Original Article

International Journal of Electrical Engineering

& Education
SEITI RMLab: A costless 2019, Vol. 56(1) 3–23
! The Author(s) 2018
and effective remote Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
measurement laboratory DOI: 10.1177/0020720918775041
journals.sagepub.com/home/ije

in electrical engineering

Othmane Zine , Mustapha Errouha,

Othmane Zamzoum, Aziz Derouich
and Abdennebi Talbi

Abstract
e-Learning emerged as a way for enhancing the quality of education and providing
accessible distance learning to allow learners to study beyond regular class time, tran-
scending the mandatory presence of teachers and the availability of classrooms by
providing the necessary resources and services. One of the main issues of e-learning,
especially in engineering education, is the lack of online educational laboratories.
Practical work remains a considerable burden as engineering educational programs
focus on handling real equipment. These last are only accessible within a restrictive
schedule and might be unaffordable for low budget institutions. The need is clear for
interactive platforms that enhance the motivation and controls the regulation of work-
load for each student. In this paper, an overview about online laboratories is given and a
simple approach of remote lab is suggested. The proposal of our research team (Team
SEITI) can be used for carrying-out experiments that require neither assembly nor
physical changes until the results are obtained unless a technician, that must be present
in the laboratory, acts on equipment. The idea is to set up a real-time measurement
retrieval laboratory that requires the involvement of a technician to act on instruments
and will grant access to a large scale of students.

Higher School of Technology of Fez, University of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Laboratory PE2D – Team
SEITI, Fez, Morocco
Corresponding author:
Othmane Zine, Higher School of Technology of Fez, University of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Laboratory
PE2D – Team SEITI, Fez, Morocco.
Email: [email protected]
4 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

Keywords
Distance education, remote lab, measurement, practical work, electrical engineering,
e-learning

Introduction
Formerly, learning was based exclusively on face-to-face teaching, which consisted
of classroom learning, either individually or in a group, and under the supervision
of a teacher. This learning mode offers a direct exchange with the teacher and
other learners, but requires frequent movements and freedom to respect a
specific timetable.
The evolution of information technology and the pervasiveness of the emerging
information and communication technologies, in our present society, led to their
involvement in the delivery of educational content and their integration into edu-
cational institutions. This has contributed to the emergence of e-learning, which
can be defined as the provision of a learning opportunity for those who are geo-
graphically distant. It provides means that allow learners to study, outside of the
limiting timetable and without the presence of teachers, by providing them with the
necessary resources and services.
Moreover, teachers and learners, especially in the scientific and technical dis-
ciplines need an environment that allows them not only to do their courses, tuto-
rials and communicate, but to perform their practical work (PW) too. Hence, the
need to introduce a new form of laboratory, which can be accessed remotely to
meet the real issues of: (i) expensive industrial equipment that cannot be moved or
duplicated, (ii) realism of the local representation of the industrial environment,
(iii) risk and safety while handling high-voltage equipment, (iv) in terms of peda-
gogical needs, the number of equipment needed is far outweighed by the large
number of students.
Remote labs are educational materials that go further than virtual labs, based
only on simulations, and grant distance access to laboratory equipment through
the Internet, and allowing their configuration, supervision, and measure-
ment retrieval.1
Such a solution offers several advantages such as: (i) remote manipulation of
real equipment and synchronous telemetry is intended to offer real data acquisition
over the Internet instead of using simulated data, (ii) real-time demonstrations
during lectures, (iii) all class students can do the PW despite the large number of
students comparing with the number of workbenches, (iv) students can access the
PW from home, (v) workbench can be shared with students from another institu-
tion, (vi) safer platform by avoiding the mishandling of high-voltage equipment,
(vii) allowing real-time delivery of laboratory material and ensuring a global access
to a large audience on the Internet other than the original targeted population
Zine et al. 5

(e. g. on a national scale, the project aims to create a remote PW center accessible
to different schools and universities).
This paper presents a platform for a costless and effective remote measurement
laboratory in electrical engineering. It aims to present all the necessary steps for the
modeling of a remote laboratory (expression of needs, formulation of objectives,
definition of pedagogical contents, and environments) and tools. For this end, a
computer architecture and an environment suitable for distance learning with a
pedagogically and ergonomically effective interface is suggested to ensure better
dissemination and integration of educational content and to reproduce, as closely
as possible, the system that should be handled. At the end of the experiment, a
survey was conducted and the students were interviewed in order to assess the
outcome of the platform.

