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Universities and medical companies face constantly the challenge of developing protective or adaptive countermeasures for the purpose of training new students and employees in the use of their laboratories and the assimilation of complex experimental methods. Yet the existing space and time limitations along with the high cost and sensitivity of so...
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... They provide a safe space for practice and experimentation based on trial and error, eliminating the fear of causing damage to laboratory equipment [5][6][7][8]. Furthermore, the costs associated with maintaining laboratory equipment and samples are considerably reduced thanks to VLs [9,10]. In these environments, researchers can work with precise digital replicas of cells created using scanning or 3D modeling techniques [1,11]. ...
... Within the virtual world of the animal and plant cell, a space is built that allows validating the acquired knowledge; that is why a puzzle based on a mini-game is integrated that allows the student to recognize each of the cell components as requested by the application, after which, once the learning challenge is completed, it is averaged based on the hits to show the student what they have learned about the proposed study. This didactic alternative is integrated since a game provides the student with an interactive simulation where no limitations are imposed regarding the number of attempts, allowing them to experiment and make as many mistakes as they wish without fear of causing damage to the resources offered by VR [10]. ...
This research presents an immersive virtual laboratory for cellular study and microscopy utilizing Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. This project entails a thorough examination of the operation of a real-world microscope, followed by replicating its functionalities within a virtual environment. We strive to create an engaging and pedagogically sound learning experience by incorporating multi-modal cues and interactive activities. Our developed virtual laboratory exhibits a variety of cell types—including human, animal, and plant cells—enabling learners to visualize and manipulate these cells. Our research highlights the effectiveness of user-friendly, intuitive interfaces in enhancing cellular visualization.Additionally, the system features interactive educational activities, such as puzzles and games, designed to promote a deeper understanding and long-term retention of cellular components. We also implemented strategies to mitigate VR-induced side effects, like motion sickness, ensuring a smooth learning experience. The resulting immersive laboratory protects students from the risk of damaging physical equipment and promotes a robust understanding of the subject matter. This paper offers valuable insights into the development of a practical virtual laboratory, acting as a helpful guide for future educational VR applications.
... Onlabs's first version 0.1 was evaluated by undergraduate biology students at HOU with the System Usability Questionnaire (SUS) for systems engineering, developed by John Brooke of Digital Equipment Corporation in Great Britain, in 1996(Brooke, 1996. The feedback received was encouraging; Onlabs was evaluated as easy to use while the students who used it improved their performance in the physical lab afterwards (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014(Zafeiropoulos et al., , 2016. Versions 0.2, 0.2.1 and 0.2.3 were also evaluated, this time by other universities' undergraduate students as well as high school teachers in various disciplines of science, making use of the same, yet now adjusted, questionnaire. ...
... The human user can alter those feature values directly, by performing various actions on the respective entities, or indirectly, by performing actions on other entities which get their features' values altered and those value changes cause in turn the values of the desired features of the entities on focus to change, too. For example, pressing the microscope's AC switch changes the latter's state feature from 'ON' to 'OFF' while using the microscope's plug with the socket changes the microscope entity's connection status feature from "disconnected" to "connected to socket" (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014(Zafeiropoulos et al., , 2016. ...
Science universities are constantly confronted with the challenge of offering efficient lab training to their students while securing their safety and protecting the lab equipment from damages; hence the needs for the development of distance learnings tool for students to be trained virtually and safely in using the various lab instruments and performing experiments. Furthermore, as the students are evaluated for their laboratory performance at the on-site labs, the need for their assessment at the virtual labs is also present; hence the need for an incorporated assessment mechanism in the virtual lab in charge of the evaluation of the user’s performance. For the assessment mechanism to be reliable though and devoid of the designer’s bias, it may need calibration with machine learning. Hellenic Open University has developed its own virtual biology laboratory, Onlabs, which simulates its on-site one for its students to be trained and evaluated at. Considering the evaluation of the user’s performance in Onlabs, it is made with respect to particular experiments and is based on an embedded scoring algorithm. The latter has also been optimized with the use of two separate machine learning methods, particularly a genetic algorithm and an artificial neural network. Moreover, within the context of the experimental procedure of microscoping, the scoring algorithm was redesigned in a hierarchical fashion in order to incorporate background knowledge about the procedure. In this paper, we present the two machine learning methods used for the optimization of the assessment mechanism in a non-hierarchical and a hierarchical variation and compare the results within a particular variation as well as within a particular method.
