An internet of laboratory things

By creating “an Internet of Laboratory Things” we have built a blend of real and virtual laboratory spaces that enables students to gain practical skills necessary for their professional science and engineering careers. All our students are distance learners. This provides them by default with the proving ground needed to develop their skills in remotely operating equipment, and collaborating with peers despite not being co-located. Our laboratories accommodate state of the art research grade equipment, as well as large-class sets of off-the-shelf work stations and bespoke teaching apparatus. Distance to the student is no object and the facilities are open all hours. This approach is essential for STEM qualifications requiring development of practical skills, with higher efficiency and greater accessibility than achievable in a solely residential programme

PERSEPSI MAHASISWA TERHADAP PENGGUNAAN SISTEM REMOTE LAB UNTUK PRAKTIKUM OTOMASI INDUSTRI

Remote lab merupakan teknologi yang memungkinkan mahasiswa untuk melakukan praktikum secara jarak jauh dengan menggunakan internet. Keterbatasan waktu dan tempat dari laboratorium tradisional dapat diatasi menggunakan sistem remote lab. Website (berbasis Moodle) dan remote desktop digunakan untuk mengendalikan alat praktikum yang ada di dalam laboratorium. Sistem remote lab memiliki sistem booking yang dapat dipilih oleh mahasiswa. Model penerimaan teknologi (Technology Acceptance Model) diadaptasi untuk mengetahui persepsi mahasiswa tentang penggunaan sistem remote lab pada praktikum otomasi industri. Hasil wawancara menunjukan bahwa sistem remote lab dapat mengatasi keterbatasan waktu dan tempat dari laboratorium tradisional. Lebih jauh lagi, sistem remote lab berpotensi besar untuk digunakan pada kegiatan praktiukum.-----Remote lab is a technology that allows students to do practicum remotely using the internet.The limited time and place of the hands-on laboratory can be overcome using the remote lab system. Websites (Moodle based) and remote desktops are used to control the plant inside the laboratory. The remote lab system has a booking system that students can choose from. Laptops and computers can be used to control and see the performance of the plant inside the lab. The remote lab system has been assigned to a group of students. The technology acceptance model is adapted to find out the students' perceptions of the use of remote lab systems in industrial automation practice. The results of interview indicate that the remote lab system can overcome the limitations of time and place from the laboratory. Furthermore, the remote lab system is potentially large for use in the practicum process

Accommodating disability in higher education: a closer look at the evidence for a mainstream framework of learning support

In a recently published research article in this journal, Avramidis & Skidmore (2004) argued that it is time we placed issues of disability provision more in the context of provision for the generic student. They presented a study based on the Learning for All Questionnaire (LfAQ), which investigated certain implied issues. Findings indicated a need for improved educational provision for all students. No differences were found between disabled and non-disabled students in perceived level of needs or support for university, tutoring and lecturing systems. This null finding was the same for the learning support needs of disabled versus non-disabled students, with both groups wanting identical changes to the way the university's central learning support service responds to learning needs. These findings were taken as calling for a move away from a ‘specialist’ framework of disability provision and towards a ‘mainstream’ framework instead, in which the needs of disabled students are accommodated within improvements made in learning for all. Further, the Disabled Students' Allowance should be given over to departments in order to help fund this change in ‘institutional habitus’. In this article, four serious failings of the study and analyses are outlined. When these are addressed in a disability-theoretic reanalysis of the LfAQ data, every main finding is reversed. It is concluded that educational provisions are generally adequate. Students would welcome changes but these are more to do with increasing levels of convenience rather than learning support issues. Furthermore, the LfAQ data actually refute rather than support a mainstream framework of disability provision

State of the Art About Remote Laboratories Paradigms - Foundations of Ongoing Mutations

9 pages. Litterature review made fall 2007 on exisiting Remote Laboratories approaches and technologies.International audienceIn this paper, we provide a literature review of modern remote laboratories. According to this state-of-theart, we explain why remote laboratories are at a technological crossroad, whereas they were slugging for a decade. From various observations based on our review, we try to identify possible evolutions for the next generation of remote laboratories

