Section 13.3. Backups

13.3. Backups

Now that you've spent all this time setting up your course and delivering it to your students, you'll want to make sure you don't lose your work. Moodle gives you a backup tool to create archives of your courses. Backups can also be used to copy course materials from one course to another.

Usually, your system administrator will make backups of the entire system, but it's a good idea to make your own periodic backups of your courses.

To make a backup:

1. Click Backup in the administration area.

2. The next screen, shown in Figure 13-4, lists all the tools available in Moodle. You can choose which tools you want to include in the backup by choosing Yes or No for each tool.

3. You can also choose to backup user data individually for each tool. User data consists of all student files, submissions, and other activities:

   
   

   Users

   Backups the user accounts for everyone in the course. If you select None here, no user data will be backed up.

   
   

   Logs

   Backs up all course activity logs.

   
   

   User Files

   Backs up all student submissions for assignments and other file uploads.

   
   

   Course Files

   Backs up any file stored in the Files area for the course

4. When you have selected your options, click Continue.

5. The next screen previews the files Moodle will include in the backup and give you the name of the backup file. Click Continue at the bottom of the page.

6. The next screen will report the results of the backup. You should see Backup Completed Successfully at the bottom of the page. Click Continue.

7. You will then be taken to the backupdata directory in your files area. The backup file will have a name like "backup-COURSESHORTNAME-DATE-TIME.zip." Click on the filename of the backup file to download it to your desktop.

Figure 13-4. Course backup selection

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Tip: Some browsers or operating systems will automatically try to decompress a zip archive. If the browser or operating system unpacks the archive, you can simply delete the decompressed file. If you need to upload a backup to restore or copy a course, be sure to use the zip archive file.

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