... Additional problems are being contributed by other Greek universities, including the School of Science and Technology of the Hellenic Open University and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Crete. One of the activities involves the OnLabs (2016) digital application developed by the Hellenic Open University, which constitutes an adventure game that simulates the use of a biology lab (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014). The application can be deployed in the context of wider lab activities to familiarise students with the function of the lab's equipment, such as the Optonic microscope, before being exposed to the actual lab facilities. ...
Learning is an inherently individual process that depends on the learner’s profile, that is his/her pre-existing knowledge, abilities, skills, competences, motivation, etc. The black-box behavioural approach that expected learners to perform identically when facing similar educational constructs did not take into account previous experiences affecting that learning experience. That industrial, one-size-fits-all, educational approach mostly delivered passively through lectures and repetitions has been demonstrated not to be efficient and to fail to develop abilities, skills and competencies required for professional life. Active learning corresponds basically to any pedagogical method that requires and fosters the involvement of learners in their learning process and therefore recognises and promotes their personal experiences in social contexts. These methods develop learners’ skills and competencies beyond the immediate achievement by allowing them to reach higher cognitive levels. In this book, we give an overview of how active learning can be scaffolded in different ways, and we present cases and examples of how technology can foster the uptake and efficiency of such methods. The book focuses on higher education once, as incredible it may seem, most institutions at this level still rely heavily on passive expositive methods.
... Additional problems are being contributed by other Greek universities, including the School of Science and Technology of the Hellenic Open University and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Crete. One of the activities involves the OnLabs (2016) digital application developed by the Hellenic Open University, which constitutes an adventure game that simulates the use of a biology lab (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014). The application can be deployed in the context of wider lab activities to familiarise students with the function of the lab's equipment, such as the Optonic microscope, before being exposed to the actual lab facilities. ...
This chapter discusses the role of agile software development methods and design thinking in university education. We will discuss the combination of agile and design thinking methods in software and media engineering education. The approaches of project-based learning and agile methods intermingled into various learning contexts are presented and discussed. The knowledge gathered from a series of experimental modules at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki is brought together into a summary.
... Additional problems are being contributed by other Greek universities, including the School of Science and Technology of the Hellenic Open University and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Crete. One of the activities involves the OnLabs (2016) digital application developed by the Hellenic Open University, which constitutes an adventure game that simulates the use of a biology lab (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014). The application can be deployed in the context of wider lab activities to familiarise students with the function of the lab's equipment, such as the Optonic microscope, before being exposed to the actual lab facilities. ...
Approaches and methodologies that promote and trigger twenty-first century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, from self-employment to entrepreneurship, sustainability and responsibility of climate have been current topics in media, in funding resources and scientific research. One of the approaches which has been provided as partial solution is design thinking combined with agile and lean methodologies. This chapter provides an overview of the background of agile and lean methods and design thinking in educational institutes inspired by industries’ practices. The chapter starts by discussing the reasons for engineering practices need to be renewed after which brief background on evolvement of agile and lean methodologies in higher education institutions are presented. The chapter then focusses on the background and needs of design and highlights good practices and risks.
... On the other hand, 44% of students said they less agree with the statement about the number of practicum equipment that is sufficient with the number of students who carry out the practicum in the laboratory and 11% of students said they disagree with the statement. The low ratio between the number of practicum tools and students is a major problem causing students to lack practical experience in learning [14,15]. The learning process is not optimal because of the minimal availability of laboratory equipment [16]. ...
This study aims to determine student perceptions of air conditioning practicum services in vocational education. The scope of practicum services study is laboratory facilities, human resources, and laboratory support components. This study uses survey methods to obtain data and quantitative descriptive methods to analyze data. The type of data in this study is mainly based on the responses of respondents representing the population of refrigeration and air conditioning study programs at a vocational education institution in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The results show that laboratories in vocational education can serve air conditioning practicum with good results. This study shows that laboratory facilities, human resources, and laboratory support components in vocational education can accommodate the implementation of air conditioning practices. In general, students stated that air conditioning practicum activities in the laboratory could be carried out well, even though the ratio between the number of equipment and students was still low and the evaluation of practicum activities was not yet comprehensive.
