Migrating Content from Existing Courses (Import)

For Faculty

Current Server Courses (Fall 2013 to present): The current Moodle server contains courses back to Fall 2013. Courses before the fall 2013 semester will probably not appear on the current Moodle server (some may be available since they were previously migrated by special request). If you can see one of your courses on the current server you can Import its content.

Any or all content from your courses on the server can be copied to a current course by faculty directly via the Import function described below.

Some content in these older courses will not be available and must be recreated. See details below if you use Ensemble or old Assignments.

Backup Archives (pre-Fall 2013): ITS also maintains backup archives of pre-F13 Moodle courses and will attempt to restore content from these courses on request. Please submit the Migration Request Form to request a course be restored from our backup archives.

Blackboard Backup Archives (pre-Fall 2010):

NOTE – UPDATE – As of fall 2019 – Our Blackboard extraction tool no longer works and we are investigating its repair or replacement.

Some content from backup archives of Blackboard courses can be retrieved by ITS, but we are unable migrate this content directly into Moodle. We can extract most course documents from a Blackboard course but it may take several days to complete. Please submit the Migration Request Form to request content extraction from Blackboard backup archives.

How to Import Course Material

Action menu

Select the Import option; select (or search and then select) one of your other courses; select Activities; select the entire course or specific topics and/or specific objects to be imported; and, start the Import.

Go to the course where you want to add content and follow the
Basic Import instructions here (from Docs.Moodle.Org).

Import Notes:

• You can not specify the destination for Imported content; content from Topic 3 will be appended to the bottom of the current Topic 3
• You should not Import (or otherwise copy) the Libraries’ Electronic Reserves section or their contents (since re-use may violate copyright and links to on-line resources may need to be updated).
• Orphaned Activities are now a problem of the past. Moodle 3.5 remedies this once very confusing situation.
• Topic Summaries (titles) will be imported automatically (no option to avoid this)
• You can unselect an entire Topic (section) but can’t select an entire Topic
• To Import the Grade Setup you must Import everything (default) (activities, filters, blocks, quizzes…)
• Some content in older courses may not be available and must be recreated. ITS will assist with the recreation of:
  • Ensemble media objects (Ensemble content created from embed codes should still work; the problem is only with Resource Ensemble objects which ITS can migrate specially)
  • Old version (obsolete) Assignments (some faculty used the obsolete Assignment 2.0 format which is not available in Moodle 3.0)

Moodle Video Tutorial for Faculty: Import Course Content

This tutorial was created with a previous version of Moodle; some details differ from the current version.

More Tools: Other tools for reusing course content include:

• Sharing Cart (a cross-course “clipboard” of Moodle objects);
• Backup/Restore.

We suggest that you contact us for help using these features.

ITS will restore backup archive files for courses no longer on the current server or perform an Import upon request via this Moodle Content Migration Request form.

keywords: copy; migrate; migration; restoration; reuse;