Virtual and remote laboratories augment self learning and interactions: Development, deployment and assessments with direct and online feedback
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Emerging Technologies, Scientific Computing and Simulation, World Wide Web and Web Science, Software Engineering
- Keywords
- virtual laboratories, Internet and Communication Technologies, remote laboratories, pedagogy, elearning, distance education, blended learning
- Copyright
- © 2018 Kumar et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Virtual and remote laboratories augment self learning and interactions: Development, deployment and assessments with direct and online feedback. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26715v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26715v1
Abstract
Background. Over the last few decades, in developing nations including India, there have been rapid developments in information and communication technologies with progress towards sustainable development goals facilitating universal access to education. With the aim of augmenting laboratory skill training, India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)’s National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT), launched Virtual laboratories project, enabling professors and institutions to deliver interactive animations, mathematical simulators and remotely-controlled equipment for online experiments in biosciences and engineering courses. Towards that mission of improving teaching and learning quality and with a focus on improving access to users in geographically remote and economically constrained institutes in India, we developed and deployed over 30 web-based laboratories consisting of over 360 computer-based online experiments. This paper focuses on the design, development, deployment of virtual laboratories and assesses the role of online experiments in providing self-learning and novel pedagogical practices for user communities.
Methods. As part of deployment, we evaluated the role virtual laboratories in facilitating self-organized learning and usage perception as a teaching tool in a blended education system. Direct feedback data was collected through organized workshops from 386 university-level students, 192 final year higher secondary school (pre-university) students and 234 college professors from various places across India. We also included online feedback from 2012-2018 to interpret usage analysis and adaptability of virtual and remote labs by online users.
Results. More than 80% of students who used virtual laboratories scored higher in examinations compared to a control group. With 386 students, 80% suggested adapted to self-learning using virtual laboratories. 82% of university teachers who employ virtual laboratories indicated using them to complement teaching material and reduce teaching time. Increase in online usage and feedback suggests novel trends in incorporating online platforms as pedagogical tools.
Discussion. Feedback indicated virtual laboratories altered and enhanced student’s autonomous learning abilities and improved interaction in blended classrooms. Pedagogical analysis suggests the use of ICT-enabled virtual laboratories as a self-organized distance education learning platform for university and pre-university students from economically challenged or time-restrained environments. Online usage statistics indicated steady increase of new users on this online repository suggesting global acceptance of virtual laboratories as a complementing laboratory skill-training online repository.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ Computer Science for review.
Supplemental Information
Information on Virtual Laboratories and Usage data
The Virtual laboratories have more than 300,000 registered users as of February 28, 2018, with a steady increase of new users since 2012. In 2012, there were 13438 registered users and as of today (February 28) has 305327 users.
VL User feedback raw data
Data from online and workshop participants on the usage of the deployed virtual labs. The labs can be accessed freely from http://vlab.amrita.edu