User Guide

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Quick Tour

Interface of "Moodle"

Quick Tour

1. Course Homepage
2. Course Sections

Course Homepage

A new course entered for the first time will be mostly blank. Course templates have block areas on the left and right sides, with course content activities (gathered under the heading: 'Topic Outline') being added on the course homepage to fit your needs.

Under 'Topic Outline' you will find the course sections (the course areas that hold activities), the first of which is designed for general information and activities of the whole course. This field is not numbered contrary to the sections below. The minimum number of sections you can set in your course is one, which means that your course will consist of at least two topic fields.

The view of your course homepage depends on which block areas you choose to appear using the Blocks field. All of the blocks can be shifted around according to one's liking, due to which the view of the course homepage may differ.

Standard view of a blank course

Standard view of a blank course with editing turned on

Course Sections

Using the course settings, you can arrange your course by weeks or topics.

Choosing weeks will automatically fill in the dates, starting with whatever date you specify as your first day for the course, and incrementing each week by seven days thereafter. So if you start your course on Wednesday, each week will run from Wednesday to Tuesday.

Arranging by topics lends itself to rolling enrollment, or courses whose duration changes often, or where sequence is less important (though these are only suggestions). Often teachers will think about their course in terms of "modules" so topics work well - one topic per module.

Note that sections can be easily hidden using the eyeball icon . There is a course setting that specifies whether or not these hidden sections are entirely invisible to student/participants, or just show as a horizontal block that says it is unavailable. Such sections will always be full available (greyed out though) to teacher/administrators of the course.

A small hack: If you want to have a super-short course that is JUST the top with no section blocks, note that you must have at least one section. The solution is to have one, then make it invisible, and in your settings full hide hidden blocks. Now you have a "one main area" course.

Course Settings

You are asked to complete the settings page when creating a new course. The choices you make can be edited at a later date by choosing the settings option from the Administration block menu. Some important field are mentioned below.

Category

Your Moodle administrator may have set up several course categories. For example, "Science", "Humanities", "Public Health" etc.
Choose the one most applicable for your course. This choice will affect where your course is displayed on the course listing and may make it easier for students to find your course.

Full name

The full name of the course is displayed at the top of the screen and in the course listings.

Short name

Shorthand way of referring to a course which will commonly use in the navigation bar that is at the top of most pages.

The the above example has underlined the short course name, "Using Moodle". The short name also appears in the subject line of email messages that are part of the course.

Summary

The summary of the course is displayed in the course listings.

Format

A Moodle course may use one of the following three formats:

Weekly format

The course is organised week by week, with a clear start date and a finish date. Each week consists of activities. Some of them, like journals, may have "open windows" of, say, two weeks after which they become unavailable.

Topics format

Very similar to the weekly format, except that each "week" is called a topic. A "topic" is not restricted to any time limit. You don't need to specify any dates.

Social format

This format is oriented around one main forum, the Social forum, which appears listed on the main page. It is useful for situations that are more freeform. They may not even be courses. For example, it could be used as a departmental notice board.

In Moodle 1.6 this is increased by:

LAMS course format LAMS

SCORM format SCORM

Weekly format, CSS/no tables

 

Just an educated guess: This version of the weekly format uses the more modern web layout system CSS (cascading style sheets) to place things on the web page in a more flexible way than the old method with tables.

Course start date

This is where you specify the starting time of the course (in your own timezone).
If you are using a 'weekly' course format, this will affect the display of the weeks. The first week will start on the date you set here. This setting will not affect courses using the 'social' or 'topics' formats. However, one place this setting will be affect is the display of logs, which use this date as the earliest possible date you can display.
In general, if your course does have a real starting date then it makes sense to set this date to that, no matter what course formats you are using.

Course Enrollable

Whether this course is enrollable or not. With a third option of allowing enrolment within a range of date.

Number of weeks/topics

This displays the number of weeks or the number of topics displayed on your class page (the default is 10 weeks or 10 topics).

Availability

This option allows you to "hide" your course completely. It will not appear on any course listings, except to teachers of the course and administrators. Even if students try to access the course URL directly, they will not be allowed to enter.

Maximum upload size

This setting defines the largest size of file that can be uploaded by students in this course, limited by the site wide setting created by the administrator.
It is possible to further restrict this size through settings within each activity module.

 

Editing Profiles

In the Administration block, there is “Edit Profile.” “Edit Profile” allows you to change information about yourself.

