CourseForge — an Easygenerator-class authoring tool

1.Introduction

1.1 Purpose

This document specifies the requirements for CourseForge, a SaaS authoring platform inspired by Easygenerator. CourseForge enables non-instructional-designers — sales enablement leads, HR business partners, compliance officers, product managers — to create, review, and publish online courses in hours instead of weeks. It is intended for engineering, design, and product stakeholders building the v1 product.

1.2 Scope

This SRS covers three capability pillars:

• Core authoring — block-based course editor, interactive content, assessment, branding, and standards-compliant SCORM 1.2 / SCORM 2004 / xAPI export.
• AI authoring assistant — document-to-course generation, question generation, rewrite/tone, translation, and didactic suggestions.
• Collaboration & review — multi-author editing, roles, comments, suggestions, approval workflow, and version history.

Hosted learner delivery, a built-in LRS, and learner analytics are explicitly out of scope for v1 (see §10).

1.3 Definitions

• Course — the top-level publishable unit; contains sections, questions, and metadata.
• Section — an ordered grouping of content blocks (a "page" or "lesson").
• Block — atomic content unit (text, image, video, flip-card, hotspot, etc.).
• SCORM — IEEE/ADL packaging standard for LMS-deliverable courseware (1.2 and 2004 editions).
• xAPI — Experience API; statement-based learning record protocol; cmi5 is its profile for LMS-launched content.
• LMS / LXP — Learning Management / Experience Platform that consumes published packages.

2.Overall Description

2.1 Product Perspective

CourseForge is a new, self-contained, multi-tenant SaaS web application. It does not replace an LMS; it produces courseware consumed by an LMS, LXP, web link, or PDF export. The system has three logical surfaces: the Author Studio (editor + AI), the Review Portal (lightweight reviewer UI), and the Admin Console (workspace, branding, SSO, billing).

2.2 Product Functions (high level)

• Create, edit, duplicate, archive, and template courses.
• Compose lessons from reusable blocks; add quizzes with auto-graded question types.
• Generate first-draft courses and quiz items from uploaded documents using AI.
• Invite co-authors and reviewers; capture inline comments and suggestions; resolve and approve.
• Publish to a stable URL, downloadable SCORM 1.2 / 2004 ZIP, xAPI/cmi5 package, or PDF.
• Apply organization branding (logo, palette, fonts) automatically.

2.3 Assumptions & Constraints

• Modern evergreen browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox; last 2 versions).
• Authoring is desktop-first; learner runtime is fully responsive.
• EU data residency required for enterprise customers (GDPR).
• AI features depend on a third-party LLM provider through a server-side gateway; no PII is sent in prompts.

3.Personas & User Journeys

3.1 Personas

3.2 Primary Journey — "From document to published SCORM"

1. Maya creates a new course and uploads a PowerPoint deck + product PDF.
2. AI proposes a course outline (sections, learning objectives). Maya tweaks it.
3. AI fills each section with content blocks and generates 3–5 questions per objective; Maya edits text and swaps media.
4. Maya invites Priya as Reviewer. Priya leaves inline comments; Maya resolves them.
5. Dan approves the course. Maya clicks Publish → SCORM 2004.
6. The LMS ingests the package; learners launch it; results report via SCORM RTE.

3.3 Secondary Journeys

• Republish updated content via Dynamic SCORM without re-uploading to the LMS.
• Duplicate a course as a template and rebrand for a different business unit.
• Reviewer-only single sign-on via magic link without a paid seat.

4.1Functional Requirements — Authoring

4.2Functional Requirements — AI Assistant

4.3Functional Requirements — Collaboration & Review

4.4Functional Requirements — Publishing & Export

4.5Functional Requirements — Account & Workspace

5.Non-Functional Requirements

6.External Interfaces

• LMS / LXP — output: SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004 (3rd/4th), xAPI/cmi5 package, LTI 1.3 launch (roadmap).
• LRS — outbound xAPI statements to any conformant LRS endpoint configured per workspace.
• SSO — SAML 2.0, OIDC, SCIM 2.0 for user provisioning.
• AI gateway — server-side LLM provider; prompts and completions stored only for 30 days for abuse review, then purged.
• Object storage — S3-compatible bucket per region for media assets and published bundles.
• Email — transactional provider for invites, comment notifications, magic-link reviewer access.
• Payments — Stripe Billing for subscriptions, seat management, and AI credit metering.

