The iTEC widget store

Abstract

The iTEC project undertook the task of distributing resources and services for learning activities across a wide range of technological platforms in many different countries. Interoperability was achieved through the W3C widget specification and the Apache Wookie widget server. A connector framework was developed to enable widgets to be embedded in host platforms. In order to facilitate the discovery and deployment of widgets the iTEC Widget Store was developed and evaluated. This is an open source app store whose functionality is separated from the widgets which it serves. It was found that the adoption of W3C widgets beyond the project was very weak, and consequently there were few widgets available for inclusion in the Widget Store. Consequently a range of authoring functionality was made available in the Widget Store, enabling users to create their own widgets from online resources or local files. The Widget Store was also extended to enable it to handle LTI tools, including the management of authorisation keys.