Laboratory experimentation plays an essential role in engineering and scientific education. Virtual and remote labs reduce the costs associated with conventional hands-on labs due to their required equipment, space, and maintenance staff. Furthermore, they provide additional benefits such as supporting distance learning, improving lab accessibility to handicapped people, and increasing safety for dangerous experimentation. This paper analyzes the literature on virtual and remote labs from its beginnings to 2015, identifying the most influential publications, the most researched topics, and how the interest in those topics has evolved along the way. To do so, bibliographical data gathered from ISI Web of Science, Scopus and GRC2014 have been examined using two prominent bibliometric approaches: science mapping and performance analysis. Display Omitted Laboratory experimentation plays an essential role in engineering and sci-entific education.Virtual and remote labs are emerging as a valuable alternative to conven-tional hands-on labs.This paper analyzes the literature on virtual and remote labs from 1993 to 2015.4405 records retrieved from ISI Web of Science, Scopus and GRC2014 are processed.Two bibliometric approaches are applied: performance analysis and science mapping.

Virtual and remote labs in education

The development of Internet technologies and new ways of sharing information has facilitated the emergence of a variety of elearning scenarios. However, in technological areas such as engineering, where students must carry out hands-on exercises and laboratory work essential for their learning, it is not so easy to design online environments for practicals. The aim of this experimental study was to examine students' acceptance of technology and the process of adopting an online learning environment incorporating web-based resources, such as virtual laboratories, interactive activities, and educational videos, and a game-based learning methodology. To this end, their responses to an online questionnaire (n = 223) were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The study was based on the technology acceptance model (TAM), but included and assessed other factors such as perceived efficiency, playfulness, and satisfaction, which are not explained by the TAM. Our results confirm that this extension of the TAM provides a useful theoretical model to help understand and explain users' acceptance of an online learning environment incorporating virtual laboratory and practical work. Our results also indicate that efficiency, playfulness, and students' degree of satisfaction are factors that positively influence the original TAM variables and students' acceptance of this technology. Here, we also discuss the significant theoretical and spractical implications for educational use of these web-based resources.

Student acceptance of virtual laboratory and practical work: An extension of the technology acceptance model

Virtual and remote labs in control education: A survey

The knot book: An elementary introduction to the mathematical theory of knots

This paper presents an open course in the University Network of Interactive Laboratories, which offers several virtual and remote laboratories on automatic control, accessible to anyone. All the details on one of these labs (a two electric coupled drives system that allows performing control practices in a 2 $\times $ 2 MIMO system with industrial applications) and the activities that can be performed with it are given. We use a low-cost solution for developing the virtual and remote labs shared in this open course, based on the use of a free authoring tool Easy Java/Javascript Simulations (EJsS) for building the laboratories’ user interfaces and a cheap development platform board (BeagleBone Black). The virtual and remote labs are deployed into a free Learning Management System (Moodle) Web environment that facilitates their management and maintenance.

Open and Low-Cost Virtual and Remote Labs on Control Engineering

This paper describes the design and implementation of a virtual and remote laboratory based on Easy Java Simulations (EJS) and LabVIEW. The main application of this laboratory is to improve the study of sensors in Mobile Robotics, dealing with the problems that arise on the real world experiments. This laboratory allows the user to work from their homes, tele-operating a real robot that takes measurements from its sensors in order to obtain a map of its environment. In addition, the application allows interacting with a robot simulation (virtual laboratory) or with a real robot (remote laboratory), with the same simple and intuitive graphical user interface in EJS. Thus, students can develop signal processing and control algorithms for the robot in simulation and then deploy them on the real robot for testing purposes. Practical examples of application of the laboratory on the inter-University Master of Systems Engineering and Automatic Control are presented.

/pdf/virtual-and-remote-robotic-laboratory-using-ejs-matlab-and-5aooe8mxr7.pdf

Virtual and Remote Robotic Laboratory Using EJS, MATLAB and LabVIEW

Designing and developing web-enabled remote laboratories for pedagogical purposes is not an easy task. Often, developers (generally, educators who know the subjects they teach but lack of the technical and programming skills required to build Internet-based educational applications) end up discarding the idea of exploring these new teaching and learning experiences mainly due to the technical issues that must be mastered. To tackle this problem, authors present a novel technique that allows developers to create remote labs in a quick, didactical, and straightforward way. This framework is based on the use of two well-known software tools in the scope of engineering education, Easy Java Simulations and LabVIEW. The development exploits a new feature of Easy Java Simulations known as EJS-elements that enables Java developers to create and integrate their own authoring libraries (elements) into EJS, thus increasing its application possibilities. Particularly, the EJS element here presented allows to LabVIEW programs be controlled from EJS applications through a communication network. This paper presents the element creation details and how this can be used to create web-enabled experimentation environments for educational purposes. A step by step example of development of a remote lab for automatic control education is described.

EJS, JIL Server, and LabVIEW: An Architecture for Rapid Development of Remote Labs

Air levitation is the process by which an object is lifted without mechanical support in a stable position, by providing an upward force that counteracts the gravitational force exerted on the object. This work presents a low-cost lab implementation of an air levitation system, based on open solutions. The rapid dynamics makes it especially suitable for a control remote lab. Due to the system's nature, the design can be optimized and, with some precision trade-off, kept affordable both in cost and construction effort. It was designed to be easily adopted to be used as both a remote lab and as a hands-on lab.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/10/2321/pdf

Jesus Chacon

Papers

Open and Low-Cost Virtual and Remote Labs on Control Engineering

Virtual and Remote Robotic Laboratory Using EJS, MATLAB and LabVIEW

EJS, JIL Server, and LabVIEW: An Architecture for Rapid Development of Remote Labs

Design of a Low-Cost Air Levitation System for Teaching Control Engineering

Characterization of limit cycles for self-regulating and integral processes with PI control and send-on-delta sampling