Remote Laboratories: Design of Experiments and Their Web Implementation

This paper discusses the technical considerations and pedagogical issues that influence the design and classification of hardware-based experiments and their implementation in an internet-based remote laboratory environment for technical education. The necessary architecture to maintain academic integrity and imparting quality laboratory education via remote laboratories involving the instructor, faculty, and the students has been discussed. Online laboratory teaching and learning may be augmented by adding voice/multimedia protocols for teacher-student interaction. Pedagogical issues conducive for online laboratory instructions incorporating effective remote learning facilities that mimic the face-to-face interaction in conventional laboratory have been discussed. An online remote laboratory management system ensuring quality of service, security, automated laboratory report evaluation, and monitoring of student progress has been proposed. The main contribution of this paper is to develop a reference model which may help the educators and hardware-based laboratory module developers for electrical engineering disciplines.