Hi Sue,

thanks. I can offer some information on how the two organisations fit together and will let the Learning Pool guys respond on the other questions.

In summary, we (the Adapt open source project) are a distinct organisation and are a separate entity from the collaborators you will find on this page. The Adapt project core team consists of members from all of the collaborators and, as of recently, also some members from the community who have become involved in the project and are helping to drive it forward. (So there is some overlap with some of the Adapt core team members also having roles at the collaborator organisations. In the case of Learning Pool, Mark Lynch and Dennis Heaney are both part of the leadership team of the Adapt project).

As part of the Adapt project, we are working together to build this responsive eLearning community and to provide the free, open source tools including the Adapt framework (for developers) and the Adapt Authoring Tool (for non-technical end users).

At this point, the majority of the collaborators are professional eLearning providers. However, we are looking forward to this becoming more diverse over time - everyone is welcome to get involved. The principle behind the open source project is that:

• the collaborators believe that they don't differentiate on technology (but rather customer service, quality, creativity etc. - this principle enables us to work together as competitors).
• we can achieve something together, which none of the collaborator organisations could achieve in their own right (we have a very ambitious vision)

So, if we are doing things correctly, the tools/software provided by the collaborators should be very close to the software freely available via this community. All of the collaborators and core team members can also be expected to have very good knowledge and insight into the subject matter and tools provided here. However, there will be differences between the professional services they provide.

I hope this is helpful background information - please don't hesitate to ask further questions.

Thanks,
Sven

With regards to the difference between adapt and learning pool:

Which kind of authoring tool functions are available for learning pool customers and which are not?

Learning pool has some webinars on youtube showing a version of the adapt authoring tool that has more functionality than the currently available tool on the adapt git-hub.

particularly the theming options in the builder are almost a must have option before we can really start using this tool with our team.

how can we get this functionality in our local install?

Hi Sue,

Sven has given a good response to how the two organisations fit together but as an employee of Learning Pool and a core contributor to both the framework and authoring tool projects, since none of my colleagues have yet replied I thought I'd chip in.

We (Learning Pool) have been and continue to be key contributors on both the Adapt framework and authoring tool.  Specifically we have taken the lead in the development of the authoring tool. You can use the plugins we've released (such as the Responsive IFrame or Reveal), or examine our history on GitHub and our activity on these forums as a testament to our commitment to open source.

Due to the pluggable nature of the code, we host a version of the software as a service that has Learning Pool specific plugins or features that are designed to meet certain internal or customer requirements.  Generally we support content developers who design e-learning for an audience of thousands of users within their respective organisations.  We have a dedicated support team, together with expert content developers and graphic designers.  Obviously we're a commercial company and some of our features just don't fit into the architecture of the open source project, while others (with some modification) will eventually find their way into the authoring tool.  

In terms of where we overlap, the core of our Adapt Builder platform is the exact same as the code on GitHub, plus the extra features you may have seen in one of our webinars.  You'll find us regularly working and improving this code, or following up issues raised by community members. 

I hope this clarifies things.

Regards,

Brian