As technology is increasingly being seen as a facilitator to learning, open remote laboratories are increasingly available and in widespread use around the world. They provide some advantages over traditional hands-on labs or simulations. This paper presents the results of integrating the open remote laboratory VISIR into several courses, in various contexts and using various methodologies. These integrations, all related to higher education engineering, were designed by teachers with different perspectives to achieve a range of learning outcomes. The degree to which these VISIR-related outcomes were accomplished is discussed. The results reflect the levels of student engagement and learning and of teacher involvement. From the analysis, a connection between these two aspects was traced, although only related to the user profiles. VISIR is shown to be always of benefit for more motivated students, but this benefit can be maximized under particular conditions and characteristics.

How Remote Labs Impact on Course Outcomes: Various Practices Using VISIR

Remote Laboratories have become part of current teaching and learning, particularly in engineering Their potential to aid students beyond their hands-on lab classes has been a matter of discussion in literature Teachers and researchers are aware that the thorough analysis of both strengths and shortcomings of remote labs in didactical implementations may not only lead to the improvement of these resources but also of the pedagogical implications in engineering classes The present study was carried out in a Higher Education Institution in Brazil in two different courses during three consecutive semesters where a remote lab (VISIR) addressing electric and electronic topics was implemented, yielding 471 students' academic results and opinions These students' results (while using VISIR) cross-analysed with the course characteristics, reveal some factors teachers may tackle to foster student learning and motivation The conclusions point to the need for VISIR interface modernization and showed it is more useful in basic courses than in more advanced ones, when dealing with classic lab experiments Results also show that teachers' involvement plus their ability to brief students on VISIR's usefulness have a significant influence not only on students' performance but also on their perception of learning and satisfaction with the tool In the analysed cases, the students with more learning needs seemed to be the ones who could benefit more from VISIR

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Impact of a remote lab on teaching practices and student learning

ArPi Lab: A Low-Cost Remote Laboratory for Control Education

Remote access laboratories (RALs) are online environments for operating instruments and collecting measurement data over the Internet. Such systems are often deployed by universities to support undergraduate students and generally follow the client–server paradigm. This paper discusses a RAL system that enables peer-to-peer (P2P) experimental design and sharing. For this, a modular design is required, which allows participating nodes to create rigs and host those individually at distributed locations. The proposed architecture is generic and can be used with any distributed P2P network control systems over the Internet. In this paper, a distributed remote control framework is presented with regard to a P2P RAL system. The experiments in the RAL require three subsystems handling the user interface, instruction interpretation, and instruction execution which can be organized and operated in different manners depending upon the experiment. The key component for creating and controlling experiments is the microcontrollers that can be easily obtained, configured, and set up for use over the Internet. The most popular microcontrollers are examined for suitability to the distributed control architecture. The basic layout of a message-based network protocol suitable for programming the devices and communication between peers for remote instrumentation and control is discussed, and queuing and flow control mechanisms are compared and tested for the proposed framework.

Real-Time Remote Access Laboratory With Distributed and Modular Design

Laboratory experiments are one of the backbones of engineering teaching, as they help students learning in an unique way, providing better understanding of scientific theories, clarifying concepts and principles as well as improving their technical skills. Nevertheless, with the Bologna Process reforms and the economic constraints most Higher Education Institutions face nowadays, caused a significant decline in the amount of time devoted to hands-on lab. Researchers are seeking complementary ways to teach these practical skills and recently, with the explosive popularity of computer-based learning, remote labs are being used as an option. This review paper presents a first attempt to compile empirical studies that directly report the use of the remote laboratory VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality). These practices of engineering classes/courses, used VISIR individually or as a complement to traditional hands on laboratory. Concerning these different approaches of how VISIR is used, the authors draw several conclusions - findings suggest that VISIR is a useful learning instrument, having been used, so far, by more than 4400 students. It contributes to improve students' competences and knowledge, their confidence in lab and their enthusiasm and motivation. Some factors, such as teacher's supervision and attention to the VISIR component play a crucial role in students' engagement. Finally, the results achieved through this review raise several important and still non studied issues to be addressed by future research.

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VISIR's usage as an educational resource: a review of the empirical research

The paper presents the results of applying the VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality) system at the course of analog electronics for various degrees of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Deusto (Spain). The efficiency of the VISIR had been monitored during past three years. Studentsâ?? feedback was collected and analyzed. The research shows: 1) VISIR system is functional and useful learning instrument; 2) teacher experience at VISIR plays crucial role in its integration into student experimentation activities; 3) students get best knowledge and skills in the analog electronics from combination of experiments at traditional laboratory and remote lab/ VISIR.

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Using VISIR: Experiments, Subjects and Students

The lack of tracking and storing capabilities for the results of web-based learning activities is an issue that remains unsolved. Transitions or interactions defined by teachers through a set of conditions still require programming skills that stay far beyond the desired final results. In addition to this, authoring tools should be powerful enough to let lecturers generate contents which are high-quality, interactive, and tuned to each student's cognitive preferences and progress. Availability and processing capabilities, or motivation, relevance, etc., must also be aspects to address in this context. For these reasons, this paper aims to review the existing web application authoring toolkits focusing on distance education. In particular, we analize their main features, requirements and issues, as well as the most promising areas for future improvemenst in this field.

A review of webapp authoring tools for e-learning

This paper shows the experience at the University of Deusto with the WebLab-Deusto-CPLD in the subject â??Programmable Logic

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WebLab-Deusto-CPLD: A Practical Experience

The paper describes how to create and deploy a low cost platform for remote control of experiments via web page and a PIC microcontroller from Microchip. Thus we have a tool easily applied, by plug-and-play method, to optimize the learning and possibly spanning several types of students and institutions.

Easily deployable low-cost remote lab platform

The combination of Boole-Deusto (software tool for digital electronics design) and WebLab-Deusto-FPGA (remote lab) allows teachers and students to complete the full design cycle in a computer in only a few minutes: from the truth table or FSM to the real implementation in a FPGA. The system described is oriented towards a first year course in digital electronics to help students and teachers when they are learning and teaching digital electronics.

Luis Rodriguez

Papers

Using VISIR: Experiments, Subjects and Students

A review of webapp authoring tools for e-learning

WebLab-Deusto-CPLD: A Practical Experience

Easily deployable low-cost remote lab platform

Integration of a remote lab in a software tool for digital electronics