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No wonder, since open XML standard and model-based syllabus are at the root of the project (see OpenSyllabus : Model-based Electronic Syllabi, or How to Share Electronic Course Syllabi). Syllabi are structured documents and Zone Cours, the forerunner of OpenSyllabus, is a traditional "page-based" web tool used to create and publish both simple and elaborate syllabi including web links and electronic documents based on XML templates representation and transformation. Zone Cours is currently used since 2004 at HEC Montréal.
In a previous implementation of OpenSyllabus there was a direct exchange of XML files between the server and the GWT client. Since this first proof of concept, OpenSyllabus has evolved toward an exchange of Java objects (POJO : Plain Old Java Objects) between the Sakai's server and the GWT client using a RPC protocol. The main reason driving this evolution is to abstract and decouple the XML model from the user-interface using a simple high level POJO "bean like" access (GET/SET).
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