Course backup: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 10:32, 13 October 2011

A course can be saved with some or all of its parts by using the course backup. Typically, the site administrator will set a schedule of automated course backups for the whole site. A teacher with editing privileges can create a backup or download an existing backup for safe keeping, or for use on another Moodle site.

Backing up a course

Schema selection, no user data selected in initial settings

To backup a course

Go to Settings > Course administration > Backup
Initial settings - Select activities, blocks, filters and other items as required then click the Next button. Users with appropriate permissions, such as administrators, can choose whether to include users, anonymize user information, or include user role assignments, user files, comments, user completion details, course logs and grade history in the backup.
Schema settings - Select/deselect specific items to include in backup then click the Next button
Confirmation and review - Check that everything is as required, using the Previous button if necessary, otherwise click the 'Perform backup' button
Complete - Click the Continue button

A backup file (with distinctive .mbz extension to avoid confusion with .zip files) is then saved in the course backup area.

Backup in Moodle 2.0 video:

<mediaplayer>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mya-u0zAZZE</mediaplayer>

Anonymizing user information

Anonymize user information is a backup feature which "protects user identities" by making each user anonymous. If this box is checked in the backup initial settings, Moodle will substitute aliases for real names, substituting @example.com e-mail addresses and so forth. For example "Max Manager" might become "anonfirstname4 anonlastname4".

Backup and restore from 1.9 to 2.0

It is not possible to backup a course on a 1.9 site and restore it to a 2.0 site, only to a 2.1 site. A workaround is to upgrade the 1.9 site to 2.0.

Tips and tricks

Lose content after a restore in Moodle 2.0 ? Do you see topic headings that say "Orphaned activities"? Solution: Go to course settings and increase the number of topic sections and things will return to normal.

Creative uses

The backup and restore processes can offer the teacher and administrators many creative solutions.

Duplicating courses or specific activities in one course to another course (similar to Import)
Updating a production Moodle site course, with material from a localhost site course
Transferring a course to a new Moodle site.
In earlier versions of Moodle, a way of rolling a course forward without past student activity
Creating a blank activity, save just that activity and then restore it to the course or another course one or more times.

General backup defaults

Default settings for course backups can be set by a site administrator in Settings > Site administration > Courses > Backups > General backup defaults.

Selected settings may be locked, so that they cannot be changed when creating a course backup.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{Course admin}}
+{{Backup}}
+A course can be saved with some or all of its parts by using the course backup.  Typically, the site administrator will set a schedule of [[Automated course backup|automated course backups]] for the whole site.  A teacher with editing privileges can create a backup or download an existing backup for safe keeping, or for use on another Moodle site.
-Generally, you will not have to worry about '''course backups''', as the primary Moodle administrator will have set a schedule of site wide backups. However, as a teacher with editing privileges, it is good practice to download a recent backup to your own computer for additional protection.
+==Backing up a course==
+[[Image:Backup of a course section.png|thumb|Schema selection, no user data selected in initial settings]]To backup a course
-==Creating a course backup==
+# Go to ''Settings > Course administration > Backup''
-[[Image:Course_backup.jpg|thumb|Creating a course backup - page 1]][[Image:Course_backup_s2.jpg|thumb|Creating a course backup - page 2]][[Image:Course_backup_s3.jpg|thumb|Creating a course backup - page 3]]
+# Initial settings - Select activities, blocks, filters and other items as required then click the Next button. Users with appropriate permissions, such as administrators, can choose whether to include users, anonymize user information, or include user role assignments, user files, comments, user completion details, course logs and grade history in the backup.
-To create a course backup:
+# Schema settings  - Select/deselect specific items to include in backup then click the Next button
-#Click Backup in the course administration block.
+# Confirmation and review - Check that everything is as required, using the Previous button if necessary, otherwise click the 'Perform backup' button
-#Choose which activities you want to include in the backup, and whether to include user data, by using the Include All/None links at the top of the page and/or by selecting the checkboxes next to each module or activity name. User data consists of all student files, submissions, forum postings, glossary entries, etc.
+# Complete - Click the Continue button
-#Select backup options (see below), then click the Continue button to start the backup process.
-#On the next page, you can preview the files and users that Moodle will include in the backup and, if you wish, change the suggested backup filename, which is backup-COURSESHORTNAME-DATE-TIME.zip.
-#Click the Continue button.
-#On the next page, the progress of the backup is displayed together with a report if it was successful. You should see the message "Backup completed successfully" at the bottom of the page. Click the Continue button.
-#You will then be taken to the backupdata directory in the files area for your course. Click the filename of the backup file to download it to your desktop.
-==Backup options==
+A backup file (with distinctive .mbz extension to avoid confusion with .zip files) is then saved in the course backup area.
-* Metacourse - If you are backing up the content of a [[Metacourses|metacourse]], you may enable this option so that that relations between the courses will be exported and the restore process will try to rebuild them in the destination server.
-* Users - Whether you want to backup the content concerning all the registered students in your site, only course students or no students at all.
+Backup in Moodle 2.0 video:
-* Logs - This backs up all course activity logs.
-* User files - This backs up all student submissions for assignments and other file uploads.
+<mediaplayer>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mya-u0zAZZE</mediaplayer>
-* Course files - This backs up any file stored in the [[Files|files]] area for the course.
+==Anonymizing user information==
+Anonymize user information is a backup feature which "protects user identities" by making each user anonymous. If this box is checked in the backup initial settings, Moodle will substitute aliases for real names, substituting @example.com e-mail addresses and so forth. For example  "Max Manager" might become  "anonfirstname4 anonlastname4".
+==Backup and restore from 1.9 to 2.0==
+It is not possible to backup a course on a 1.9 site and restore it to a 2.0 site, only to a 2.1 site. A workaround is to upgrade the 1.9 site to 2.0.
+==Tips and tricks==
+* Lose content after a restore in Moodle 2.0 ?  Do you see topic headings that say "Orphaned activities"?  Solution: Go to course settings and increase the number of topic sections and things will return to normal.
 ==Creative uses==
 The backup and restore processes can offer the teacher and administrators many creative solutions.
-*Duplicating courses or specific activities in one course to another course
+*Duplicating courses or specific activities in one course to another course (similar to Import)
 *Updating a production Moodle site course, with material from a localhost site course
+*Transferring a course to a new Moodle site.
 *In earlier versions of Moodle, a way of rolling a course forward without past student activity
+*Creating a blank activity, save just that activity and then restore it to the course or another course one or more times.
+==General backup defaults==
+Default settings for course backups can be set by a site administrator in ''Settings > Site administration > Courses > Backups > General backup defaults''.
+Selected settings may be locked, so that they cannot be changed when creating a course backup.
 ==See also==
-*[[Restore]]
+*[[Course restore]]
-*[[Backup settings]] - for administrators
-*[[Backup and restore FAQ]]
-*[[Roll courses forward]]
-*[[Front Page]] trick to backup Front page in earlier version of Moodle
-*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrdM_KOr530 Creating course backups video]
-*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=59581 Location of Backup Files] forum discussion
-[[Category:Backup]]
+[[ca:backup/backup]]
+[[de:Kurssicherung]]
+[[es:Copia de Seguridad del Curso]]
+[[eu:Ikastaroaren_Segurtasun-kopia]]
 [[fr:Sauvegarde de cours]]
-[[es:backup/backup]]
-[[ca:backup/backup]]
 [[ja:コースバックアップ]]
-[[de:Kurssicherung]]

Documentation