Abstract
E-learning and its hybrid counterpart—B-learning—have become standard tools in higher education. The development of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and their application to education has made this possible. Among ICT technologies, the learning management system (LMS) has been the most important development. Teaching labs have also undergone a technological evolution, enabling them to be used online while interacting closely with LMSs. This paper presents a set of procedures that ease the integration of Java and JavaScript laboratories with LMSs in order to obtain adaptive learning contents, which are presented customized to students based on their likes and results. It describes innovative tools implemented by us as a Java package, a JavaScript library, and associated resources that achieve an advanced Lab-LMS integration in a shared content object reference model (SCORM) environment. These resources simplify communications between the elements of an SCORM content package, including the embedded Web laboratory, and the LMS where they are hosted. This paper describes the tools, procedures, and discusses its possibilities and advantages, and shows the results of several use cases of Web Labs delivered to undergraduate engineering students at University of Jaen that prove the validity of the proposal obtaining adapted learning and good results.
Highlights
Experimental work is essential for science and engineering students
WebLabs where students work with a simulation based on a model of the real system are called virtual labs (VL); those where students work with real systems are called remote labs (RL); and those where students work with both simulations and real systems are called hybrid labs
WORK This work presented a set of innovative tools developed by the authors that simplify the communication between applications embedded in shared content object reference model (SCORM) modules and the Learning Management System (LMS) that hosts them
Summary
Experimental work is essential for science and engineering students. Lab work helps improve students’ practical understanding of the theoretical knowledge covered during classes. The lab software establishes communication with the LMS at runtime using a protocol that may have been developed ad hoc [15], [16] or may be based on an e-learning standard such as SCORM, the eXperience Application Programming Interface (API), Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) [17], OpenSocial [18] or ComputerManaged Instruction 5 (cmi5) [19] This integration level supports identification of students accessing the lab, but can use this identification to customize lab execution based on the individual student; the work carried out by each student can be controlled; and self-evaluations can be performed and their results registered in the LMS [20]. SCORM 1.2 includes only 49 items, but they have similar characteristics
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