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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). This design is also motivated by the easy-to-use GWT built-in RPC mechanism which allows exchange of Java objects to and from a server using standard HTTP.
In ideal scenario, the client makes several updates on the model without requesting every time the server. The application should use the server only when persistence of data is needed.