Related works
Nowadays, a lot of institutions are developing and using their own solutions of
online laboratories. Many initiatives emerge in the literature to provide shareable
experiences. While some of them are remote laboratories, the others stand for
repositories or indexation systems with functionalities like advanced searching
tools, booking systems, recommendation system, and multiple parameters filtering
mechanisms.
This section reviews the objectives and scope of some representative projects.
Amongst them, we can highlight the following.

Online laboratories
iLAB: A multidisciplinary lab, developed by The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in collaboration with Microsoft Research, implements a highly exten-
sible environment that could serve a potentially infinite number of users and online
laboratories. It provides a framework that can support access to experiments that
can be rigorously defined before execution starts, or in which the student can
customize the procedure of the experiment in real time.2
ISILab (Internet Shared Instrumentation Laboratory): Developed at the
University of Genoa and based on a modular system named ISIBoard, it author-
izes real experiments execution and manages concurrency among users who
remotely drive instruments and carry out experiments of scalable complexity
that deal with basic electronic measurements via the Web, but only allows users
to conduct practical work with predefined experiments.3
RemotElectLab: Developed at the University of Porto, it is a reusable, easy
replicable and highly flexible remote lab platform for experimenting electric and
electronic circuits. It offers an exact replication of the real lab that enables the
students to modify certain predefined parameters in the circuit under test (CUT),
implement all the circuits proposed during normal electronics teaching lab classes,
6 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

and allows voltage or current measurement at different nodes of the cir-

cuit remotely.4
VISIR (Virtual Instrument System in Reality): Developed at Bleking Institute of
Technology, it is an open source remote laboratory project that uses a breadboard
that allows the user build a CUT from the beginning virtually, uses a switching
matrix to transform the student’s scheme to a real circuit and then enables him to
retrieve real measurements.5
NetLab: Developed at the University of South Australia, it is an online remote
laboratory project that uses a circuit builder to allow remote electronic circuits
wiring and measurement. It is used by teachers and tutors for demonstrations
during lectures, and offers to students a mean for conducting their experiments
remotely on real laboratory equipment. It gives the user the impression of con-
ducting hands-on experiments through its realistic graphical user interface that
incorporates buttons and knobs behaving like they would on real equipment.6,7
RwmLab (Remote Wiring and Measurement Laboratory): Developed by The
Western Michigan University, it is an easily replicable, fully reusable, and highly
flexible remote lab for teaching electronics to undergraduate students that addresses
real-time remote wiring of electrical and electronic circuits. It allows students to
remotely connect instruments, change their settings, and retrieve real measurement
over the Internet instead of using simulated data. RwmLab behaves as a local multi-
circuit board on a common distributed panel, allowing to “physically” wire an
electronic circuit in the laboratory over the Internet. The measures obtained remote-
ly match the ones collected in the conventional, which allows students to achieve,
check, or complement their practical work assignments at home.8
LaboREM: Developed at the Bayonne Technological University Institute, it is a
platform that promotes distance learning for the engineering students. It incorpo-
rates a video camera and a remotely controlled robotic arm for placement of
components to allow students to build their circuits. It is based on the design
and control of Virtual Instruments for the management of remote experimentation
through the web, implements a game-like scenario as learning approach, and uses
Chamilo and Dokeos Learning Management Systems to manage students and
supervise the collaborative work.9
ArPi Lab: Developed at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, it is a
general purpose and operative remote laboratory, which is physically built on
Raspberry Pi and Arduino development boards. It is designed for practical exper-
imentation in automation and process control related education and provides
various experiments in thermal plants, magnetic levitation, and hydraulic systems.10
iSES (the Internet School Experimental System): Led by the Charles University
in Prague, it is an open remote laboratory system that allows the simple construc-
tion of remote experiments via paste and copy approach of pre-built typical blocks.
It uses a basic ISES hardware and ISESWIN and ISES WEB Control kit as soft-
ware for control and data transfer and supports real-time remote data acquisition,
data processing, and control of experiments.11,12
Zine et al. 7

