"vertical" authoring tools?

I've been floundering in the "distance education" milieu and have become
alarmed at all the diverse approaches to the overall problem.  I wonder
if "authoring tools" might be considered to include tools used to
"author" distance learning projects?  This is becoming a huge field too
rapidly to really keep a grip on and there are already several
associations that seek to be the standard setters for the field.  A
search on "distance learning" got me too many to deal with!
-- 
Love.
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