Towards New Multiplatform Hybrid Online Laboratory Models

Online laboratories have traditionally been split between virtual labs, with simulated components; and remote labs, with real components. The former tend to provide less realism but to be easily scalable and less expensive to maintain, while the latter are fully real but tend to require a higher mai...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on learning technologies 2017-07, Vol.10 (3), p.318-330
Main Authors: Rodriguez-Gil, Luis, Garcia-Zubia, Javier, Orduna, Pablo, Lopez-de-Ipina, Diego
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Architecture
architectures
Business Administration Education
Client Server Architecture
College Students
Communications
Computer architecture
Computer simulation
Computer Software
Computers
Educational Experiments
Educational Technology
Engineering Education
Foreign Countries
Graphics
hybrid laboratories
HyperText Markup Language
Internet
Laboratories
Media
Remote laboratories
Security
Simulated Environment
Student Surveys
Technology Uses in Education
virtual environments
web-based architectures
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Online laboratories have traditionally been split between virtual labs, with simulated components; and remote labs, with real components. The former tend to provide less realism but to be easily scalable and less expensive to maintain, while the latter are fully real but tend to require a higher maintenance effort and be more error-prone. This technical paper describes an architecture for hybrid labs merging the two approaches, in which virtual and real components interact with each other. The goal is to leverage the advantages of each type of lab. The architecture is fully web-based and multiplatform, which is in line with the industry and the remote laboratory community trends. Only recently has this become technically feasible for graphic-intensive laboratories due to previous limitations in browser-based graphical technologies. This architecture relies on the recent HTML5 and WebGL standards to overcome these limitations, and makes use of the Unity technology. To ensure that the proposed architecture is suitable, we set requirements based on the literature, we compare it with other approaches, and we examine its scope, strengths, and weaknesses. Additionally, we illustrate it with a concrete hybrid lab and we evaluate its benefits and potential through educational experiments.
ISSN:1939-1382
1939-1382
2372-0050
DOI:10.1109/TLT.2016.2591953