Have you ever found yourself in a repetitive cycle of setting up new Moodle courses? You design a fantastic course, populate it with content, and then realize you need an identical version for a new group of students. The usual process involves duplicating, then painstakingly cleaning out old student data, gradebook entries, and other clutter. What if there was a simpler, more efficient way?
Enter the Course Templates plugin for Moodle. This ingenious plugin allows you to establish a “master” course, filled with all your desired content, settings, and structure, and then instantly create fresh, clean copies whenever you need them. This blog post will guide you through the process, based on insights from Chris Richter’s “Moodle at Ricoshae” series.
Why Use Course Templates?
The primary benefit of course templates is efficiency. Imagine designing a course once, perfectly, and then simply clicking a button to generate a new, ready-to-go version for each new cohort. This eliminates the tedious cleanup process often associated with course duplication, saving educators and administrators valuable time. It’s particularly useful for:
- Standardized Courses: When you deliver the same course multiple times to different groups.
- Rapid Course Deployment: Quickly spinning up new courses for unexpected demand.
- Maintaining Consistency: Ensuring all versions of a course adhere to the same structure and content standards.
Getting Started: Downloading and Installing the Plugin
First things first, you’ll need the plugin.
- Download the Plugin: Head over to the Moodle plugins directory: moodle.org/plugins/local/coursetemplates.
- Install the Plugin: As a Moodle administrator (or by requesting your administrator to do so), install the plugin on your Moodle instance. Ensure you download the correct version compatible with your Moodle installation. The installation process is straightforward – upload the plugin and follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation.
Setting Up Your Template Category
One of the requirements for the Course Templates plugin is a dedicated category for your templates.
- Navigate to Site Administration: Once logged in as an administrator, go to Site Administration > Courses.
- Add a Category: Select Add a category.
- Create “Course Templates” Category: Name this new category “Course Templates” (or a similar, descriptive name) and create it. This category will house all the courses you designate as templates.
Designating a Course as a Template
Now, let’s turn an existing course into a template. For this example, let’s assume you have a course named “Test 2” that you want to use as your template.
- Edit Course Settings: Go to your template course (e.g., “Test 2”) and navigate to its Edit settings.
- Move to Template Category: Crucially, move this course into the “Course Templates” category you just created.
- Save Changes: Save and display the course.
Creating a New Course from Your Template
With your template course in place, creating a new course from it is incredibly simple.
- Go to Add a Course: Navigate back to Site Administration > Courses > Add a course.
- Discover the Course Templates Panel: You will now see a new panel titled “Course Templates”. Any course located within your “Course Templates” category will appear here.
- Select Your Template: Choose the template you wish to use (e.g., “Test 2”) and click “Use as template”.
- Choose Destination Category: Select the category where you want the new course to reside (e.g., “Admin Courses”).
- Name Your New Course: Provide a new full name and short name for your duplicated course (e.g., “Test 2B”).
- Continue: Click continue, and voilà! Your new course, a perfect copy of your template, will be created.
The Benefits are Clear
You now have a clean, new course (e.g., “Test 2B”) ready for new students, without any lingering data from the original template. This significantly streamlines the process of managing multiple instances of the same course.
The Moodle Course Templates plugin is a powerful tool for administrators and educators looking to optimize their course creation workflow. By investing a little time upfront in designing a comprehensive template, you can save countless hours in repetitive tasks, ensuring consistency and efficiency across your Moodle environment.
If you’re interested in more tips and tricks for Moodle administration, explore resources on tasks like clearing cache, managing cron jobs, setting up debugging, reading log files, editing config files, running automated backups, and checking performance and security reports. Happy Moodling!