Most of the fields are straightforward, but several need special attention:

Email display

This allows you to show or hide your email in the class. You can set it so all users (including guests) can see your email, or so that only other students in the class can see your email address, or so that no one can see your email address at all.

Email digest type

This setting allows you to choose how you want to receive any emails you get from forums. There are three choices:

“No digest”

There is no email digest created – you will get every post, in full, that is made to a forum that you are subscribed to.

“Complete”

This creates a single email digest of all the posts made to a forum you are subscribed to. You will get one email per day containing all of the posts made to the forum.

“Subjects”

this creates a single email digest that contains just the subject lines from the posts to any forums you are subscribed to. You can go to any topic that you are interested in.

Forum auto-subscribe

This setting lets you decide if you want email copies of posts that are added to forums (bulletin boards). If you set this to subscribe, the system will email you copies of new posts in forums that you join.

When editing text

This can usually be left on “Use HTML editor.” This allows for text formatting options, but requires newer browsers. If you find your browser is not letting you edit text, change this setting to “Use standard web forms.”

Description

This can be anything you like or any text you like.

New picture

If you wish, you may upload a picture to represent you. To do this, click on the “Browse” button and find the picture you would like to upload, and click on “Open.”

 

 

When you are finished, click on “Update profile.”

 

Editing a Course

To add or alter activities or resources you will need to turn editing on. You can do this by pressing the button at the top right of the course homepage or following the turn editing on link in the administration block. You can turn editing off again by pressing the button or the admin block link again (now renamed turn editing off)

When editing is on you will see the following icons:

- the edit icon lets you alter/update whatever resource or activity it is next to by taking you to it's setup page.

- the help icon will pop-up a relevant help window.

- the open-eye icon means an item is visible to students. Clicking it will make the item invisible to participants and change the icon to the closed eye.

- the closed-eye icon means an item is hidden from students. Clicking it will make the item visible to participants and change the icon to the open eye.

- the left icon is used to outdent course elements. There is also a right icon for indenting items.

- the move icon allows course elements to be moved up or down throughout the course.

- the move here icon appears when moving a course element. It appears only after you've clicked the move icon, and indicates the destination of the item you're moving.

- the delete icon will permanently delete something from the course after you confirm a warning on a second page.

- the marker icon allows you to make a section current.

- the one icon hides all other sections of the course, showing only this one.

- the all icon redisplays all sections in a course.

If you are running version 1.6 or above you will see a Student View toggle button at the top right of the course homepage. This allows you to see the course almost exactly as your students will see it.

Adding Resources and Activities

Moodle supports a range of different resource types that allow you to insert almost any kind of web content into your courses.

1. Overview: Adding Resources and Activities
2. Creating a Text Page
3. Creating a Web Page
4. Linking to a File or Web Site
5. Displaying a Directory
6. Adding an IMS Content Package
7. Inserting a Label
8. Adding Assignments
9. Adding Chats
10. Adding Choices
11. Adding Forums
12. Adding Quizzes
13. Adding Database
14. Adding Glossary

1. log in to your moodle site
2. go to the desired course
3. ensure editing is turned
4. go to the section / week where you would like the new resource or activity to be placed
5. select either the ''Add a resource...'' or ''Add an activity...'' menu
   
6. select the appropriate option from the list
   
   Resource Options Example
   
   
   Activity Options Example
   

Creating a Text Page [demo]

1. Click "Turn Editing Mode on".
2. From the “Add a Resource” menu, select “Compose a text page.” Moodle will then display the page to compose a text page.
   
   
   
   
3. Enter a descriptive name for the text page.
4. Write a summary of the page in the Summary field.
5. Add your text in the Full Text field. If you know some basic HTML tags, you could do some basic formatting in HTML.
6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes

Creating a Web Page

This sort of resource makes it easy to develop a complete single web page within Moodle, the process is similar with composing a text page.

The page is stored in the database, not as a file, and you have a lot of freedom to do almost anything you like using HTML, including Javascript.

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select “Compose a web page ” from the “Add a resource” menu in the area where you would like to add the page.
   
   
   
3. Give the file a name and a summary. There’s a good help file associated with the summary.
4. Type your document, format it
5. click Save Changes .

Linking to a File or Web Site [demo]

This resource type allows you to link to any web page or other file on the public web. It also allows you to link to any web page or other file that you have uploaded into your course files area from your own desktop computer.

Normal web pages are simply displayed as they are, while multimedia files are dealt with more intelligently and may be embedded within a web page. For example, MP3 files will be displayed using a built-in streaming player, as will movie files, flash animations and so on.

