GRAPPLE: Learning Management Systems Meet Adaptive Learning Environments

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are used in many (educational) institutes to manage the learning process. Adaptive Learning Environments (ALEs) offer support for the learning process through adaptive guidance and perhaps also personalized learning material (content). GRAPPLE offers a new infrastructure that brings both together. This is done through single sign-on, a common User Model Framework and an (asynchronous) event bus that coordinates the communication between the other components. Authors can create structured course material and define the adaptation through a graphical interface, and a flexible and very extensible adaptation engine offers almost any type of presentation and adaptation an author might want. This chapter reports on early experience with the GRAPPLE environment, for teaching and for learning.