Safety and Security in Federated Remote Labs – A Requirement Analysis

Abstract

Recently, the interest of the educational community in laboratory- (lab-) based education has grown steadily. As remote and virtual labs have started to be a reliable alternative to traditional hands-on labs, security and safety issues are becoming increasingly important, especially in the case of remote laboratories, as their interconnected nature raises new and challenging issues. When multiple institutions are involved in a federated labs infrastructure, the complexity increases. Since a structured approach to assess safety and security for federated remote labs is missing, this paper aims at clarifying the general requirements to be considered and proposes a general concept for assessing safety and security in federated labs. Firstly, we analyze the current state on safety and security in remote labs by means of a literature review. Secondly, we investigate existing requirements and define operational requirements for a safety and security guideline in federated remote labs. Thirdly, we provide an overview about standardization approaches and existing guidelines and suggest a guideline, which matches our requirements analysis.