Lab sessions in VISIR laboratories

Abstract

Experimental activities with real components are an essential part of all courses including or devoted to electrical and electronic circuits theory and practice. The knowledge triangle composed of hand-written exercises, simulations and traditional lab experiments has been enriched with the possibility for students to conduct real experiments over the Internet, using remote labs. This tutorial is devoted to one such remote lab named Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR). The Global Online Laboratory Consortium (GOLC) elected VISIR as the best remote controlled laboratory in the world, at the first time this distinction was awarded. At the end of this tutorial, attendees are expected to know what is VISIR, what can (not) be done with it, who is currently using it, and how can one integrate it in a given course curriculum.

Full text

Lab sessions in VISIR laboratories
Ingvar Gustavsson, Kristian Nilsson, Johan Zackrisson
Department of Signal Processing
Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
{ingvar.gustavsson, johan.zackrisson, kristian.nilsson}@bth.se
Gustavo R. Alves, André V. Fidalgo
School of Engineering
Polytechnic of Porto, Portugal
{gca, anf}@isep.ipp.pt
Lena Claesson
Katedralskolan Lund, Sweden
lenazclaesson@gmail.com
Javier García Zubía, Unai Hernández Jayo
University of Deusto, Spain
{zubia, unai.hernandez}@deusto.es
Manuel Castro, Gabriel Diaz Orueta, Felix García Loro
National Distance Education University, Spain
{mcastro, gdiaz, fgarcialoro}@ieec.uned.es
Abstract—Experimental activities with real components are
an essential part of all courses including or devoted to electrical
and electronic circuits theory and practice. The knowledge
triangle composed of hand-written exercises, simulations and
traditional lab experiments has been enriched with the possibility
for students to conduct real experiments over the Internet, using
remote labs. This tutorial is devoted to one such remote lab
named Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR). The
Global Online Laboratory Consortium (GOLC) elected VISIR as
the best remote controlled laboratory in the world, at the first
time this distinction was awarded. At the end of this tutorial,
attendees are expected to know what is VISIR, what can (not) be
done with it, who is currently using it, and how can one integrate
it in a given course curriculum.
Keywords— Remote labs; tutorial; experimental skills; electric
and electronic circuits; VISIR
I. INTRODUCTION
This tutorial will demonstrate that it is feasible to deliver
lab sessions in VISIR laboratories where the students as well as
the instructor are dispersed. It is composed of a selection of
experiments from sessions at the VISIR laboratories of the
Polytechnic of Porto (Portugal), University of Deusto (Spain),
National Distance Education University (Spain), and of the
Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden). The tutorial is
recommended for people who are familiar with lab sessions in
hands-on laboratories, especially students and teachers as well
as decision-makers, engaged in laboratory education. The
instructors are teachers doing research in the area of remote
laboratories and virtual instrumentation.
The tutorial / workshop layout and hyperlinks to
PowerPoint notes pages and material for the lab session, e.g.
excerpts from lab instruction manuals, are available at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I8Mtz120jJKYEhNw1O
9avKSjrr3M-MHXLdbhMD6Yrew/edit?usp=sharing. You are
recommended to read the material in advance as well as login
in and perform experiments. The tutorial will be delivered both
locally and in an Adobe Connect room hosted at BTH,
https://connect.sunet.se/visir. Please enter the room as a guest.
As a fall back position, there will be a second remote server
available at http://www.isep.ipp.pt/webconf. Access as a guest
is also possible in this second server.
In VISIR laboratories students are able to prepare and
execute experiments described in lab instruction manuals
remotely 24/7 within limits set by a teacher and to acquire
laboratory workmanship as well. The first experiments of this
tutorial demonstrate the capabilities of VISIR laboratories for
analogue electronics that supplement hands-on ones equipped
with workbenches comprising oscilloscope, function generator,
digital multi-meter, triple power supply, and a solderless
breadboard. A simple guided lab session will first allow
demonstrating how teachers and students can remotely perform
experiments with real components. Participants will be invited
to follow the experiment(s) in their own laptops, in a step-by-
step demo. They will be able to wire circuits on a virtual
breadboard displayed on the client screen, to setup real
instruments using virtual front panels, and to activate sources
to perform experiments on real hardware.
Today, thousands of students worldwide are using existing
VISIR laboratories, currently located in Sweden, Austria,
Spain, Portugal, India, and Georgia. The expansion to
Argentina and Brazil is also underway, thanks to the support of
the European Education, Culture and Audiovisual Executive
Agency (EACEA), Erasmus+ Programme, through its project
561735-EPP-1-2015-1-PT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP.
The goal is enabling students to meet the fundamental
objectives of engineering instructional laboratories defined in
2002 on an ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology) initiative. The second presentation will address
the use of VISIR in upper secondary schools and the third
presentation will address the use of VISIR with university
students, since 2009.
In the 2nd half of this tutorial / workshop, participants will
be invited to perform, on their own, a number of remote
experiments on VISIR. They will be assisted in this process, in
order to get familiar with the virtual breadboard and the virtual

