Process of Adapting a Local Laboratory to Connect to an Online Laboratory System Based on Standard Definitions and Open Source Technologies

Abstract

Local educational laboratories are evolving from isolated resources into a more accessible, shareable and interoperable resources. Due to the flexibility of desktop, and mobile software development tools, developers can now easily add to the educational laboratory experiments; multimedia content such as: videos, text, animation, simulation, among others. Companies such as: Acrome, Quanser, Labs Land, among others, offer flexible educational Laboratory solutions for schools and universities in which the professor or laboratory manager can make a content selection and, in some cases, they can add their own content to the student’s laboratory interface. This paper develops a methodology for extending the educational local laboratories with online capabilities that enables the interoperability and integration within a e-learning ecosystem and presents a real case of adaptation of a local laboratory into a fully functional online remote laboratory.