Once you’ve added a file to your files area, you can easily add it as a resource for your students. There are two resource types you can use to add files. The first method is to create a link to other website. The other option for displaying files is to add an “Uploaded File” resources..

Creating Links to Other Web Sites

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select “Link to a file or web site” from the Resource menu in a Topic or Schedule block.
3. Give the new link a name and Summary in the fields at the top of the screen.
4. In the location field, enter the address of the page you want to link to. If you want to look for the address, click the "Search for web page..." button, and Moodle will open a new window and take you to Google.
5. After you have selected the options you want, click Save Changes.

Uploading Other Documents

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select “Link to a file or web site” from the Resource menu in a Topic or Schedule block.
3. Give the new link a name and Summary in the fields at the top of the screen.
4. Click the “Choose or upload a file” button. A new window will pop up with the files area directory structure.
5. Find the file you want to add in the files area. You can also upload a new file here if you’d like .
6. On the right side of the files list, you will see a “Choose” link in bold. Click that link. The Files window will close, and the path to the file will be entered into the filename.
7. You can choose to display the file in a new pop-up window. Most of the time, you won’t need to worry about this with uploaded content.
8. The name of the resource will now be an active link in the content block.

Displaying a Directory

The directory resource can display a whole directory (and its subdirectories) from your course files area. Students can then browse and view all those files.

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select “Displaying a Directory ” from the Resource menu in a Topic or Schedule block.
   
3. Give the directory a name and Summary in the fields at the top of the screen.
4. Choose the directory you want to display from the "Display a directory" drop-down menu. You can pick from any directories (folders) that you have created for your classroom. These directories must already exist.
5. Set “Visible to Students”: If it is set to “Show” will allow your students to see this page. If it is set to hide, your students will not see the page.
6. When you're finished be sure to click the Save changes button.

Adding an IMS Content Package

IMS is a body which helps define technical standards for various things, including e-learning material. The IMS Content Packaging specification makes it possible to store chunks of material in a standard format which can be re-used in different systems, without having to convert the material into new formats.

The IMS content package in Moodle 1.6 enables such content packages to be uploaded and included in Moodle courses. In addition, the resource type supports an optional repository, enabling content packages to be shared between courses.

Simply upload a zipped package and deploy. There are various options for displaying content in a popup window, with a navigation menu or buttons etc.

Inserting a Label [demo]

A label is a way to add text to the content area of your course. Labels can be used to give a quick instruction or for telling users what to click on next. Usually labels should be short and to the point. Don't put in course content...use web pages or text pages for that.

1. Turn editing on by clicking the Turn editing on button.
2. In the content area in which you wish to put the label, click the Add a resource... drop-down menu. choose Insert a label.
3. Type your label in the new window appeared.
   Quick Tip: Before entering any text hit the Shift+Enter key (hold-down the Shift key and hit the Enter key on your keyboard) to skip to the second line. This will prevent labels and resources from bunching up together. Be careful NOT to hit the Enter key alone since this will create an undesired paragraph.
4. When you're finished be sure to click the Save changes button.

Adding Chats [demo]

To use the chat tool, you will need to create a chat room for you and your students and set a time when everyone will log in and meet in the chat room. You can create one session for the entire course or set up repeating sessions for multiple meetings.

To create a chat session:

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select Chat from the “Add an activity…” menu.
3. In the create chat page, give the chat room a name and provide directions on how to use the room in the Introduction text.
4. Set the time for the first chat session in the Next chat time.
5. Set the options for the chat room.
6. Click “Save Changes”.

Adding Choices [demo]

A choice is very simple – the teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. It can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent.

1. Click " Turn Editing Mode On".
2. Select Choice from the "Add an activity..." menu.
3. Give your question a name, then enter the question text in the Choice text area. You can give students a choice between one of six responses to your question.
4. Set the options for your choice
5. Click "Save Changes".

Once you’ve created the choice it will be available to students after the starting time, if you’ve set one.

Adding Forums [demo]

Each forum can contain one or more discussions which are comprised of one or more posts and replies. Moodle forums also allow subscriptions. When a user subscribes to a forum, all new posts are automatically sent to the email address stored in his user profile. This makes it easy to keep track of what’s happening in the forums without constantly logging in. Creating a forum is relatively easy. The key to success is choosing the right options for the type of forum you want to create. Moodle has three basic forum types:

A single, simple discussion

You can create only one discussion in this forum.

Each person posts one discussion

Each person on the class can start only one discussion. This would be useful when each person needs to post an assignment or a question. Each discussion can then have multiple replies.

