*First, assign teachers you want to the new "Collaboration Share Role"--do this by going to the Administration (Gear) menu / Users / Enrolled Users, and under the person you want to assign the role click on the "Assign Roles" button (looks like a person with a "+" sign).

Let teachers share content

Now that we’ve created the Collaboration Share role it is time to let teachers know how to use it. For clarity of instruction I will use the following terms: Teacher and Copycat. The teacher has all the materials and the copycat wants to borrow the materials.

Step One: Let’s collaborate!

The teacher and copycat have been talking. The teacher shared some amazing stories of how the kids use pre and post tests in Moodle to gauge their understanding of the material. Copycat is afraid of technology but sees how successful teacher is with her students. Copycat reluctantly create a Moodle course but it is empty and doesn’t even know where to begin. Luckily, teacher enrolled copycat into her course with the role of Collaboration Share. This new role allows copycat to look at the teacher’s course but not change anything. Copycat likes all the quizzes that teacher has created.

*Special note for Quizzes: by default Quiz questions are stored at the Course Category level, but for copying between courses it is best to first move the questions to the Activity Level--otherwise, ALL questions at the Course Category level are also backed up and copied over which can make things messy!

Step Two: Import

Copycat goes to their empty course. In the Administration block copycat notices an Import link. When copycat clicks import she is excited to see teacher’s course listed in her options! Low and behold, when copycat selects teacher’s course all the items are ready for import. Quizzes, resources, activities, everything is listed and copycat can pick and choose what to import. Copycat can pick and choose what items to get started with and follow the steps to complete the import process.

When you import something from another course Moodle doesn’t know where you want to put it so it does a 1 to 1 transfer. Meaning, things in topic one on the other course will be imported into your topic one. If your course only has 5 topics but the other course had 10 topics then the items in topics 5 thru 10 will appear as “orphaned” activities. All you need to do is move them into place or add a few more topics to your course so that you can view the orphaned files and move them to where you want them to go. With editing turned on click the “+” sign below the last topic in your course and it will add a new topic. Do so until you see all the orphaned activities. TURN EDITING ON to see the orphaned files at the bottom of the main course page.