The project is realized by blending emerging internet technology, software, computer interfacing, a cutting edge graphical user interface, effective pedagogical designs, and assessment and evaluation schemes. The developed environment has five major features:
Learning through remote laboratory.
Ease of integration with a range of STEM courses.
Real-time video and audio link with experiments.
Frequent student feedback.
Faculty/facilitator monitoring of student progress and activities.
The remote laboratory entails physical (real) laboratory equipment being controlled remotely. The developed environment will be validated by using this for offering two undergraduate level laboratory courses.
The tasks involved in the project are:
Design and development of a remote laboratory facility.
Design and development of a graphical user interface for faculty/facilitator.
Design and development of laboratory modules.
Utilization of the environment for offering target laboratory courses.
Apart from the principal investigator, two faculty experts will be involved with the development and implementation of the project. One of them is from educational psychology and the other is from pedagogical design. Provision is made to gather an extensive amount of data that will be analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the system, project implementation details, achieving student learning outcomes and students’ learning behavior. In the evaluation process, students, faculty, and program industrial advisory board members will be involved. Most of the data will be gathered through the environment’s built-in software-based features.