Flexible authoring and delivery of online courses using IMS Learning Design

Since the publication of the IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) specification in 2003, many initiatives have been undertaken to build authoring tools that are simple enough to be used by non-technical instructors and teachers. IMS LD's technical complexity is believed to be a major burden for the adoption of the specification. We have developed a new approach for course authoring and delivery that hides most of the complexities and is powerful enough to create highly flexible online courses. Key aspects in this approach are (1) integration of IMS LD authoring and delivery tools in order to enable teachers to adapt courses in runtime and (2) the use of templates to standardize aspects of the LD. This article reports on the research and development of this approach, as well as a first implementation by the Open University of the Netherlands as part of an integrated e-learning system.