Remote labs: State of the art

1
 Remote labs State of the art proposed
guidelines Christophe Gravier, Jacques
Fayolle, Bernard Bayard, Mikaël Ates, Jérémy
Lardonchristophe.gravier,jacques.fayolle,bernard
.bayard,mikael.ates,jeremy.lardon_at_univ-st-etienn
e.fr
first Workshop on Remote control of Device,
Lyon30th october 2007
2
Before we start ...

• ... context of this presentation
• We base our reflexion on our own experience in
  the field of remote labs
• Hence, we do not claim to hold the truth
• But to participate to the leverage of rlabs in
  online engineering by sharing our ideas

3
Why such a paper ?

• Regarding literature, Rlabs were slugging for
  some years
• While they are currently gaining a revival of
  interest
• This paper tries to identify what was a
   standard  remote lab 3 years earlier
• And what we expect a  standard  remote lab to
  be in the next 3 years ...

4
-laboratories classification

• Some classification
• Local Labs Students in front of the real
  appliance
• Remote Labs real devices accessed through the
  Internet
• Virtual Labs simulated hands-on approaches
• Online Labs Remote Labs as well as Virtual Labs
• Hybrid Labs Part of the hands-on approach is
  real, the remaining simulated

We focused on Remote Labs
Online labs
Local labs
remote labs
virtual labs
hybrid labs
5
Years of publication of papers in the review
6
Scientific field of papers in the review

• Some hands-on approaches (in chemistry, optics,
  astronomy,...) are more difficult to provide,
  compared to others (robotics, ...)?
• Rlabs are promoted by
• engineering schools Rlabs
• are closed to STEM(1) education

(1) The Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics
7
Software Architecture...

• There's no denying that a common software
  architecture emerged from the review

8
... but the underlying software varies

• Whereas Rlabs are expensive (money, time, skills,
  ...), usage of such different technologies
  suggests that few efforts are made for
  reusability !

9
Rlabs need interoperability

• In order to provide
• Rlabs interactions (workbenches),  Localization
  transparency 
• switching from one device to another without the
  user being noticed
• creation of online workbenches (several
  appliances involved in the same hands-on
  approach)?
• RLabs discovery
• avoid reinventing an existing remote lab

10
 Localization Transparency 
11
What if we put Rlabs in front of the  real
thing  ?

• Obviously, something is missing !

?
12
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)
within RLabs

• CSCL is a way of teaching that emerged with
  modern learning theories (constructivism)?
•  CSCL is ... concerned with ... the pratices
  of meaning-making in the context of joint
  activity...  (Koschmann 2002)?
• Although they are used in distance learning for
  courses and exercices, it is mostly ignored in
  current Rlabs platforms.

13
CRLab Collaborative Remote Labs

• Hands-on approaches contain cooperation but also
  collaboration (in the way Dillenbourg defined
  these terms Dillenbourg 1999)
• From our experience, students claim that
  Collaborative Rlabs ( CRLabs ) are enhancing
  their distance learning experience (82 of
  students)?

14
Exposing (C)Rlabs online

• We presented some guidelines for the evolution of
  Rlabs
• Nevertheless, there is still a pending issue How
  to expose (C)Rlabs online ?
• Usually, (C)Rlabs are exposed through dedicated
  web applications or stand alone clients
• Whereas lectures and online exercices are both
  exposed through Learning Management Systems
• Obviously, Rlabs should converge on LMS, for a
  better follow-up of students activities from
  lectures to hands-on approaches.

15
Conclusion

• From our point of view, the future or Rlabs will
  consist in
• Reusability
• Interoperability
• Synchronous collaboration among students
• Convergence with Learning Management Systems
• Some works already iniate the debate on these
  problems, there's although still so much to do !

16
Questions