I dislike to further divert the attention from Al's original post, which was about implementing user profiles in dotLRN. But the subject of LMSs has been brought up and since Polyxena has sort of kidnapped this concept for the Curriculum project I ought to explain what it means to us. When we use the concept of LMS (learning management system) we refer to branched sequencing of learning activities in a course or curriculum, nothing more and nothing less. And this has nothing (directly) to do with user profiles.
However, the Curriculum package that is to offer a full-fledged LMS, meaning a fully IMS-compliant simple sequencing architecture, has something to do with the grading functionality being developed for Survey, as Malte points out. This "something" is that Curriculum might want to get hold of the grading data offered by Survey (or a separate grading service, as Malte prefers), using service contracts. However, this just makes Curriculum a grading service client among others, not a grading service provider.
And Al is saying that even grades are not part of his current discussion of student profiles, so...
I posted this because I worry that if we start to call dotLRN as a whole an LMS, as opposed to its current definition as a course management system (CMS?!), people will be quite confused. Especially when trying to get an idea of what the Curriculum project is all about. At least now you all know what we mean by LMS in our texts: we use the concept to describe a learning-sequencing engine, not an entire vertical application for administration of education. Im not saying our definition is objectively correct, though.
