A federation of VISIR remote laboratories through the PILAR Project
This paper describes how a new Erasmus Plus project, PILAR, (Platform Integration of Laboratories based on the Architecture of visiR), is being developed and how the startup of the partnership and the project is reinforcing the VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality) network and the Special Interest Group of VISIR under the Global Online Laboratory Consortium (GOLC) of the International Association of Online Engineering (IAOE). The Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED) coordinates the project that aims to federate the existing (or new) VISIR systems in order to use the resources more effectively and in a more efficient way, making transparent to the final user the election of the shared resources.
Remote Laboratory for Secondary School Physics Curriculum
This paper describes the current influence of the remote laboratory on practical learning aspects of secondary sector of education. The key challenges facing the teaching of science include insufficient hands-on laboratory usage in classrooms. The main objective of the paper is to present learning approach of usage VISIR Open Lab Platform for teaching Ohm ́s Law in Physics curriculum of secondary school. The activity was organized on the basis of P. Andrés Urdaneta School with support of the remote lab WebLab-Deusto. Educators can benefit from different teaching methods (collaborative, inquiry-, and project-based learning) integrated in WebLab-Deusto. Electrical experiments are common at schools and universities worldwide. Usually students execute experiments in the frame of traditional hands-on laboratories. However, the laboratory equipment is expensive and its maintenance is complicated. The remote laboratory reduces the costs significantly, makes lab experiments available almost at any time and everywhere, personalizing the learning pathways [1], [2]. The existing remote laboratories are more or less copies of hands-on ones. Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR) Open Lab Platform [3] is a remote laboratory created by Blekinge Institute of technology (BTH) for designing, wiring and measurement of electric circuits. This main feature of VISIR allows build scenario of performing basic DC and low frequency AC circuits experiments related to Ohm’s and Kirchhoff’s laws. Moreover, the students will become familiar with instruments, components, manuals, data sheets, circuit wiring, and other laboratory work. In the paper main principle of VISIR will be presented; the remote experiments executed by students will be shown. Finally, the result of integrating of remote experiments for study in Urdaneta School will be discussed.
VISIR: Experiences and Challenges
It is of crucial importance the integration of practical sessions in engineering curricula owing to their significant role in understanding engineering concepts and scientific phenomena. However, the lack of practical sessions due to the high costs of the equipment and the unavailability of instructors has caused a significant declination in experimentation in engineering education. Remote laboratories have tackled this issues providing online reusable and shared workbenches unconstrained by neither geographical nor time considerations. Thereby, they have extremely proliferated among universities and integrated into engineering curricula over the last decade. This contribution compiles diverse experiences based on the deployment of the remote laboratory, Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR), on the practices of undergraduate engineering grades at various universities within the VISIR community. It aims to show the impact of its usage on engineering education concerning the assessments of students and teachers as well. In addition, the paper address the next challenges and future works carried out at several universities within the VISIR community.