instruments interfaces. A short presentation about the way
VISIR has been integrated into MOOCs and SPOCs will
follow the interactive labs session. A number of concluding
remarks will close the tutorial / workshop [1] [2]. The
workshop / tutorial agenda is included as an annex, together
with links to supporting material that is publicly available.
In addition, prospective attendees are also invited to consult
the extensive list of publications devoted to VISIR, in
particular:
• An extensive description of its architecture,
hardware components and software modules [3].
• How VISIR has been integrated into six different
courses, and served more than 1000 students, in
simultaneous, during one single semester [4] [5].
• How VISIR was used in a collaborative activity,
involving students and teachers form Palestine,
using the VISIR node installed at the Polytechnic
of Porto – School of Engineering, in Portugal [6]
[7]. The instructional design and the students’
evaluation are also described. A similar
experience, this time with teachers and students
from the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina
(IFSC), Brazil is described in [8].
• The previous collaborative aspects are initially
foreseen in [9]. Additionally, in [10], the first
discussions towards the creation of a federation of
VISIR nodes are also presented.
• The evaluation of VISIR, under different course
instructional designs and the feedback obtained
from teachers who used it (aiming for system’s
improvements) are presented in [11].
• The challenges and benefits of using VISIR in a
scenario combining hand-written (calculus)
exercises, simulations and real experiments in a
traditional hands-on laboratory is described in
[12].
• Finally, [13] and [14] compare data from the use
of VISIR in several Institutions of Higher
Education (IHE), in particular from 4 different
IHEs, over the last 5 years.
REFERENCES
[1] Tawfik, M., Monteso, S., Garcia-Loro, F., Sancristobal, E., Ruiz, E.,
Díaz, G., Colmenar Santos, A., Peire, J. and Castro, M. (2014), Novel
design and development of advanced remote electronics experiments.
Comput. Appl. Eng. Educ. doi: 10.1002/cae.21602, available at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cae.21602/abstract
[2] Mohamed Tawfik, Elio Sancristobal, Sergio Martin, Rosario Gil,
Gabriel Diaz, Antonio Colmenar, Juan Peire, Manuel Castro, Kristian
Nilsson, Johan Zackrisson, Lars Håkansson, and Ingvar Gustavsson.
2013. Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR) for Remote Wiring
and Measurement of Electronic Circuits on Breadboard. IEEE Trans.
Learn. Technol. 6, 1 (January 2013), 60-72.
DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TLT.2012.20
[3] Gustavsson, I.; “On Remote Electronics Experiments”, Chapter 7 in
“Using remote labs in education: two little ducks in remote
experimentation”, Javier García Zubía, Gustavo Alves R., (eds.) 2011,
ISBN 978-84-9830-335-3, pp. 157-176
[4] Marques, M.A.; Viegas, M.C.; Costa-Lobo, M.C.; Fidalgo, A.V.; Alves,
G.R.; Rocha, J.S.; Gustavsson, I., "How Remote Labs Impact on Course
Outcomes: Various Practices Using VISIR," Education, IEEE
Transactions on, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 151-159, Aug. 2014, doi:
10.1109/TE.2013.2284156
[5] Gustavo R. Alves, M. A. Marques, C. Viegas, M. C. Costa Lobo, R. G.
Barral, R. J. Couto, F. L. Jacob, C. A. Ramos, G. M. Vilão, D. S. Covita,
Joaquim Alves, P. S. Guimarães, and Ingvar Gustavsson, “Using VISIR
in a large undergraduate course: Preliminary assessment results”, 2nd
IEEE Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON’11) Amman,
Jordania, 4-6 April 2011, p. 1125-1132.
[6] Odeh, Salaheddin; Gustavo, Ribeiro Alves; Anabtawi, Mahasen; Jazi,
Mahran; Arekat, Mahmoud; Gustavsson, Ingvar, “Experiences with
Deploying VISIR at Al-Quds University”, 5th IEEE Engineering
Education Conference (EDUCON’14), Istanbul, Turkey, 3-5 April 2014.
[7] Odeh, S.; Alves, J.; Alves, G.R.; Gustavsson, I.; Anabtawi, M.; Arafeh,
L.; Jazi, M.; Arekat, M., "A Two-Stage Assessment of the Remote
Engineering Lab VISIR at Al-Quds University in Palestine,"
Tecnologias del Aprendizaje, IEEE Revista Iberoamericana de, vol.10,
no.3, pp.175-185, Aug. 2015. doi: 10.1109/RITA.2015.2452752
[8] Ferreira, Golberi; Lacerda, Joel; Schlichting, Luis; Gustavo, Ribeiro
Alves, “Enriched scenarios for Teaching and Learning Electronics”, XI
Congreso de Tecnologías, Aprendizage y Enseñanza de la Electrónica
(TAEE), Bilbao, España, 11-13 junio 2014.
[9] Gustavsson, I.; Nilsson, K.; Zackrisson, J.; Garcia-Zubia, J.; Hernandez-
Jayo, U.; Nafalski, A.; Nedic, Z.; Gol, O.; Machotka, J.; Pettersson,
M.I.; Lago, T.; Hkansson, L., "On Objectives of Instructional
Laboratories, Individual Assessment, and Use of Collaborative Remote
Laboratories," in Learning Technologies, IEEE Transactions on , vol.2,
no.4, pp.263-274, Oct.-Dec. 2009. doi: 10.1109/TLT.2009.42
[10] Ingvar Gustavsson, Kristian Nilsson, Johan Zackrisson, Lars Hakansson,
Javier García Zubía, Gustavo R. Alves, Unai Hernandez, Ricardo J.
Costa, Thomas Lago, Ingvar Claesson, “The VISIR Open Lab Platform
5.0 - an architecture of a federation of remote laboratories”, 8th
International Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual
Instrumentation (REV'11), Brasov, Romania, June-July 2011, pp. 284-
288.
[11] Andre V. Fidalgo, M. C. Costa Lobo, M. A. Marques, M. C. Viegas,
Gustavo R. Alves, Javier García-Zubia, Unai Hernández, Ingvar
Gustavsson, “Using Remote Labs to serve different teacher’s needs - A
case study with VISIR and RemotElectLab”, 9th International
Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation
(REV'12), Bilbao, Spain, 4-7 July 2012.
[12] Clara Viegas, Natércia Lima, Gustavo Alves and Ingvar Gustavsson,
“Improving Students Experimental Competences Using Simultaneous
Methods in Class and in Assessments”, Technological Ecosystems for
Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM’14) Conference, Salamanca, Spain,
1-3 october, 2014.
[13] Razwan Mohmed Salah, Gustavo R. Alves, Dezheen Hussein
Abdulazeez, Pedro Guerreiro, Ingvar Gustavsson, "Why VISIR?
Proliferative Activities and Collaborative Work of VISIR Systems", 7th
annual International Conference on Education and New Learning
Technologies (EDULearn'15), Barcelona, Spain, 6-8 July, 2015
[14] R.M. Salah, G. Alves, B. Datkiewicz, P. Guerreiro, I. Gustavsson,
"VISIR System @ BTH, DEUSTO, ISEP, and UNED Institutes:
Assisting and Supporting Hands-on Laboratories to Serve Higher
Education Students", 8th annual International Conference of Education,
Research and Innovation, Seville, Spain, 16 - 18 of November, 2015.

