Among the existing web-based Learning Management Systems (LMSs), there is an exponentially increasing need of content interoperability. This has caused the apparition of different standardization initiatives. In this paper we describe our approach to the design of <e-Aula>, a new LMS which adheres closely to IMS standards in an attempt to evaluate the practical viability of those standards. The architecture of our system, focused on the IMS manifest, has yielded a powerful and modular system that goes beyond the initial intention of evaluating the proposed standard and can be used as a robust production system in a real environment. We describe our IMS driven approach, as well as an architecture based on this approach that has been implemented using well-known and robust Java based web technologies.