Any Moodle course site can be populated with content from a backup of another course site. This article outlines the procedure for Moodle 4 and later. Note: This can be done in three ways — restore to an empty course shell, restore to a populated course shell and merge contents, or restore to a populated course shell and overwrite contents. These instructions cover only the restore to an empty course shell procedure -- the others are substantially similar.
- Log into your Moodle dashboard as usual, then locate and open the empty course shell to be him him him him populated. You may need to change to your My Courses page. (Note: You must be assigned as the instructor of a course in order to populate from backup.)
- From the More menu, select Course reuse.
- From the drop-down, select Restore.
- Drag your backup file onto the drop zone, or click Choose a file and use the File picker to load a backup stored on your computer or in a linked repository.
- After upload, when the backup file name appears in the Files list, click Restore to bring up the data restoration options.
- The next screen will show details of your backup . Look over the contents of the backup and confirm that they are what you expect, then click Continue.
- On the Destination tab, under Restore into this course, select "Delete the contents of this course and then restore", and click Continue (Note: There are several Continue buttons on this page – be sure to click only the one under Restore into this course.)
- On the Settings tab, check the boxes for the settings you wish to enable. Generally, taking the defaults is fine. Click Next
- On the Schema tab, choose the resources you want to restore into the new course shell. Unless you have a specific reason for changing it, leave the Overwrite course configuration toggle set to No. Click Next.
- On the Review tab, look over your restore and backup settings and verify that everything is as you expect. That done, click Perform restore.
- A progress indicator will appear, followed by a notification when the restore operation finishes. Click Continue to return to the newly-populated course shell.
Be sure to check the contents of the restored course carefully, paying particular attention to things like dates.