections and topics
- Activities and Resources
- Assignments
- Quizzes
- Forums
- SCORM packages
- Files and URLs
- User Data (Optional)
- Enrolled users
- Grades
- Activity attempts (e.g., quiz submissions)
- Forum posts
Please Note: Including user data significantly increases file size and may introduce privacy concerns and is generally not recommended.
Quick backup:
Navigate to the course backup option under - Course administration > Backup:
If the course and all content within the course page is to be copied within the back up file, clicking on the button 'Jump to final' Step - will create the backup of the course without any changes being made.
Note: This approach will not carry any user data to the new course page but will copy the content and settings from the course that has been backed up.
Backup Process: Step-by-Step:
The step-by-step process will allow selection of the data/activities that will be included within the backup file created using this process.
First navigate to the course backup option under - Course administration > Backup:
Once within the backup section, there are a number of settings that can be selected to be included within the backup of the course. Below is a quick outline of these options:
- Activities
- Blocks
- Filters
- User data
Schema Settings:
When it has been decided what information is to be included within the backup, the schema setting will allow for fine-tuning of the topics, activities and user data to be retained within the backup file.
Each topic area is broken down into the activities and the user data that can be retained, providing the ability to finely tune the data that can be included within the backup file for the course.
Unticking the check box for the topic will exclude any of the activities/data that is held under the topic.
Restoring A Course From a Backup File:
The restore feature allows for the backup file to rebuild the course in a chosen location.
Restore Process:
The restore process follows the below steps in order:
- Confirm
- Destination
- Settings
- Schema
- Review
- Process Complete
The restore area can be accessed under the site administration setting(Site administration > Courses > Restore course) or the course administration settings(Course administration > Backup). If you are following on from a course backup, you will be directed to the restore area after completing the backup of a course.
Below is a breakdown of each stage and the options that go with them:
Confirm:
The first section of the restore process will provide an overview of the contents of the backup file that is being used to restore content from. The sections are as follows:
- Backup details - The details of the backup file, i.e., the date of the backup.
- Backup settings – review of the content selected to backup when creating the backup file.
- Course details – The course details – i.e., course name and ID number
- Course sections – Sections of the course selected to be included within the file
- Destination – Set if the content should be restored into an existing or new course page.
- If accessing the restore feature from within a course page, an additional option for to the current course page will also appear.
Destination:
The destination page will provide the ability to select where the content is to be restored to. The options that appear will change depending on the setting that has been selected:
- If 'restore into an existing course' is selected, the options will allow for a course page to be selected
- If 'restore as a new course' is selected, the options will present categories for where the course should be created.
Settings:
The settings page gives the ability to select which data will be included within the course when the restore process is completed. As with the backup process, the following options are presented as selectable options:
- Activities
- Blocks
- Filters
- User data
Note: the data options will only be available if user data was included within the backup file for the course.
Schema:
The schema settings provide the ability to set the course details for the new course page:
- Course name
- Course short name
- Course start date
- Overwrite course configuration – only applicable if restoring into existing course pages.
This section will also provide the ability to determine what content and topics will be restored from the course backup file.
Review:
Before restoring, the review section will offer the ability to review the settings and content that had been selected throughout the restore process before restoring the content/course from the backup file.
Once the details within the review section have been confirmed as correct and the course is to be restored, clicking on the "Perform restore" button will restore the course within the category/course that has been selected.
Process:
The process section will show the progress of the course restore; once complete, a continue button will appear. Clicking on the continue button will complete the process and direct you to the course where the content was restored.