FORGE: An eLearning Framework for Remote Laboratory Experimentation on FIRE Testbed Infrastructure

The Forging Online Education through FIRE (FORGE) initiative provides educators and learners in higher education with access to world-class FIRE testbed infrastructure. FORGE supports experimentally driven research in an eLearning environment by complementing traditional classroom and online courses with interactive remote laboratory experiments. The project has achieved its objectives by defining and implementing a framework called FORGEBox. This framework offers the methodology, environment, tools and resources to support the creation of HTML-based online educational material capable accessing virtualized and physical FIRE testbed infrastruc- ture easily. FORGEBox also captures valuable quantitative and qualitative learning analytic information using questionnaires and Learning Analytics that can help optimise and support student learning. To date, FORGE has produced courses covering a wide range of networking and communication domains. These are freely available from FORGEBox.eu and have resulted in over 24,000 experiments undertaken by more than 1,800 students across 10 countries worldwide. This work has shown that the use of remote high- performance testbed facilities for hands-on remote experimentation can have a valuable impact on the learning experience for both educators and learners. Additionally, certain challenges in developing FIRE-based courseware have been identified, which has led to a set of recommendations in order to support the use of FIRE facilities for teaching and learning purposes

The LAB@FUTURE Project - Moving Towards the Future of E-Learning

This paper presents Lab@Future, an advanced e-learning platform that uses novel Information and Communication Technologies to support and expand laboratory teaching practices. For this purpose, Lab@Future uses real and computer-generated objects that are interfaced using mechatronic systems, augmented reality, mobile technologies and 3D multi user environments. The main aim is to develop and demonstrate technological support for practical experiments in the following focused subjects namely: Fluid Dynamics - Science subject in Germany, Geometry - Mathematics subject in Austria, History and Environmental Awareness – Arts and Humanities subjects in Greece and Slovenia. In order to pedagogically enhance the design and functional aspects of this e-learning technology, we are investigating the dialogical operationalisation of learning theories so as to leverage our understanding of teaching and learning practices in the targeted context of deployment

FORGE enabling FIRE facilities for the eLearning community

International audienceMany engineering students at third-level institutions across the world will not have the advantage of using real-world experimentation equipment, as the infrastructure and resources required for this activity are too expensive. This paper explains how the FORGE (Forging Online Education through FIRE) FP7 project transforms Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE) testbed facilities into educational resources for the eLearning community. This is achieved by providing a framework for remote experimentation that supports easy access and control to testbed infrastructure for students and educators. Moreover, we identify a list of recommendations to support development of eLearning courses that access these facilities and highlight some of the challenges encountered by FORGE

Providing equivalent learning activities with software-based remote access laboratories

Laboratory-based learning activities are important components of engineering and surveying education and it is difficult to offering practical activities to distance education students. Remote Access Laboratory (RAL) systems are widely discussed as learning tools to offer students remote access to rigs or hardware. In some disciplines laboratory activities are purely software based and RAL systems can be used to provide access to software. As part of a larger study into the transferability of the remote laboratory concept to non-engineering disciplines this project evaluates the effectiveness of RAL based software activities in supporting student learning is investigated. In the discipline of Surveying and Spatial Science, RAL technology is used to provide Geographic Information System software access to distance students. The key research question discussed in this paper is whether RALbased software activities can address the same learning outcomes as face-to-face practical classes for software activities. Data was collected from students' discussion forums, teaching staff diaries and teaching staff interviews. The project demonstrates that students undertaking learning activities remotely achieve similar learning outcomes than student in practice classes using the same software. Ease of system access and usability are critical and the learning activity needs to be supported by comprehensive learning materials. This research provides a clear case in which the use of RAL technology has provided inclusive educational opportunities more efficiently and these general results are also applicable to experiments that involve physical hardware

To enhance collaborative learning and practice network knowledge with a virtualization laboratory and online synchronous discussion

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internatinal License.Recently, various computer networking courses have included additional laboratory classes in order to enhance students' learning achievement. However, these classes need to establish a suitable laboratory where each student can connect network devices to configure and test functions within different network topologies. In this case, the Linux operating system can be used to operate network devices and the virtualization technique can include multiple OSs for supporting a significant number of students. In previous research, the virtualization application was successfully applied in a laboratory, but focused only on individual assignments. The present study extends previous research by designing the Networking Virtualization-Based Laboratory (NVBLab), which requires collaborative learning among the experimental students. The students were divided into an experimental group and a control group for the experiment. The experimental group performed their laboratory assignments using NVBLab, whereas the control group completed them on virtual machines (VMs) that were installed on their personal computers. Moreover, students using NVBLab were provided with an online synchronous discussion (OSD) feature that enabled them to communicate with others. The laboratory assignments were divided into two parts: Basic Labs and Advanced Labs. The results show that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in two Advanced Labs and the post-test after Advanced Labs. Furthermore, the experimental group's activities were better than those of the control group based on the total average of the command count per laboratory. Finally, the findings of the interviews and questionnaires with the experimental group reveal that NVBLab was helpful during and after laboratory class

Lessons taught and learned from the operation of the solar energy e-learning laboratory

The solar energy e learning laboratory (solar e-lab) in Cyprus is a good example of a web-based, remote engineering laboratory. It comprises a pilot solar energy conversion plant which is equipped with all necessary instrumentation, data acquisition, and communication devices needed for remote access, control, data collection and processing. The impact that the solar e-lab had during its nearly 5 years of operation is indeed high. Throughout this period, the solar e-lab has been accessed by users from over 500 locations from 79 countries spread all over the world. In the period of November 2004 to October 2008, more than a million visits were recorded, out of which 25000 have registered on the site and surfed through studying the supplied material. Around 1000 hits concerned registered users that passed the pre-lab test and performed the experimentation part. The four years of operation of the solar e-lab demonstrated how the Internet can be used as a tool to make the laboratory facilities accessible to engineering students and technicians located outside the laboratory, including overseas. In this way, the solar energy e-learning lab, its equipment and experimental facilities were made available and shared by a number of interested people, thus widening educational experiences. Judging from the online evaluation reports that were received from the solar e-lab users during the last 2 years of operation, it can be concluded that there is nearly excellent satisfaction by the users

Managing big data experiments on smartphones

The explosive number of smartphones with ever growing sensing and computing capabilities have brought a paradigm shift to many traditional domains of the computing field. Re-programming smartphones and instrumenting them for application testing and data gathering at scale is currently a tedious and time-consuming process that poses significant logistical challenges. Next generation smartphone applications are expected to be much larger-scale and complex, demanding that these undergo evaluation and testing under different real-world datasets, devices and conditions. In this paper, we present an architecture for managing such large-scale data management experiments on real smartphones. We particularly present the building blocks of our architecture that encompassed smartphone sensor data collected by the crowd and organized in our big data repository. The given datasets can then be replayed on our testbed comprising of real and simulated smartphones accessible to developers through a web-based interface. We present the applicability of our architecture through a case study that involves the evaluation of individual components that are part of a complex indoor positioning system for smartphones, coined Anyplace, which we have developed over the years. The given study shows how our architecture allows us to derive novel insights into the performance of our algorithms and applications, by simplifying the management of large-scale data on smartphones