They are not developing courses, they are developing a high-level platform for developing tools. IMS lets you manage groups. The University is a group. The School of Dentistry could be defined as a group. A class could be defined as a group.
Groups can have resources, such as chat.
An individual's backpack defines a personal profile and a public profile. Control panels can be used to add resources to groups. For example you could add announcements as a resource for a group. You could open applications, simulations, etc. Java code, imbedded in html, accesses the database.