Standard forum for general use

There can be one or more discussions in this forum, and anyone with permission can post multiple discussions.

To add a forum to your class:

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select Forum from the "Add an activity" menu in the Topic or Schedule section where you would like to add the forum.
3. On the resulting page, give the forum a descriptive name.
4. Select the forum type you want to use.
5. Write a descriptive summary.
6. Choose the options you want to use for this forum.

To create a new post:

1. Click “Add a new discussion topic...”.
2. On the new discussion topic page, give your new discussion a subject.
3. Subscription: You can choose to subscribe to the forum if subscriptions were enabled when the forum was created.
4. Attachment: If you want to attach a file, such as an RTF document or a picture, click the Browse button, find your document on your computer, and click Open. Be sure your document is smaller than the maximum attachment size for the forum.
5. Click "Post to forum ".

Managing and Updating Contents [demo]

Once you’ve uploaded your files, they are stored in the Files area. When you create a link to a file, you store the file in the Files area and create a link for your students to access it.

To access the Files area, click the Files link in the Administration block.

Each uploaded file and file folder has a checkbox beside it. You can select one or more files and then move or archive them using the tools in the dropdown menu on the lower- left side of the file list. By default, it reads “With chosen files….” If you click on the menu, you’ll see three things you can do with your chosen files:

Move to another folder

To move uploaded content to another folder in the Files area:

1. Select the file(s) you want to move.
2. Select “Move to another folder.”
3. Navigate to the folder where you want to move the selected files.
4. You’ll see a new button at the bottom of the screen that says “Move Files here.” Click the button, and the files will move to the new location.

Delete completely

This will remove all trace of the file from your Moodle site.

Create zip archive

A zip archive is a compressed file that holds the files you’ve selected. It’s an easy way to create an archive of older files or create an easy-to-download collection of documents, such as all of the images for a lecture. Once the archive has been created and moved to the target computer, you’ll need to unzip it to access the content inside. If you want students to download the archive, they will need an unzipping utility such as WinZip, MacZip, or Stuffit Expander to unpack the archive. Modern versions of Windows and Macintosh have built-in zip utilities. Moodle has a built-in zip utility as well that will allow you to unzip the archive directly into your files area. There are a few new options that come with a zip archive. The options include:

Unzip

This will unpack your archive into your files area.

List

Clicking this will display a list of files stored in the archive. You cannot access files through this list.

Restore

If you’ve backed up your Moodle class and uploaded the zip archive of the backup, you can restore your content using this command.

Adding Assignments

1. Assignments Types
2. To Create an Assignment

Assignments Types:

Moodle supports plug-in assignment types.

There are three official types:

Upload

A student can upload a single file. This could be a Word document, spreadsheet or anything digital. Multiple files could be zipped and then submitted.

Online Text

This assignment type asks users to edit a text, using the normal editing tools. Teachers can grade them online, and even add inline comments or changes.

Offline assignment

This is useful when the assignment is performed outside of Moodle. It could be something elsewhere on the web or face-to-face. Students can see a description of the assignment, but can't upload files or anything. Grading works normally, and students will get notifications of their grades.

To Create an Assignment: [demo]

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select Assignment from the Add an activity... menu.
3. On the Editing Assignment page, shown in below, give your assignment a meaningful name.
4. In the Description area, carefully describe your assignment. It’s a good idea to be very detailed here, even if you’ve already detailed the requirements in your syllabus. In fact, you might want to copy and paste from your syllabus to avoid confusion.
5. Choose the grade scale you want to use for the assignment.
6. Set the available date and time for your assignment.
7. Set the due date and time for your assignment.
8. Choose the assignment type: offline or an uploaded file. Offline assignments are descriptions and a column in the grades module. Uploaded assignments require students to submit an electronic file for grading.
9. Click Next >>
10. Set the maximum size for a file upload. The top of the scale is set by your system administrator.
11. If you want students to be able to upload multiple revisions of an assignment, set Allow Resubmitting to Yes. Otherwise, leave it on No.
12. Click Continue to make your assignment available.

Your assignment will appear in your course’s main page. It will also be added to your course calendar and will appear in the Upcoming Events block to remind students when it’s due.

Adding/Editing a Quiz

Creating a new quiz is a two-step process. In the first step you create the quiz activity and set its options which specify the rules for interacting with the quiz. In a second step you will then edit the quiz to add questions to it.