... Zafeiropoulos et al., in a 2014 paper, shows that universities and medical companies often face the challenge of develop protective and adaptive tools to train new students or employees in the usage of their laboratories. The equipment inside the laboratories can be sensitive, expensive and sometimes dangerous, in this way it is not affordable for trainees to make improper usage to learn under a trial-and-error approach [43]. In contrast, the authors explain that those learning approaches by reading and writing about educational subjects, helps students to assimilate 10% of the content while learning by doing is more assertive arriving until 75% as assimilate rate of a content -as shown by classical Bloom's Taxonomy. ...
One of the main barriers for Educational Game (EG) to properly fulfill the specific pedagogical, cultural and technical requirements that are often unique to each situation is the difficulty of reusing and adapting them to different educational contexts. In this sense, open EGs could facilitate reuse and adaptation, once they follow the openness principles. This paper provides a systematic review of Open Educational Games (OEG) designed specifically for teaching computer programming and computational logic. It has been identified that most authors find the issue of reusing and adapting EGs following the openness philosophy as very important, but even them fail to use open tools in game development. We conclude that most articles recommend using component based development, reuse and adaptation, but reuse still does not happen in a practical sense. Also, the amount of studies on EGs for teaching programming is low in the scientific literature, and most open EGs available on the Internet are not documented nor have some associated published paper. Thus, reuse and adaptation may even occur, but without scientific documentation and publication .
... Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems are very useful as complementary educational tools, especially in the context of conducting scientific experiments in a wet lab -with the term "wet lab" usually associated with biology and chemistry (Karakasidis, 2013;Bonde et al., 2014;Heradio et al., 2016;Paxinou et al., 018a). Merging virtual reality technologies with interaction has shown to be rather rewarding in laboratory training (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014). ...
... Onlabs simulates biology experiments like the microscopy procedure, the preparation of aqueous solutions and the protein electrophoresis. When using Onlabs the learner navigates in the virtual environment, operates various instruments and conducts biology experiments (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014). Onlabs has been used as a supplementary educational material for students to be prepared for experiments in their real wet lab. ...
One of the most challenging tasks in Extended Reality based environments is the creation of realistic, interactive and attractive simulation with personalised content, without overlooking the main purpose of the system, which, in our case, is education. This paper introduces the XRLabs platform, which is an Extended Reality platform to assist in the training of students in all educational levels, focusing on the use of simulation for wet laboratories. Within this framework, the proposed systems are based on cutting-edge Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality (Extended Reality) technologies. We adopted gamification methods and simulation to enhance the conventional educational practices in laboratories. The highly interactive platform will allow students to enjoy sustainable edutainment experiences, especially in distance/online learning contexts for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
... Onlabs is an interactive 3D Virtual Environment simulating the biology lab of the Hellenic Open University. It is used for training 1 Released by Eyelead, a computer game company based in Athens, Greece. biology students in making appropriate use of the laboratory equipment and conducting experiments. ...
... Onlabs's website 2 contains general information about the project, while our previous works [1] [2] give a detailed description of the conceptual modelling and the development process of the software. In the website, one can also download and play as well as evaluate Onlabs's latest version (v2.1). ...
... Preliminary version 0.1 of Onlabs was evaluated by several undergraduate biology students at Hellenic Open University with the use of System Usability Questionnaire (SUS) for systems engineering, developed by John Brooke of Digital Equipment Corporation in Great Britain, in 1986 [3]. The evaluation results were positive, as most students found Onlabs easy to handle as well as they improved their performance in the on-site laboratory after using the application [1]. Later versions 0.2, 0.2.1 and 0.2.3 were evaluated by undergraduate students and high school teachers in various science fields using again the same questionnaire and prompting similar results. ...
Onlabs is an interactive 3D Virtual Biology Laboratory used for the training of students in making proper use of the lab equipment and carrying out various experiments. In Onlabs, among other tasks, the user needs to create various solutions and mix them at fixed ratios in order to produce 500ml of 10X TBE solution; hence the need for realistic simulations of the respective chemistry procedures including precise quantitative representation and measurements of liquid volumes. In this paper, we present the techniques we have designed and developed in Onlabs's latest version (v. 2.1) for the realistic, yet relatively costless, simulation of the liquids inside various vessels as well as the liquid transfer between them with the use of an electronic pipette.
... It's associated with their first experience in learning, thinking and problems solving [6][7]. Limitations of learning resources and laboratory equipment have always been the main problem cause of students not gaining practical experience in learning [8][9]. The learning process becomes not optimal, because laboratorium devices are inadequate. ...