7.Data Model (high level)

Core entities and the relationships between them:

Organization 1───* Workspace 1───* Membership *───1 User
                       │
                       ├──* Course ──* Section ──* Block
                       │       │           └──* Question ──* Choice
                       │       ├──* Comment (anchor: block_id | question_id)
                       │       ├──* Version (snapshot_json, created_by, kind)
                       │       └──* PublishArtifact (kind: scorm12 | scorm2004 | xapi
                       │                                  | pdf | link, signed_url)
                       ├──* MediaAsset (s3_key, mime, tags[])
                       ├──* Theme (logo, palette, font_pair)
                       └──* AuditLogEntry

Notes: Blocks store a discriminated type + a typed payload JSON, validated by Zod on read and write. Versions are full snapshots (small payloads, simpler restore) rather than per-block diffs.

8.UX Principles

• No instructional design degree required. Defaults produce a didactically sound course; advanced controls are progressive disclosure.
• Block-based editor, not a slide canvas. Each block is responsive by construction; no per-pixel layout.
• One primary action per screen. The editor's right rail surfaces the next best action (preview, invite reviewer, publish).
• AI as a draft, not an answer. Every AI output is editable, attributable, and dismissable.
• Trust by transparency. Show conformance status, approval status, and last-published timestamp in the course header.
• Keyboard- and screen-reader-first. The editor is fully operable without a mouse; the runtime ships AA contrast out of the box.

9.Sample Acceptance Criteria

• FR-AUTH-008 Autosave — Given an author edits any block, when 2 s elapse without further input, then the change is persisted and a "Saved" indicator appears; on disconnect, edits queue locally and resync on reconnect without data loss.
• FR-AI-001 Course from sources — Given a 30-slide PPTX, when the author requests a course outline, then a draft of 4–8 sections with learning objectives is returned within 60 s P95, each section linked to one or more source slides.
• FR-COL-005 Approval gate — Given a course configured with two required approvers, when fewer than two approvals are granted, then Publish is disabled and a tooltip lists missing approvers.
• FR-PUB-002 SCORM 2004 — Given an exported package, when uploaded to a SCORM 2004 4th-edition LMS, then it launches without error, reports cmi.completion_status = "completed" upon finishing all sections, and reports a numeric cmi.score.scaled for assessments.
• FR-ACC-002 SSO — Given an Enterprise workspace with SAML configured, when a new user signs in via the IdP, then a workspace Membership is JIT-created with role mapped from the IdP attribute.

10.Out of Scope & Roadmap

Explicitly out of scope for v1

• Built-in learner delivery, learner accounts, and an in-platform LRS.
• Learner analytics dashboards (xAPI statements are emitted to a third-party LRS).
• AI-driven roleplay / voice coaching.
• Native marketplace for third-party templates.

Indicative roadmap

• Phase 1 (MVP, ~3 months) — Authoring, SCORM 1.2 export, share-link, basic AI rewrite + question generation, single-author.
• Phase 2 (~+2 months) — SCORM 2004 + xAPI, collaboration, review & approval, document-to-course AI.
• Phase 3 (~+3 months) — SSO/SAML, dynamic SCORM, audit log, translation, LTI 1.3.
• Phase 4 — Roleplay/coaching, built-in LRS & analytics, marketplace.

11.Glossary & Sources

• SCORM — Sharable Content Object Reference Model (ADL).
• xAPI / Tin Can — Experience API for learning records.
• cmi5 — xAPI profile for LMS-launched assignable units.
• LRS — Learning Record Store.
• LTI 1.3 — Learning Tools Interoperability for tool launch from an LMS.
• WCAG 2.2 AA — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines conformance target.

Primary research sources

• easygenerator.com — Features overview
• easygenerator.com — AI Assistant
• easygenerator.com — Collaboration
• ADL SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 (3rd/4th ed.) specifications.
• IEEE / ADL xAPI v1.0.3 and cmi5 specifications.
• W3C WCAG 2.2 conformance recommendation.