Packaged Widgets: Evaluating a Concept for FAIR Educational Technology Components

Abstract

FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) research data including software have become a major point of discussion for the educational technology (EdTech) community in recent years. For software, the community has been investigating these issues since its inception in the 90s and 2000s, first starting with learning objects. In this article, we present the idea of packaged widgets, a novel technical solution to the challenge of FAIRness—specifically for web-based EdTech. Packaged widgets make use of state-of-the-art approaches from web development, such as web components and NodeJS packages. We argue that this approach leads to an increase of FAIRness compared to existing, more isolated solutions. To showthe viability of this approach, we present a study which follows n=11 students developing EdTech prototypes in the packaged widget format. A mixed-method approach is used that considers qualitative interview data, and the developer experience quantified with the extended user experience questionnaire (UEQ+). Results showed high usability for a prototype (apart from minor bugs), and no barriers to expressivity for STEM subjects, with students being able to implement a wide range of packaged widgets – indicating that the packaged widget concept is not only FAIR, but also viable for EdTech