PEMCWebLab: Led by the Brno University of Technology and funded by the

European Community via the Leonardo da Vinci, 2006 program, it is a remote-
controlled laboratory for experimentation in basic fields of Electrical Engineering
especially in Power Electronics, Electrical Drives and motion control. It grants
access, via a web-based tool, to remotely controlled and monitored real experi-
ments that are located in different universities.13,14
Meanwhile, many online repositories or laboratory management systems are
dedicated to develop, publish, and share remote labs.
LabShare: Funded by the Australian government and led by the University of
Technology of Sydney and sponsored by six universities, its aim is to create a
national network of remote sharable laboratories to support cross-institutional
sharing of remote labs as a consortium of Australian Technology Network
Universities who would share remote laboratories. LabShare targets civil, mechan-
ical, and electrical engineering and offers several functionalities (i.e. booking,
system and queuing option. . .).15,16
LILA (Library of labs): Developed at the University of Stuttgart and co-funded
by the European Commission, it is an online portal that allows sharing and
exchange of experiments. It’s a project that aims at building a repository of
online lab experiments shared between universities on a worldwide scale and inte-
grating virtual and remote lab experiments into Learning Management Systems.17
WebLab-Deusto: Developed by the University of Deusto, it is an Open Source
remote laboratory management system that provides a scalable software infra-
structure and uses web standards suitable for mainstream web browsers, and
adapts to mobile devices. It provides an inter-institutions coalition of remote lab-
oratories and can host remote experiments developed by other projects.18,19
UNILabs (University Network of Interactive Laboratories): Developed at the
National Distance Education University in Madrid, it constitutes a network of
web-based laboratories in which different Spanish universities take part. The net-
work is used to host an expanded range of virtual and remote laboratories and
provide a large collection of web-based labs. Based on the use of a free authoring
tool for building user interfaces, it offers several updated modules in the automatic
control field. Theses virtual and remote labs are deployed into Moodle, which
facilitates their management and maintenance.20,21
Lab2Go: Developed at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, it is a
repository project that offers a common framework to gather and depict online
laboratories according to the semantic web technology. It provides references to
online resources and implements enhanced search mechanisms and other data
handling features to enhance the browsing of the repository.22

Remote labs vs. Virtual labs

Actually, and for many years, hands-on activities have been the only way to con-
duct well-structured experiments. Thanks to the advancement in information tech-
nology, conventional hands-on laboratories structure and processes have been
8 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

redesigned and expanded to distance laboratories to meet the aforementioned

needs. This kind of labs is now playing a crucial role in teaching technical courses.
Thus, virtual labs, simulators and remote labs can be used in engineering education
as alternatives for regular hands-on labs (Figure 1).
Diverse terminologies are used in the literature to depict labs offering online or
virtual experiment. To avoid confusion, all the different types of distance labs are
explained in the following.
Virtual labs, simulation labs, and simulators can be used interchangeably and
refer to labs where each real experiment is simulated or virtualized via the use of a
software23 and does not involve the use of any specific device or instrument. It can
be used in certain experimental activities where simulation is enough, does only
require the use of an ordinary computer, and can be accessed through an interac-
tive user interface with usually high visual rendering where students can handle the
experiment parameters and view its outcome.
In virtual laboratories, the instrument is replaced by a software program that
reproduces, approximately or fully, all its functions.24 The platform may also
incorporate several distinct virtual devices necessary for the implementation of
the experiment as for workbenches in electrical engineering (Figure 2).
Alternatively, remote or online labs have been available via internet for nearly
two decades25 and can be defined as educational resources that provide an inter-
face to interact remotely with real workbenches. Those workbenches contain lab
instruments (e.g. multimeters, power supplies, motors, and generators) that are

Figure 1. Hands-on lab.

Figure 2. Virtual lab.

Zine et al. 9

separated from the learner, but can be accessed, configured, manipulated, and
monitored using the Internet to perform the experiment.
Remote labs allow learners to have access to practical learning materials with-
out time and location restrictions (Figure 3). Which means that the experiment can
be performed anywhere there is Internet. In other words, “If you can’t come to the
lab the lab will come to you”.26
Each type of lab has thorough pros and cons. While virtual laboratories can be
used by a large panel simultaneously, with only the computational power as a limit
without additional costs, remote ones are more expensive to create and maintain
because they require real hardware to run experiments and additional equipment
for online access (Table 1).
Both types allow learners to carry out experiments safely from any place in the
world which means that learners cannot damage the instruments while adjusting
settings, because in one hand virtual labs are just made of software and on the
other hand we can easily define limits and restrictions in remote ones.
Unlike virtual labs, remote ones provide a valuable lab experience by providing
extended access to real devices, and simulators can never perform exactly the same
as real hardware in all cases because it is impossible for them to include all the
experiment’s parameters. Moreover, remote labs offer the chance to work in the
remote mode that has gained a lot of importance in the professional field.

