Cloud and WebRTC based Laboratory Solution for Practical Work in Computer Science for a Traditional University

Abstract

This paper first presents the difficulties for a classical university in Africa in general and in Senegal in particular, to carry out practical work in class, i.e. from a local laboratory or a physical location. These difficulties are linked to several economic, material and human factors. Thus, this paper first proposes to study a model of laboratories for online practical work applicable in several areas of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Then, for the practical implementation of the laboratory, the authors are interested in practical computer science work for development and network environments. The objective of this paper is therefore to implement a virtual laboratory that will allow students to create remote work in IT using the cloud to improve the performance, availability and scalability of existing practical work. The type of laboratory proposed is essentially based on virtual machines accessible via a web platform created and connected with the cloud that contains these virtual machines. It is also dynamic and flexible, i.e. the teacher, from this platform, first makes a request to the cloud administrator to create machines for a specific type of practical work for a group of students. Then, the teacher places in the platform the instructions of the practical work visible to the students. At this stage, the students will connect to the platform for the realization of the practical work with virtual machines following the instructions given by the teacher. The teacher’s monitoring and supervision of the practical work in synchronous or asynchronous mode is also ensured. The integration of WebRTC technology allows instant discussion between the learner and the teacher during practical work.