Remote labs environments (RLE): a constructivist online experimentation in science, engineering, and information technology

Abstract

Since the invention of the Internet, many academicians, educators, and researches have been searching for effectual virtual lab experiments; however, the very nature of real experimentation was not possible or missing. Yet, in the past few years, many scholarly articles and published research reports claimed the availability of virtual laboratories that mimics real laboratory experimentations. Nonetheless, within these self-claimed virtual experiments' infrastructures, the elements of real experimentation-in comparison to conventional laboratories were far distant from constructing real experimentations online. Such a lack of real experimentation, over the internet, gave birth to an authentic leap beyond the limitations of antiquated virtual laboratories. The recent birth of Remote Labs Environment (RLE) at the Centre of Advanced Distance Education Technologies (CADET) brings with it a world of possibilities and innovative computing technologies. For this reason, this paper was written to inform and to set forth a discussion of RLE experiments. RLE brings into play a diverse state-of-the-art technologies including but not limited to: single-chip web server/controller hardware technologies, component object model (COM) software technologies, instructional design models and an embedded instructional cognitive subsystem (ICD), and in-house middleware applications. RLE's technology is systematically integrated into one unified computing system to help institute real experimentation environment online. All experiments presented in this paper were actually designed and implemented in CDA6316 grad course (embedded systems, taught by one of the authors of this paper). These experiments will be used in undergraduate engineering courses, where students get to manipulate experiments online and from different remote locations.