Figure 3. Remote lab.

Table 1. Characteristics of virtual and remote laboratories.

Virtual labs Remote labs

Accessibility Not limited Must respect a schedule

Cost Low High
Learning Suitable for unlimited use Learn how to work in a remote mode
Maintenance Software updating Instrument maintenance and software updating
Realism Reasonable Low
Reliability Yes Yes
Safety Yes Yes
10 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

Rationale for remote laboratories in electrical engineering

Practical work is essential for developing skills of applying theoretical knowledge
in real-life problems. In fact, institutions need to find a solution to provide
learners with relevant online practical experiences. In the case of electronic engi-
neering and while learners need to handle real devices to retrieve authentic
measures and gain the targeted practical skills, virtual labs cannot provide
such kind of real experiences. This lab should not only allow students to send
commands, receive feedback and measurements, and execute the experiment on
real instruments in the lab remotely but also should provide solutions to the
needs in terms of:

Accessibility
In hands-on activities, access to the laboratory is limited by the availability of
both the instructor and the lab simultaneously. Online labs offer flexibility to
the learners to operate experiments anytime and anywhere subject to having
access to a computer or terminal capable of running the application, while in
remote labs learners must queue and follow a certain schedule to conduct experi-
ments and a common web browser is the only required application for the
remote user.
Moreover, and to reduce discrimination against disabled, institutions should
grant access to students with disabilities who may not be able to access a labora-
tory and operate laboratory equipment. In this sense, no one can argue with the
potential benefit of remote experiments to remove or at least minimize accessibil-
ity barriers.

Economic burden
The institution should look at the financial resources and equipment before con-
sidering doing some PWs. Under-equipped institutions are coping with the heavy
financial charges of buying and maintaining required instruments in conventional
laboratories with the intention of maintaining the effectiveness of laboratory prac-
tical education.
To deal with those economic factors, remote laboratories should be accepted as
new possibilities for under equipped institutions, and so we can think of collabo-
ration between institutions in order to share equipment and resources to expand
their list of experiments, enrich the educational experience, and produce better
learning as well as reduce costs and satisfy economic constraints.
Table 2 shows an exact estimation of a complete workbench cost that can be
used by only a group of student at a time and in one experiment, and considering
the increasing number of students the need is clear for a low-cost and financially
sustainable laboratory.
Zine et al. 11

Table 2. Estimated workbench cost.

Equipment Code Qty Unit price Line total

Autonomous position 4000VA BZV-40D- 1 3814.52 3814.52

Asynchronous machine MAS20 1 771.39 771.39
DC machine CB50 1 5112.98 5112.98
Tachymetric dynamo DYTA2 1 598.98 598.98
Bench with wheels 1 358.93 358.93
for machines
Resistive load CH20 1 1291.91 1291.91
Torque / Speed display case TAGA 1 2025.91 2025.91
Electrical quantities DIRIS A40 1 1622.21 1622.21
measuring station
Portable automatic multimeter MX5060 2 390.78 781.56

Ampermeter 1 448.66 448.66

Black security cable 402S-N 20 4.92 98.40
Total 16,925.45 e
(excluding tax)

Pedagogical needs
Low-budget institutions can only provide students with a small number of acces-
sible systems compared to large numbers of students. Equipment units are insuf-
ficient for all the potential users within some experimentation, which makes their
hands-on labs have highly poor utilization rates.
To cope with that, we might think of working in groups. Unfortunately, this
solution is not effective enough because the students’ available time slots are lim-
ited, which makes scheduling more sessions considerably impossible. Tutors claim
that, sometimes, PW sessions do not take place in the most appropriate order for
all groups and so, some students have no choice but to conduct their experiments
before taking the corresponding lecture which is pedagogically ineffective.
In the current subject, and for pedagogical purposes, the number of students per
workbench should be between two and three.
Because of the handling of high voltage equipment and for safety reasons, a
workbench should not be used by a single student. The presence of another person
is mandatory, if a sudden threatening event occurs, to trigger the emergency stop
and alert administrators.
It is also hard for a single student to take instant measurements on multiple
devices at the same time. And in case of misunderstanding or partial assimilation
of a concept each student will automatically refer to the teacher which will restrain
his analytical skills.
The use of the workbench by two or three students gives them the opportunity
to discuss about the experiment and to help each other, which will enhance their
collaboration and analytical skills.
12 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