1. Create the Quiz Activity
2. Adding Question

Create the Quiz Activity : [demo]

When you create the quiz body, you are creating a container for the questions and setting the rules for interacting with the quiz. There is a large number of options and your administrator should already have chosen the default values for most of them so that you will not have to modify them for the type of quiz that you use most often. The administrator may also have classified some of the settings as 'advanced' which means that they will be hidden from the setup screen by default. This can help to keep the screen simpler.

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select Quiz from the Add an activity... menu in the content section where you want to place the link to a quiz.
3. In the Quiz editing page, give the quiz a descriptive name.
4. Write an introduction for the quiz. Be sure to include any special instructions for taking the quiz, such as the number of attempts allowed or scoring rules.
5. Choose opening and closing dates for the quiz.
6. Choose the options you want to use for your quiz:
7. Click the Save Changes button.

Adding Questions:

On the left side of the screen you’ll see a block where the questions you’ve added to the current quiz are displayed. If this is a new quiz you will not have any questions there and Moodle tells you this.

On the right side of the screen, you’ll see the question editing block. This is where you can add new questions, edit existing questions, or move questions between categories. Categories are used to organize your quiz questions for your course, and they can be a container for sharing questions between courses. By default, there is one category, called Default. If you click on the category menu, you’ll see it as an option.

Making a category to hold questions:

1. From the Editing quiz page, click “Edit categories.”
2. At the bottom of the list of current categories, you will see a blank line.
3. Type the name of your new question category in the first text box on the left.
4. Add a description for your class in the category info area.
5. If you’d like to share your question with the other classes on the server, select Yes in the Publish column.
6. If you want to add another category, a new blank line will appear at the bottom of the list.
7. When you are done adding categories, click the Quiz tab. This will take you back to the "Editing quiz” page.

Adding questions:

1. From the “Editing Quiz” page, select a category to which you want to add a question.
2. The area below the category will display the question-creation block.
3. Select the question type you want to create from the “Create new question” option.
4. Fill in the form for the question type you are creating.
5. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the form.

Add/Edit Database

The Database module allows the teacher and/or students to build, display and search a bank of record entries about any conceivable topic. The format and structure of these entries can be almost unlimited, including images, files, URLs, numbers and text amongst other things. You may be familiar with similar technology from building Microsoft Access or Filemaker databases.

The database module consists of few parts:

1. Creating database
2. Adding/Edit fields
3. Modifying layout
4. Adding new entry

Creating database: [demo]

In order to using this module, you have to create a container for each database activity.

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select Database from the Add an activity... menu in the content section where you want to place the link to a database.
3. In the Database editing page, give the database a descriptive name (e.g. News Clipping).
4. Write an introduction for the database.
5. Choose the Available and viewable period for the database.
6. Choose the premission of this database.
7. Click the Save changes button.

Adding/Editing fields [demo]

A field is a named unit of information. Each entry in a database can have multiple fields of multiple types e.g. a text field called 'favourite color' which allows you to type in your favourite shade, or a menu called 'state' that lets you choose one from a list of the 50 that make up the United States of America. By combining several fields with appropriate names and types you should be able to capture all the relevant information about the items in your database.

Clicking the link which is created in the Course Section will redirect you to the database page. For a new database, it will ask you to create fields first. Or you can click the "Fields" tab to create or modify the fields properties. There are severals fields can be chosen, Checkbox, Date, File, Menu, Menu(Multi-select), Number, Picture, Radio buttons, Text and Textarea.

If you want to create a "Text" fields, it will forward to page when choosing "Text" in the "Create a new field:". There are some fields should by filled in:

1. Field name : the column of that database (e.g. News Title)
2. Field Description: the description of that field (e.g. You may paste the news headline here)
3. Allow autolink: please check this box if you want Moodle to create a link automatically.

After create approriate fields, the database is ready to inserting data. But if you feel the layout of the database module is not user friendly. You may change the layout by clicking "Templates" tab.

Modifying layout

Templates for the Database module allow you to control the visual layout of information when listing, viewing or editing database entries. It is a similar to the technique used to mail merge letters in word proccessors such as Open Office Writer or Microsoft Word.

There are a few templates which can be edited by Teacher,

• List template
• Single template
• Add template
• Rss template
• Css template

You may simply double click the elements in the Available tags to insert them into the layout. The "Reset template" button can reset the layout to the default Moodle setting.
After edited the template, you may click Save template to save the setting.

Adding new Entry

Students/Teachers can add entries and display the entires to other students.

