Motivation is the fact that widgets (as used in e.g. iGoogle or Mac OSX) usually provide a small special functionality without the possibility to use the given content in other context. As the implementation of a PLME could be an aggregation of services and/or tools possibly embedded in widgets the aim is to provide the possibility to share the content of widgets with others. Though, one widget provides microblogging messages and another provides a visualisation for the content based connections between authors of such microblogging messages. For these cases the context is embedded in the work with a personal learning environment and the target group are endusers.
The more technical part is the preparation for an integration by a kind of KnowledgeBus Architecture (KNA). Therefore an interface will be defined, which will ease the integration work. As this a more technically driven design study, the target group might be technical partners and evaluators, probably not endusers.

At this early stage of the project one possibility for the realisation of a PLME could be a kind of 'portal-based' aggregation of services with the help of widgets. So one outcome is the possiblity to bridge the gap between those isolated functions. Moreover, visualisation techniques might help to support the maturing of knowledge which still has to be investigated.
 
In terms of describing a persistence layer for those elements and the later integration part of the project, the study gives hints how to manage this and where problems will or might occur. Therefore a combined relevance for Mature exists in terms of technical integration and usability design study.

The expected outcome will be a server architecture which provides the functionality for running the widgets. On the conceptional part, a preliminary definition for requirements on interacting widgets, which are developed after the W3C draft specification. Furthermore, a requirements analysis for providing persistence of the content of such widgets and an early definition of an interface for the integration work with a kind of KBA.