On the other hand, if the number of students exceeds three, we find ourselves in
a situation of congestion where all students won’t have the opportunity to act on
equipment. Limiting their interactions with equipment will surely weaken the skills
acquired during the session.
These conditions made us explore the possibility of adopting an online lab. No
one can argue that it is crucial to identify the experimentation’s needs, objectives
and expected outcomes to choose the suitable kind of online lab. In electrical
engineering, learners need to interact with real instruments and collect real data.
While virtual labs might discard some important aspects of the real experimenta-
tion and “oversimplify” it, the remote lab should be preferred.

Flexibility
A well-designed remote laboratory is capable of accommodating new experiments,
PWs and instruments easily. And it can be replicated and adapted to the needs of
each institution.

Accuracy in the measurements

A remote system guarantees the accuracy of real-time measurements as those
obtained in hands-on experiments.

System architecture
Figure 4 depicts a scheme of the overall system architecture.

Actors of the system

Tutors: produce the PW statement, schedule sessions, assist, and evaluate students.
Technicians: act on equipment, provide assistance to learners, monitor the
workbench, and intervene in case of problems.
Learners: view the manipulation via video streaming, inspect real-time
measured data and variations, consult the statement of the PW, consult the tech-
nical documentation of each equipment, set for the assessment associated with
the PW.

Workbench
The workbench contains several electrical equipment needed for the experiment
and measurement instruments that can be connected to the application server in
order to retrieve real-time measurement remotely.
The workbench will be detailed in the following section.
Zine et al. 13

Figure 4. System architecture.

Application server
The application server is a computer that hosts the control software or drivers of
the equipment and is connected directly to the equipment by standards such as
USB or Ethernet.
The measuring instruments that are incorporated are of two types: (i) instru-
ments that possess a LAN connection and an embedded web server that provides a
web page interface, (ii) instruments that possess a USB connection and can be
accessed via a proprietary software.
This server is linked to a digital camera through a USB cable to ensure work-
bench supervision.
The Open Broadcaster Software is used to capture the video of the workbench;
the obtained measures are integrated in the video in order to have only one flow
that will incorporate all the information. And YouTube streaming services are
used to ensure a good quality streaming at the beginning before developing our
own solution.

Web server
Web browsers are software tools that we are sure that the user would be mastering
and using on any computing device, including mobile platforms. Therefore, dis-
tributing pedagogical material only through a Web browser is a judicious and
sufficient choice.
14 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

The web server (Apache) contains all the information on the available experi-
ments (workbench description, used equipment description, experiment, and learn-
er evaluation) and integrates a database (MySQL) for saving authentication data,
PW information and student results.
Once authorized, the user may subscribe to a remote PW session, which will
take place during an already defined schedule. Then he can access the web page of
the PW that includes: (i) PW statement, (ii) links to information about the used
equipment, (iii) link to the corresponding course, (iv) video streaming, (v) a set of
questions that the student must answer and a table where they must enter the
obtained measures for evaluation purposes.
The video of the remote PW will only be available at the aforementioned ses-
sion. This video will incorporate a live stream of the workbench and set of real-
time extracted measures.
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and PHP were chosen to develop the web platform,
which will allow to handle the matters of flexibility and ubiquitous use of the
application on mobile devices. This platform offers several interfaces for teachers
to allow them to add easily new remote lab activities and for learner to enable them
to carry out each experiment on the required hardware infrastructure through a
user interface transparently.

Communication
Our platform uses two different technologies to provide communication between
clients and server, while JSON structures are used to transmit the data. The first
one is provided through asynchronous AJAX/HTTP requests that are processed in
the server side by a set of PHP scripts. The second uses a socket handler module to
ensure a real-time data (data concerning the electrical measures retrieved) delivery.