1. Click the "Add entry" tabs, it will display all the fields which was created by teacher.
2. Fill in the information required to post the message.
3. Press "Save and view" or "Save and add another" to save the entry.
4. When clicking "Save and add another", it will redirect to the same page; you may continue to create another entry.
5. When clicking "Save and view", it will redirect users to the "View list" page

Add/Edit Glossary

This Glossary module allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary. The entries can be searched or browsed in many different formats. The glossary also allows teachers to export entries from one glossary to another (the main one) within the same course.

The Glossary module consists of few parts:

1. Creating glossary
2. Adding entries
3. Import/Export entries

Creating glossary: [demo]

In order to using this module, you have to create a activity in the course.

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.
2. Select Glossary from the Add an activity... menu in the content section where you want to place the link to a database.
3. In the Glossary editing page, give the glossary a descriptive name (e.g. News Clipping).
4. Write an introduction for the database.
5. Choose the suitable options in order to fit your requirements.
6. Click the Save changes button.

Adding entries[demo]

After created the activity, you may start to create entries.

1. Click that Glossary which was created before.
2. Click "Add a new entry".
3. Fill in the form with the appropriate content.
   
4. Click the Save changes to create the entries.

Once added the entry into the glossary, if there are any words which match with the keyword in this course. It will display the link to that term and display the definition.

Import/Export Entry

Teacher can export the entries from glossary, and it can import those entries to other glossary in the Same Course.

Export:

1. Click "Export entries" tab.
2. Click "Export entries to file".
3. A download box will be promted. Save it to the local directory.

Import:

1. Click "Import entries"
2. Select the file to import to the glossary
3. Choose the destination you would like to import,
   - Current glossary : Merge the glossary to the current glossary
   - New glossary : Create a new glossary and fill in the entries
4. Click "Save changes" to start import

Logs Report

Reports show activity within the course. It allows tutors to see what resources are being used and when, or check that an individual student has viewed the resource they claim to have read. Individual user reports generate some basic graphical views of this information.

Using the drop-down menus you can view the log records at course level, user level and/or activity level on a specific day or all days. When you click on the “Show these logs” buttons, it gives you the Time, IP Address, Full Name, Action and Information about the records that meet your criteria.

For course management these logs can help determine what types of resource are the most popular, including those that receive no interest whatsoever. This can help plan resource selection for future courses. Viewing individual activity reports can help you monitor student activity and identify learning styles.

Backup Course [demo]

After clicking the Backup link in Administration block you will see options for specific activities you wish to backup. If you want to back up all the course activities you should choose 'All' above the activities listed. Similarly, if you want to include User Data with each backed-up activity, choose 'All' on the right-hand side of the field.

Below the list of activities you will find five other fields to define:

• Metacourse - If you are backing up the content of a 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.
• Logs
• User files - If you enable this option, it will export, for now, user photos (as they are all the files related to one user currently).
• Course files

After choosing what you want to backup, click on "Continue". You will receive a notice with the backup details showing the total number of items within each category/module to be backed up. Scrolling to the bottom and clicking "Continue", you will back up your course materials. You should see, again, the backup details followed by a message "Backup completed successfully." Clicking on "Continue", you will receive a list of all the backup files in your course.

Moodle 1.6 supports granularized backup, in addition to the above features. For example, individual activities may be selected for backup, with an option to include student data for each activity.

Restore Course [demo]

Courses can be restored from a backup made by Moodle. Course backups are stored in the backupdata folder within the course files folder. There is a link next to every course backup that says restore. Each version of Moodle has its own slightly different process for restoring. Generally speaking a backup maybe restored several ways. It can

• Copy over the data in any course, or
• Add the backup to any course, or
• Create a new course that is a duplicate.

These 3 options appear with most versions of Moodle as part of the restore process.

1. Click restore next to the backupdata folder you want to restore, you will then move to another page with the notice saying that it is later that you will choose whether add the backup to an existing course or make it a completely new course.
2. Click "Continue". You are transferred to another page with the backup details, i.e. the list of activities you are going to restore. At this stage it is possible to refine the types of activity which will be processed during the restore by unchecking checkboxes for activity types which are not required in the receiving course as well as the files and user information to be restored (if these are present in the back up file).
3. Click the "Continue" button once more to transfer to another page, in which you will be given the choice of restoring the backup files.
4. Click the "Continue" button. If the option of restoring to an existing course has been chosen, a list of existing courses will be displayed - click on the link for the required course.
5. Click the "Restore this course now!" button. The restoration process will begin. Allow it to continue until you see the message "Restore completed successfully."