Abstract
Easy JavaScript Simulations (EJsS) is an open-source tool that allows teachers with limited programming experience to straightforwardly bundle an interactive computer science or engineer simulation in an HTML+ JavaScript webpage. Its prominent place in Physics (where it has won several prizes) should not hinder its application in other fields (such as building the front-end of remote laboratories or learning analytics) after having adapted part of the functionality of EJsS to them. To facilitate the future inclusion of new functionalities in EJsS, this paper presents a new version of this tool that allows the enhancement of EJsS, letting it incorporate new tools and change its graphical user interface, by means of extension plugins (special software libraries). To illustrate the benefits of this distributable self-contained non-intrusive strategy, the paper (a) discusses the new methodological possibilities that the Plugins bring to EJsS developers and users, and (b) presents three plugins: one to support the plugin management and the others to easily set up a streamlined remote laboratory. Moreover, the paper also presents the main characteristics of that remote lab to allow readers take advantage of EJsS and the three plugins to set up new online experiments for their students quickly.
Highlights
Computer simulations are useful for teaching science and engineering, as they help students to establish relationships between the theoretical concepts and simplified/controlled versions of real-world scenarios [1,2]
To cover the functionalities related with the Plugins, the server Application Programming Interface (API) must expose several capabilities, including the users database management required by the Users Manager plugin, and reading/writing the values of the server objects that need to be accessible from the Remote Laboratory Manager plugin
Its versatility has been exploited in other fields, after extending its functionality. This works presents a standardized way to enhance Easy JavaScript Simulations (EJsS) functionality and Graphical User Interface (GUI) to new users based on Plugins
Summary
Computer simulations are useful for teaching science and engineering, as they help students to establish relationships between the theoretical concepts and simplified/controlled versions of real-world scenarios [1,2]. The initial goal of EJsS was to facilitate the creation of interactive scientific computer simulations, over the years it has found application in other fields, such as building the front-end of different remote labs [21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33] or for learning analytics [34] These new uses of EJsS have required that the developers of this tool, helped by some of its users with advanced programming capabilities, adapt/extend its functionality to/for the necessities of the new application domains.
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