II. ANNEX
A. Workshop Agenda
Time
Activity
Presenter
Location
09:15
09:20
Welcome note
Gustavo Alves
(IPP)
Madrid
09:20
09:50
Guided Lab session Introduction
Ingvar Gustavsson
(BTH)
Madrid
09:50
10:10
VISIR in upper secondary schools
Lena Claesson
(BTH)
Lund
10:10
10:30
VISIR experiments for freshmen and sophomores
Javier García Zubía
Unai Hernández Jayo
(UDeusto)
Madrid
10:30
11:00
Coffee Break
11:00
11:45
An interactive lab session
Johan Zackrisson
Kristian Nilsson
(BTH)
Madrid
11:45
12:10
Integration aspects of VISIR into MOOCs and SPOCs
Manuel Castro
Gabriel Diaz Orueta
Felix García Loro
(UNED)
Madrid
12:10
12:15
Concluding remarks
Gustavo Alves
(IPP)
Madrid
B. Instructions for hands on experiments (op amp)
At the demo page of the laboratory (*) you can try out our experiments by logging in as a guest (**). The instructions for the
experiment can be found here (***)
C. Hyperlinks to other supporting documents
Several papers about VISIR and its usage in several educational scenarios are available at here (****)
(*) http://openlabs.bth.se/electronics/index.php/en?page=DemoPage
(**) https://openlabs.bth.se/electronics/index.php/en?sel=guestlogin
(***) http://openlabs.bth.se/electronics/tutorial/labmanual_excerpt.pdf
(****) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vfvlxpndznvjgl6/AAAVTQp6EZz4wtAA-K0QGmEXa?dl=0