Future OLAT Development: Roadmap

The following are the first key elements of the forthcoming refactoring roadmap:

Release 7.3 (Public Release: Quarter four of 2011)

• With the next Release 7.3 the OLAT Application will be layered. Technically this means, the division of the application into distinct layers (presentation, connectors, lms, data and system) each with well-defined boundaries. Layering is a central requirement for modular architectures that exhibit healthy dependency management and testability exposure. This will lay the foundations for us to significantly improve the quality of the application.

Release 7.4 (Public Release: Quarter two of 2012)

• The focus of this Release will be Service Orientation i.e. the introduction of services that encapsulate the core values delivered by the application. A service is an architectural component that provides meaningful functionality for students and tutors e.g. group based learning or taking an exam. By packaging such functionality in services OLAT maintains its focus on value and quality and as a result we will be able to monitor the health of a service at runtime.
• OLAT is currently shifting its emphasis towards container managed hosting reflecting the growing maturity of an application that is expected to perform in industry standard environments. OLAT will therefore increasingly leverage existing institutional services e.g. calendar, student information systems, etc.

For more details have a look at our Bug tracking System.