VISIR: experiences and challenges

It is of crucial importance the integration of practical sessions in engineering curricula owing to their significant role in understanding engineering concepts and scientific phenomena. However, the lack of practical sessions due to the high costs of the equipment and the unavailability of instructors has caused a significant declination in experimentation in engineering education. Remote laboratories have tackled this issues providing online reusable and shared workbenches unconstrained by neither geographical nor time considerations. Thereby, they have extremely proliferated among universities and integrated into engineering curricula over the last decade. This contribution compiles diverse experiences based on the deployment of the remote laboratory, Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR), on the practices of undergraduate engineering grades at various universities within the VISIR community. It aims to show the impact of its usage on engineering education concerning the assessments of students and teachers as well. In addition, the paper address the next challenges and future works carried out at several universities within the VISIR community

Perspectivas de los Laboratorios Remotos en la Educación Media y Superior de Santiago del Estero

El presente artículo tiene como principal objetivo averiguar las perspectivas de los laboratorios remotos en la educación superior y media técnica, con especialidad en electricidad y electrónica, de la ciudad de Santiago del Estero. Motiva este estudio, la instalación de un Laboratorio Remoto VISIR en la Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero. Argentina, puesto a disposición de las instituciones de nivel superior y media técnica de la ciudad de Santiago del Estero y con la posibilidad de brindar un servicio del más alto nivel, ajustado a las limitaciones del laboratorio remoto. La metodología utilizada es el Estudio por Encuesta y el instrumento para recolección de datos, el cuestionario. Los resultados indican una aceptación pedagógica del concepto y uso de Laboratorio Remoto. Este estudio sería un punto de partida para investigaciones posteriores que aborden temáticas cada vez más complejas, tales como, la relación entre el rendimiento académico de los alumnos y el uso de laboratorios remotos y/o el incremento en las vocaciones por el estudio de carreras de ingeniería.N/

Federated Electronic Practical Resources using PILAR as VISIR Integrated Tool

Practical training is a pillar in technical education. Traditionally, these benefits have been acquired through hands-on laboratory sessions. However, at present, the educational models trend to rely on distance education tools either totally (e-learning, m-learning, etc.) or partially (b-learning). To provide practical training in those educational scenarios is challenging. Remote laboratories --real laboratories, working on real systems and under real conditions, controlled remotely-- can play a fundamental role. Nevertheless, remote laboratories not only provide advantages, but disadvantages of both environments involved in the process: real laboratories and remote communications. Furthermore, remote laboratories add new limitations due to constructive constraints. VISIR (Virtual Instruments System In Reality) is a remote laboratory on top of the state of the art for wiring and measuring electrical and electronics circuits, but VISIR system has his own particular restrictions like any other remote lab. In this context, PILAR (Platform Integration of Laboratories based on the Architecture of visiR) Erasmus Plus project development aims for a federation of five of the existing VISIR nodes in Europe: Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED), University of Deusto (UDEUSTO), Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (CUAS), School of Engineering of Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP). This paper describes the benefits that PILAR project will provide to the consortium, and how these physical constraints of the VISIR system can be compensated through the federation, after one year and a half of the project development and having the first draft of the federation and weebsite running.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

From Technology Enhanced Learning to Ethics and Critical Thinking as part of the Engineering Education: Skill Driven with Humanities Comprehension Editorial

It is a great pleasure to contribute some words to the debate about Engineering Education as well as to broaden the discussion about the future evolution of this discipline in which we were involved in the last fifteen years. One of us is in his last period of a professional life full of research and the other one still in the early stages of a career in engineering education. Both of us come from different backgrounds and have different visions which are complementing each other. Therefore, we are striving to develop new actions and activities inside this amazing discipline

From Technology Enhanced Learning to Ethics and Critical Thinking as part of the Engineering Education: Skill Driven with Humanities Comprehension Editorial

It is a great pleasure to contribute some words to the debate about Engineering Education as well as to broaden the discussion about the future evolution of this discipline in which we were involved in the last fifteen years. One of us is in his last period of a professional life full of research and the other one still in the early stages of a career in engineering education. Both of us come from different backgrounds and have different visions which are complementing each other. Therefore, we are striving to develop new actions and activities inside this amazing discipline

Laboratory as a Service (LaaS): a Model for Developing and Implementing Remote Laboratories as Modular Components

The increasing adoption of remote laboratories in education along with the shift from eLearning 2.0 towards eLearning 3.0, have demanded several considerations in their implementation and delivery format. In response to these needs, this contribution introduces a novel model, Laboratory as a Service (LaaS), for developing remote laboratories as independent component modules and implementing them as a set of loosely-coupled services to be consumed with a high level of abstraction and virtualization. LaaS aims to tackle the common concurrent challenges in remote laboratories developing and implementation such as inter-institutional sharing, interoperability with other heterogeneous systems, coupling with heterogeneous services and learning objects, difficulty of developing, and standardization. Beyond the academic context, LaaS will facilitate the incorporation of remote laboratories in the ecosystem of the ubiquitous smart things surrounding us, which increases everyday with the approaching Web of Things (WoT) and artificial intelligence era. This, in turn, will create a breeding ground for online control, experimentation, and discovery—in either formal or informal context and with neither temporal nor geographical constraints

Exploring IoT Vulnerabilities in a Comprehensive Remote Cybersecurity Laboratory

With the rapid proliferation of Internet of things (IoT) devices across various sectors, ensuring robust cybersecurity practices has become paramount. The complexity and diversity of IoT ecosystems pose unique security challenges that traditional educational approaches often fail to address comprehensively. Current curricula may provide theoretical knowledge but typically lack the practical components necessary for students to engage with real-world cybersecurity scenarios. This gap hinders the development of proficient cybersecurity professionals capable of securing complex IoT infrastructures. To bridge this educational divide, a remote online laboratory was developed, allowing students to gain hands-on experience in identifying and mitigating cybersecurity threats in an IoT context. This virtual environment simulates real IoT ecosystems, enabling students to interact with actual devices and protocols while practicing various security techniques. The laboratory is designed to be accessible, scalable, and versatile, offering a range of modules from basic protocol analysis to advanced threat management. The implementation of this remote laboratory demonstrated significant benefits, equipping students with the necessary skills to confront and resolve IoT security issues effectively. Our results show an improvement in practical cybersecurity abilities among students, highlighting the laboratory’s efficacy in enhancing IoT security education

Electronics remote lab integration into a MOOC – Achieving practical competences into MOOCs

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) phenomenon introduces a new philosophy in educational models. Regardless of users’/students’ motivation when enrolling (lifelong learning, educational support, interest in new educational areas, etc.), MOOCs expand the ways of reaching knowledge. Flexibility is one of the key aspects of this new educational methodology. This flexibility has to be expanded/translated to all the aspects/features of the course. For educational institutions, traditional approaches must be left behind when designing courses and must provide a new approach to educational process. MOOCs fit very well to several areas of knowledge. However, they involve significant challenges for science MOOCs to be really effective, especially in developing courses. These educational challenges are highlighted in courses which need to offer practice-oriented learning in order to build successful crosscurricular capabilities and abilities. Nowadays, educational institutions trust in experimentation as one of the pillars in which learning is based. In fact, theoretical models used in books and in traditional classrooms just try to bring closer to students the actual behavior of real systems. Unfortunately, it is not possible to provide students with a laboratory in a totally/one hundred percent remote learning environment. This paper deals with the results of the integration of a remote laboratory in a MOOC; how it has been taken advantage of VISIR pros and how its cons have been solved, as well as the evolution of the global system (LMS+VISIR) in continuous improvement.N/