KB1060 - How do I reuse/reset my course with a new intake of students?

This article has been revised to reflect new policy and procedures.

Although resetting a course shell used to be acceptable and even recommended in order to save time and server space, VCC Policy requires that course shells be kept, along with student enrolments and their activities and grades, for a minimum of 2 years after a course end date. For this reason, RESETTING IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

If you require a copy of your course for an upcoming term you should now request a course copy (or "clone," as we sometimes call it).

Reusing/Resetting your Moodle course shell

To reuse an existing course shell, first make sure that you make a BACKUP using the instructions provided in Knowledgebase article KB1271.

After completing the backup, you can RESET the course shell:

(Video, 3:21)

Resetting allows you to empty a course of user data, while retaining the activities and other settings. Please be warned that by following the steps below you will delete your chosen user data from the course forever! This is why you should make a backup, first! (See above for steps to backup a course.)

1. IF YOU HAVE USED BANNER AUTO-ENROLMENT to enrol your current or past students, they will need to be removed, following these 3 instructions (a, b, c). If you have not used Banner Auto-enrolment, you may proceed directly to step 2.

   1. Before resetting, be sure to temporarily CHANGE the contents of the Banner ID (Term code+CRN) field to any random text (your name, for example). If you are unable to change it, contact eLSupport with the Unique Moodle Course ID and ask them to change the field for you.
   2. Once the field has been changed, you need to wait for the background process to run to "Suspend" the students. 
      Do not proceed any further until this has happened. This can take up to ONE HOUR.
   3. Once the existing students have been Suspended, you can continue with the Reset process.
2. From the main page of the course, click on “Reset” in the Gear icon under your user menu on the course's front page.
3. At the bottom of the page, click on the [Select default] button. <------- IMPORTANT!!!!!!!
4. Look over the options to decide if there are any default settings you’d like to change. In most cases, the defaults should be fine.
5. If you only want to remove the Students from your course and keep the TestStudent and/or DemoStudent, you'll need to expand the "Roles" section and click on the "Student" role so that it is the only one selected in the list. (Otherwise, skip this step, and all three types of users will be removed.)
6. Scroll to the bottom and click on [Reset course].
7. The next screen will show the status of the reset. Look it over for anything unusual. If you see anything questionable, make a note of it and contact eLearning Support at eLSupport@vcc.ca.  Otherwise, if it looks OK, click on [Continue]. This will return you to the main course page, where you can now continue to work with the reset course.
8. If you followed steps 1.a to 1.c, you can now add the NEW Banner ID code, or reply to your previous ticket, asking for the new ID to be added to your course.