The modelling of educational processes and their operational support is a key aspect in the construction of more effective e-learning applications. Instructional models are usually described by means of an educational modelling language (EML). The EML used can be one of the available standards (e.g. IMS Learning Design), the customization of a standard to meet a specific application profile, or even a domain-specific EML specifically designed to better fit the very particular needs of a learning scenario. In this paper we present , a general authoring and operationalization architecture capable of dealing with all these possibilities in a highly modular and flexible way. We also outline a specific implementation of based on standard XML technologies and workflow management systems, and we describe how this implementation can be used to support IMS Learning Design.