Welcome back Michael, we missed you 😊
Regarding the IMS leaner specification, I agree with you and the user profile should try to use as much (if not all) of it and be designed so when this standard is extended the same happens with the user-profile. How about making the "base profile" the same?
Regarding the LMS definition, we obviously have a bit of a variance there 😉, I have never worried to much about nailing a proper one, but now I see that it might be more important than I thought, because people need in order to define scopes. That should probably be another thread, but I agree with the "registrar" definition, but I normally include the content management and teh assessment tools, and sometimes even the student portals. Otherwise wouln't we putting WebCT and Blackboard (dotLRN main competitors) out of scope?
We have not looked at a course catalog, but someone (Ernie) in my group will be looking at learning objects catalog, so it should be similar, but with another granularity.
Regarding the adaptive learning issue, I agree that is not a short term project (for dotlrn-1-1) but is something that we should have in the long term scope. As you know I am looking to dotLRN as platform for research, not only development, and adaptive learning environments is a great topic, but of course with enormous difficulties.
