Some resources for building a Drupal-based LMS

Since I haven't done any development work in Drupal to date, I thought I could contribute by listing some of the pertinent resources I have been exploring over the past year that seem to be part of "the solution" (if there is a single solution).

1. Open Source Student Information Systems
While the 4 systems listed below are not Drupal-based, they could be extended via web services or shared database access (or even the dreaded SIF protocol) to work with Drupal.

SchoolTool - Zope (python) implementation
http://www.schooltool.org

Centre SIS Open Source Edition - PHP implementation
http://freshmeat.net/projects/centre

openSIS Community Edition - PHP implmentation
http://sourceforge.net/projects/opensis-ce

CAMEMIS - Unknown implementation
"In 2010 the source code is not ‘free’ and CAMEMIS is not open source. We are planning to release an open source version in 2011."
http://www.camemis.com

2. Existing Drupal "integrated education" projects
Three installations that might be used as the basis for further work. I have not explored what benefits these installations bring to an LMS.

LMS Project for Drupal (2006)
http://openacademic.org

phpEdu Project for Drupal
http://www.phpedu.org.uk

CiviSchool / CiviCRM Module for Drupal
Leverages CiviCRM's contacts and activities support for school environments.
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/CiviSchool

3. Bits and pieces of other open source LMS'y projects
These projects are attempts to build LMS by merging technologies.

Drupal module for Moodle Integration
http://drupal.org/project/moodle

Moodle Integration Developers
http://moodle.com/integration

Mahoodle - Mahara/Moodle Single Sign-On
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Mahoodle

Saugus Elgg Distribution
Developer: Jim Klein
An enhanced version of Elgg 6.5 developed and used by a California school district.
http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/page/Social+Networking

NewSchoolYard
A school-focused CMS (possibly not open source but uses and funds Drupal)
http://www.newschoolyard.com/story

4. Google Apps/Docs Integration
I haven't seen much here on the drupal.org site, but the possibilities are endless. Some listed below are either trial balloons or ongoing projects. Google is of course not open source, but is free (as in beer) to educational institutions, and is gaining traction as a system that provides applications in the cloud and shared repositories for teacher and student work.

Post Google Docs to Drupal via blogapi
A simple integration is to have students publish their Google Docs to Drupal blogs.
http://drupal.org/node/335349
http://driesknapen.net/blog/google-docs-drupal

Google AuthSub Authentication
Present Drupal user with Google log in to get token to be used for access to Google services
http://drupal.org/project/google_auth

Google SSO API
Googleauth Drupal Module
Let Drupal be the SAML-based identity provider (provide the authentication) for Google Apps services
http://drupal.org/project/googleauth

Google Documents List API
CRUD operations for end users on your Google Docs store. As of a recent upgrade, you can upload ANY file type to Google Docs.
http://code.google.com/apis/documents/overview.html

Google Calendar API
CRUD operations for end users on calendar events.
http://drupal.org/project/gcal_events

Google Apps Provisioning API - PHP
CRUD operations for system admins on Google user and group objects.
http://code.google.com/googleapps/domain/gdata_provisioning_api_v2.0_ref...

OSU Open Source Lab 2007 Google SoC project
Not sure how far this got, but it was an attempt to use
http://code.google.com/p/drupal-google-api/downloads/list
http://groups.drupal.org/node/20128

"Gahoodle" - Google Apps/Mahara/Moodle Integration
Developer: Chris Walsh
This project has been succeeded by the "Moogpal" one below, or actually its successor.
http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dfqs2sb3_10h8xccdg

"Moogpal" - Moodle/Google Apps/Drupal Project
Developer: Chris Walsh
Since this presentation last year, Chris is dropping Moodle and writing his own Drupal modules to replace a large part of Moodle's functionality. He claims to have good support for deep integration of Google Docs within Drupal. Code to be released to community summer 2010 if all goes well.
http://prezi.com/klwonopea3dn/moogpal/

Hope this helps!