Moodle Course | Create | Delete | Leave

Moodle Course: Creating, Deleting, and Leaving

Courses are the central organizational unit in Moodle. This guide explains, step by step, how to create a Moodle course, which settings are important, how to delete courses and restore them from the trash if necessary—and how participants can unenroll from a course on their own.

Topics covered in this post

• What is a Moodle course?
• Create aCreate a Moodle course
• Deleting a Moodle Course
• Leaving a Moodle Course (Withdrawal)
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is a Moodle course?

A Moodle course is a self-contained area within the Learning Management System where learning content, activities, and participants are brought together. Courses are organized into course areas (categories), can be nested to any depth, and are accessible through enrollment methods. Each course has:

• a full name and a unique nickname
• one or more enrollment methods (e.g., manual enrollment, self-enrollment, cohort synchronization)
• a course format (e.g., topic-based, weekly, social, or activity-based)
• Custom role assignments (instructor, participant, guest, etc.)
• a separate evaluation overview and activity reports

Creating a Moodle Course

Requirements and Rights

To create a course in Moodle, a user must have a role with the capability moodle/course:create. By default, this applies to the following roles:

• Administrator – can create courses system-wide
• Manager – can create courses in assigned categories
• Course Creator – may create courses in assigned categories; is automatically enrolled as an instructor in the newly created course (provided that the setting creatornewroleid at the default value Teacher (remains)

By default, the "Instructor" role is not sufficient to create new courses—it can only edit existing courses.

Step-by-Step Instructions

The Most Important Course Settings

When creating a new course, several settings groups are populated. The following overview lists the most important fields.

General Information

• Full course name – displayed throughout Moodle; duplicate names are allowed.
• Short name – must be unique across the entire Moodle instance. Recommended: Do not use spaces or special characters, as some plugins and enrollment procedures use them for identification.
• Course Category – specifies the category in which the course appears.
• Visibility – controls whether the course is visible to participants. Newly created courses are often set to " hidden " at first.
• Course start and end dates —affect reports, activity completions, and, in the weekly view, the display of sections.
• Course ID number – optional; used for identification in external systems (e.g., for LDAP or cohort synchronization).

Description

• Course Description – A summary that appears in course listings and on the registration page.
• Course Image – an optional teaser image that appears on the dashboard and in course lists.

Course Format

The course format determines the basic structure of the course page. By default, Moodle includes the following formats, among others:

• Topic-based format – the course is divided into sections with customizable names; this is the standard for many use cases.
• Weekly format —each section corresponds to a calendar week, starting from the first day of class; suitable for schedule-based courses.
• Single-activity format – the course contains only a single activity (e.g., a SCORM package or a test).
• Social Format – The course is structured around a central forum, designed to facilitate open discussion.

Additional formats such as Flexible Sections, Tiles, and Grid are available through the plugin directory, enabling further structuring options (tiled views, hierarchies, expandable sections).

After creation: Set up the course

After saving, Moodle opens the new course. The usual next steps are:

1. Configure Enrollment Methods (Participants → Enrollment Methods).
2. Manually enroll participants or enable self-enrollment using an enrollment key.
3. Add content and activities (materials, assignments, quizzes, forums, etc.).
4. Toggle visibility as soon as the course is ready.

Additional options such as " Duplicate Course," " Import Course " (to transfer content from an existing course), or " Restore from Backup " are available under Course Administration → More → Reuse Course.

Deleting a Moodle Course

Requirements and Rights

To delete a course, the capability moodle/course:delete required. By default, this role is assigned to administrators and managers.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Go to Website Administration → Courses → Manage Courses and Course Sections.
2. Go to the desired course section.
3. Click next to the course on the Actions menu and select Delete.
4. Confirm the deletion.

Alternatively, an instructor with the necessary permissions can also delete the course via Course Administration → More → Delete Course.

The Recycle Bin: Restoring Files

Since Moodle 3.1, there has been a Recycle Bin at the course and category levels. Deleted courses are first moved to the Recycle Bin of the respective course area for a configurable period (default: 7 days; often adjusted to up to several weeks on instances) and can be restored from there.

Restore a course from the Recycle Bin:

1. Go to Website Administration → Courses → Manage Courses and Course Sections.
2. Open the course section where the course was originally located.
3. Open the Recycle Bin from the Actions menu (three dots) in the course area.
4. Click " Restore " next to the desired course.

Important:

• Once the retention period has expired, the course will be permanently removed.
• Administrators can disable the Recycle Bin globally or adjust its retention period.
• In some MoodleCloud instances, different rules apply—in these cases, restoration without a backup is often not possible.

Back up before deleting

Deleting a course is generally permanent once the trash has been emptied. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you back up the course before deleting it:

• Course Administration → More → Course Backup creates a .mbz-File containing all course content.
• Optionally, user data, ratings, and logs can be included in the backup.
• Automated Backups (Automated course backup) can be configured system-wide so that backups of all courses are created daily or weekly.
• For large-scale "end-of-term" cleanups, the Moodle community recommends scheduling a full site backup or a manual backup of all courses in advance.

What happens to the course data?

When a course is permanently deleted, Moodle removes:

• All course activities and materials
• All course files in moodledata (including uploaded participant files)
• Assessments, assessment components, and activity completions for this course
• Enrollments of participants in this course (the user accounts themselves remain active)
• Groups, groupings, and course-specific role assignments

Global user data (profiles, system-wide roles) and content outside of this course (e.g., in cohorts or question collections at the category level) will not be deleted.

Leaving a Moodle Course (Withdrawal)

Basic Principle

In Moodle, leaving a course is referred to as "unenrollment "—as opposed to deleting a user account. Unenrollment removes the participant from the course; the account remains active, and the participant can re-enroll (provided the enrollment method allows it).

Whether participants are allowed to drop a course on their own depends on the enrollment method and the configured permissions.

Participants' Self-Withdrawal

Prerequisite:

• For self-enrollment, the capability is enrol/self:unenrolself Allowed by default for participants.
• For manual enrollment, the capability must enrol/manual:unenrolself Be active for the participant role so that participants can check themselves out.
• For cohort synchronization, guest access, or external enrollment methods (LDAP, database), the system does not support self-deregistration.

Steps:

1. Open the course in question.
2. In the course menu, select More → Unenroll from the course (the exact wording may vary depending on the Moodle version and language).
3. Confirm the cancellation.

Unsubscription by a coach or administrator

Instructors can manually remove participants from the course:

1. Open the course to participants.
2. Select the person you want (or check multiple boxes to select more than one).
3. From the Actions menu, select " Sign Out " or " Sign Out Selected Users."

Administrators can also completely disable enrollment methods, which will unenroll all users enrolled through those methods at once.

Automatic Logout of Inactive Participants

Self-enrollment offers the option to Unsubscribe inactive users after (Unenrol inactive after). If this option is enabled, Moodle automatically logs participants out if they have not accessed the course for the selected period of time. This keeps participant lists concise and prevents unused course accounts from remaining active indefinitely.

Consequences of Canceling Registration

• By default, that person will no longer appear in the list of participants or in the evaluation summary.
• Activity evaluations and submissions remain in the database and will be visible again upon re-enrollment.
• Group assignments and roles in the course will be lost and may need to be reset when students re-enroll.
• Earned badges remain in the user's profile.

Difference from complete removal

It is important to distinguish this term from related concepts:

• Unenroll: The person leaves the course; data is retained.
• Lock Enrollment: Enrollment remains active but is inactive—access is blocked, data is retained.
• Delete user account: The entire account will be removed system-wide—only by administrators.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)