I’ve been asked several times recently about the status of ELMS.  For those new here, ELMS stands for e-Learning Management System.  It is a project built out of Drupal and contributed modules to allow instructional designers to rapidly create and manage their course materials.  Recently I announced / released the ELMS distribution alpha 1 (quickly followed by alpha 2).

So where does the project stand currently? ELMS has been shifted from a development space to a staging server which is planning to go live in the Fall.  Here’s a mini-road map for 2011:

• Our IDs will start developing in the system in May
• We will start with three courses and two instructional designers having access to the system
• For the Fall semester these three courses will be the only ones piloted in the new setup
• After kinks are worked out, two months after semester launch we will begin allowing all instructors and IDs in our unit to transition old content to the new system

Something else we are waiting on is the transition of all media from our current setup (just plain file structure) to being accounted for in the ELIMedia system.  This will provide two key benefits:

• all media and files will be able to be transitioned to any system that can interpret the ELIMedia input format (basic Drupal module)
• All images, video and audio will be ADA / Accessibility compliant
• All media will be properly categorized and stored for Teach Act compliance

Once we start transitioning to ELMS 3 in the Fall, I’ll begin development of ELMS - Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE).  This system will standardize the current Open Studio / Assignment Studio method of assignment submission and peer critique.  The reason this is being broken out from ELMS Core is to focus both projects and allow them to be managed and updated independently of one another.

The hope is that all three pieces will be turned into services / turn key solutions in their own right.  Each will eventually be released as a separate distribution (though CLE may be based on the Eduglu (http://eduglu.com/) distribution based on needs assessment).  As always, this roadmap is pretty up in the air outside of the current ELMS system but that’s where I’m heading, hope you come along for the ride!