Online Labs
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In a laboratory environment we have an experimenter who is performing an experiment.
Both the experimenter as well as the experiment can be local or remote.
Therefore we have a classification of laboratories as shown in Table 1, where we distinguish between local, remote and virtual labs.
| |
Experiment |
||
| Local |
Remote |
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| Experiment |
Real
|
Traditional Lab
|
Remote Lab
|
The laboratories in the far right column we call Online Laboratories [16]. That means that the most important mode of use of these laboratories is the online mode via Internet or Intranet.
Online labs are software simulations or hardware based experiments in real time on specialized distributed servers. Obviously there is still need for further investigations to have a full characterization and taxonomy of online labs and learning with such labs.
Laboratories as well as online laboratories consist of one or more experiments. There are different types of online experiments:
- Experiment visualization, this service allows the student following online a lab activity determined for example by the course teacher. The student obtains the display on her/his computer of the desktop used by the teacher to control the measurement instruments involved in the experiment.
- Experiment control, this service allows the student to perform an experiment by controlling remotely one or more actual measurement instruments. The student can choose a specific experiment in a set of predefined ones and can run it only if the required instruments are currently available.
- Experiment creation, this service allows the student to remotely create an experimentation environment, for example by virtual instruments interacting with real hardware.
Another systematization of online labs is based on the level of control of an online-lab: remote instrumentation, remote parameter control or remote control logic [13]. This systematization is oriented to the level of control of the inputs, outputs and the logic that the user of such lab has. Additionally are used also characterizations, which are common for software engineering like universality (indicated by accessibility, multilanguage support, openness of the system), technology (security, portability, kind of control), management (IT support, user management etc.).
In cases of online labs for teaching, the didactical usefulness is also added. Those characterizations are more user then technology oriented and have their origin in the nowadays broadest field of applications of online labs and in the technology enhanced teaching, but they give some orientation that should be taken into account when developing new online labs.