About OCW and IMS
While using OpenACS / dotLRN I feel bit handicapped due to database-backed nature of the platform. Repurposing the content is a huge task. We can either
-
publish content from selected packages within a dotLRN community in plain HTML format, which can be then hosted on any web server in the world. It seems this is what you have in mind for the selected packages ( file storage + faq, survey , static portlet
) for now.
-
Or externalizethe same content in XML / XSLT form. XML format will let us import the same content on another dotLRN installation. Additionaly, capability to generate HTML ( and WML and what not...) is still retained.
In the long term I would vote for the second option : It provides round-trip content transfer service that will be very very useful in many cases : while upgrading to new hardware, changing database ( version or make) or upgrading to new version of OpenACS.
Research/Collaboration sounds great ! Is it Oracle only ? If so, I would be glad to port it to postgres.
- Samir