Copying sections between courses

Copying sections between courses

by Richard van Iwaarden -
Number of replies: 2
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Once again I find myself struggling with copying between courses.

One of the key things about Moodle is how you are going to set up your courses... If you have a lot of educational content, which topics are separate courses and which topics can be in one course but separate topics...

I'm sure you are all struggling with this. Do I make one course called 'English' and inside that course I have topics called 'Grammar' and 'Vocab'... or do I make two separate courses for this.


Now it happens quite often that over the years come new insights. Topics become courses or... courses become topics within a course.


I find it really difficult to merge courses in Moodle. Importing just overwrites all topics. Inserting empty topics at the start of a course and then importing works sometimes, but still you often end up with moving imported resources/activities around.

There's a plugin called 'Sharing Cart' which helps as well. Or the 'mass action block'. Yet I feel there's basic Moodle functionality missing here.


What if... when importing from a course... you have one step between. A screen that actually asks you where in the course you want the imported content to show up? You import from course X section 1 does not always mean that you want it imported in course Y section 1. Might be section 2 where you need it.


Can someone relate to what I'm saying here? Sharing content between courses should be a lot more easy than the current 'import' option?

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In reply to Richard van Iwaarden

Re: Copying sections between courses

by Justin Hunt -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Richard 

I can relate. With a company I worked with we chose topics over courses. So instead of 40 courses for a "Course" we had 40 "topics" in a single course. I was always lukewarm on that choice, but admittedly I could see the merits. Each way has its own awfulness.

I had decided to write a "batch section copier" script to manage the inevitable requests to cherry pick Topics to create custom courses, but the company didn't last that long. 

I agree the option you suggest would be good, though it is possible to just import it and move it up and down. This would be a good thing to add to Moosh. 



 

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In reply to Justin Hunt

Re: Copying sections between courses

by Richard van Iwaarden -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

I'm now using the sharing cart plugin... if you don't know it yet you should give it a go.

You can put an entire section in the sharing cart, go to another course and import the section in any place you like.

Still I'm facing around 75 courses to be merged in around 30 courses. So lots of copying and pasting.

The sharing cart helps, but I just wish it could be more easy than that. I hear a lot about 'Moosh' but to bad this plugin is not available for everyone. If you have a hosted Moodle with no shell access - you're out.

I can install every plugin I like, but not Moosh.

Hosting a server is something I do not consider core business in schools anymore. All servers are being migrated to clouds and commercial IT services. The software running on it (like Moodle) is something different.

Well, this is another topic. I just wanted to say that Moosh is no option for us... and I'm finding that it's not an option for many schools.

Would be nice if it would become an actual plugin in the plugin database. 

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