Remote controlled experiments for teaching over the Internet: A comparison of approaches developed in the PEARL project

The PEARL project has been developing approaches for enabling real-world experiments to be conducted by students working, remotely from the laboratory, over the Internet. This paper describes these approaches and compares and contrasts three specific implementations of them both at the level of the nature of the practical work they support and the technical infrastructures that enables this to be conducted remotely. Initial evaluations by experts and representative student subjects are reported and key lessons for further development work by the project consortium, or others seeking to implement remote experiments, are outlined. Among the lessons learnt is that engineering realities associated with the equipment being used were difficult to accommodate in the generic architecture we initially envisaged. In fact the three implementations described adopted different architecture in their realisation of the PEARL approach. These are commented on in the paper together with notes on their implementation given available technologies

A remotely-operated facility for evaluation of post-combustion CO2 capture technologies on industrial sites

ACTTROM (Advanced Capture Testing in a Transportable Remotely-Operated Minilab) is a transportable test facility for bench-scale evaluation of postcombustion CO2 capture technologies using real industrial flue gases. It is designed to be remote-operable, requiring visits only once per month for maintenance and sample collection. ACTTROM is the first facility of its kind, owned and operated by academia for collaborative research in an industrial environment, and this has resulted in a number of unique developments to facilitate remote operation at an industrial host site. Specifically, it has been necessary to design the unit to automatically correct or mitigate the effects of fault conditions, and to be remotely-monitored via a user interface at 24 hour intervals

The complex interaction between Global Production Networks, Digital Information Systems and International Knowledge Transfers

Traditionally many studies of knowledge in economics have focused on localized networks and intra-regional collaborations. However, the rising frequency by which firms collaborate within the context of global networks of production and innovation, the increasingly intricate divisions of labor involved and the extensive use of the Internet to facilitate interaction are all relatively novel trends that underline the importance of knowledge creation and flows across different locations. Focusing on this topic, the present chapter examines the complex interactions between global production networks (GPN), digital information systems (DIS) and knowledge transfers in information technology industries. It seeks to disentangle the various conduits through which different kinds of knowledge are transferred within such networks, and investigate how recent generations of DIS are affecting those knowledge transfers. The paper concludes that the dual expansion of GPN and DIS is adding new complexity to the practice of innovation: To access knowledge necessary for sustained creativity firms often have to link up with remote partners in GPN, but to be able to absorb and utilize this knowledge, they also frequently have to engage in local interactive learning processes. These local- global linkages - and the various skills necessary to operate them - are strongly interdependent, mutually reinforcing and critical for the development and maintenance of innovation-based competitiveness.

I laboratori remoti e virtuali nella didattica delle STEM: questioni di ergonomia didattica.

I laboratori scientifici sono parte integrante dei percorsi formativi STEM e rappresentano un campo di ricerca pedagogica e didattica di estremo interesse. L’integrazione dei laboratori remoti e virtuali nei curricoli scientifici, accelerata anche dall’emergenza pandemica, ha spostato l’attenzione sull’efficacia delle tecnologie e della didattica laboratoriale digitale per migliorare l’acquisizione delle competenze scientifiche. Adottare una logica ergonomica nella progettazione di laboratori scientifici significa individuare specifici mediatori[1] per migliorare il rapporto tra interfaccia digitale (remota o virtuale) del laboratorio e processi di apprendimento dello studente e per potenziare la costruzione sociale e cooperativa delle conoscenze scientifiche.Scientific laboratories are an essential part of STEM education and represent an important field of pedagogical and didactic research. The integration of remote and virtual laboratories into science curricula, also accelerated by the pandemic emergency, has shifted the focus to the effectiveness of technology and digital laboratory teaching in enhancing the acquisition of scientific skills. Adopting an ergonomic logic in the design of science laboratories means identifying specific mediators to improve the relationship between the digital laboratory interface (remote or virtual) and the student’s learning processes and to enhance the social and cooperative construction of scientific knowledge[1] Mediatori intesi come dispositivi tecnici, normativi, umani o altr