One of the first systems Jonathan developed way back at the beginning of the Internet bubble was a system allowing foreign exchange traders working for one of the Wall Street investment companies to coordinate their trades among the trading desks situated around the world and in different time zones.
Their requirements are very similar to the needs of online tutors, many of whom are new to the business, and their students to manage their interactions and the long-term development of each party.
One of the difficulties for students of any variety is that their accomplishments, progress, historical issues, and notes are often tied to an institution, if not a specific teacher. Their problems and progress cannot be evaluated over time in a convenient way unless they remain with a single institution and teacher.
Likewise, a teacher or tutor whose skills are developing and evolving has no way of tracking that progress and evaluating the success of one technique or another. Learning happens on both sides of the interaction. And that information needs to persist and be available to each party even when the relationship has concluded.
In broad terms, many sites that handle client-customer interactions provide some mechanism for evaluation and review. But teaching is an odd beast. Since learning is an active process, largely the responsibility of the student, the success or failure of the effort often depends to a disproportionate degree on the diligence of the client. This requires a rethinking of evaluations. It suggests that, not only should the evaluations be bi-directional as they are with things like contracted software development, but should be both granular and specific to the type of effort.
Lesson plans and the exercises/tools to help in their implementation have both static and dynamic features. Knowledge is hierarchical, so to an extent there is no choice in what order and to what extent a subject is being taught. On the other hand, students have their own histories, quirks and difficulties requiring different methods of teaching, more or less effort in some areas, or require more explaination or practice in order to fully understand a concept.
A marketplace of basic lesson plans (instructing both tutor and student) and a toolkit of enhancements to augment the process in a student-specific way addresses a number of the related requirements.