@Earnie: Take a look at the FeedAPI SoC project, it includes pluggable XML parsing and node creation hooks.
@Larry-
My preference here is the old 'lazy instantiation' trick. [1]
Import the data and write a callback that will present the table view of courses, etc. You're dealing with structured data, so your callbacks shouldl make it easy for people to browse the data (think MVC).
Keep a {data_node} lookup table.
When writing links for individual items, check the {data_node} table. If found, write the link to node/NID, otherwise, write it to a node-generating callback that also inserts a record into {data_node}.
This way, you only create nodes when your users want to interact with them. Saves lots of processing overhead.
I have some sample code if you need it.
One drawback: if you want the data to be searchable, you either have to initiate your own hook_search, or wait for the nodes to be created.
- Ken
[1] http://barcelona2007.drupalcon.org/node/58