At the technical level e-learning is just another example of the complexities that Software Engineers have to deal with. Consideration of the Capability Maturity Model as a tool for improving software development drove the creation of the eMM and so its hardly surprising that I'm interested in similar concepts. Michael Feldstein (who hosted me on his blog a while ago) has a short essay on the ALT Online Newsletter looking at a couple of other important software engineering ideas - Design Patterns and Use Cases as mechanisms for informing better development of VLEs and hopefully bridging the gap between software developers and teachers.

Its an interesting idea and Michael is well aware of the challenges that face anyone turning it into reality. The biggest problem I can see is with the patterns - arguably these are even harder to identify than learning objects and there's a concept that never achieved the success it was expected to. Use cases on the other hand are easier - much of the e-learning literature reads like badly written use cases at times, but at least, like use cases there are some key messages worth extracting.