Pedagogical work
The workbench
The workbench consists of test and measurement devices plus various other elec-
trical devices. Figure 5 shows the typical experimental setup.
The power part of the system consists of a squirrel cage induction machine (B)
and a DC machine (C). Each of these two machines can be operated in the two
operating modes: motor mode and generator mode. The machine that operates in
generator mode supplies a resistive electric load (E) with a maximum power of
3000 W.
The measurement part incorporates two multimeters (F) for measuring electri-
cal quantities (currents/voltages), an amperemeter for measuring the excitation
current absorbed by the DC machine, a mechanical-quantities (torque/speed) mea-
suring device (H), which receives data in the form of a voltage from a tachymetric
dynamo (D) and a measuring station DIRIS A40, which is used to measure and
Zine et al. 15

Figure 5. Hardware resources of the PW.

display the characteristics of the electrical network (G) that can be analyzed and
operated remotely. The power supply and safety of all these devices is ensured by
an electro-technical autonomous position (A).

Prerequisites
The prerequisites of this PW are the basics in mathematics and electrical
engineering.

Structure and objectives

The experimental system is designed with the intent of reproducing as well as
possible the behavior of the conventional lab. And the lab work is suggested to
undergraduate students working in the fields of electrical engineering.
The objective of this practical work is the study of the three-phase asynchronous
machine and the DC machine at the same time. First, the nameplates of both
machines are studied, then a no-load test is carried out and finally a load test is
realized. The three-phase network of the laboratory is: 220V/380V, 50 Hz. The
bench below is the subject of two possible experiments.
The first one deals with the study of the three-phase squirrel cage asynchro-
nous motor:

• The stator winding resistance is measured using a DC source in order to calcu-

late the stator Joule losses.
16 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

• A no-load test is carried out in order to determine the iron losses Pfer and the
mechanical losses Pmeca of the studied machine. Pfer þ Pmeca is called constant or
collective losses.
• A load test is conducted in order to plot the torque-speed characteristic. To
achieve this, a separately excited DC machine is placed on the same shaft as the
asynchronous machine. Since the two machines are connected, the torque of the
induction machine and the one absorbed by the DC machine will be equal. By
measuring the torque by a sensor linked to the DC machine, the asynchronous
machine torque will be measured.

The second one regards the study of a separately excited DC generator:

• A no-load test is achieved in order to plot the magnetization curve of the

machine which matches the influence of the excitation current on the no-load
voltage delivered by the generator at a constant rotational speed (n): E ¼ f(iex)
at n=cst.
• The speed of the DC generator is varied with a constant nominal excitation
current in order to see the evolution of its no-load electromotive force in terms
of the armature rotational speed.

A load test is performed in order to determine the influence of the load on the
generator voltage at a constant rotational speed and a constant excitation current
(iex): U ¼ f(I) at n = cst and iex = cst.

Pedagogical approach
Aware that PW has a strong impact on students’ learning outcomes27 and the
fundamental challenges of a remote lab are technical and didactical, this work
deals with both perspectives. The pedagogical outcome of remote laboratories in
engineering has been figured out by tutors and teachers and related in the litera-
ture. Remote experiments have a considerable potential for collaborative team-
work and constructivist learning strategies by allowing students to benefit from a
richer learning experience.
On the one hand, adopting an Inquiry-based learning and making in charge of
their own learning process through an active exploration and interpretation of the
materials has been proved useful to provide students with a better conceptual
understanding and a stronger critical and logical thinking skills.24
On the other hand, offering to the students to work in a self-paced way rather
than imposing them to work on a strict schedule, allowing them to carry on
uncompleted experiments from home and to repeat experiments to confirm uncer-
tain measurements, giving them the possibility to view lectures, examples, and take
assessments at their own convenience when impediments occur, will surely make
them work at ease and lead to satisfactory learning experiences.28 Finally, in these
approaches, problem conception must be motivating and inspiring for students to
Zine et al. 17

make them more interested in learning the required concepts on their own.1 And
the use of an interactive platform may enhance learners’ motivation.

Learner assessment
Assignments play a key role in any learning process and are considered as an
important activity within any practical experimental work for the reason that
they represent an inquiring approach to knowledge acquisition.
Assessments in our platform are used to evaluate students and their capacities
according to explicit educational concepts (summative), and to revise and adapt
the learning process to meet student needs (formative) in order to ameliorate the
learning materials or even the platform.
To do this and at the end of the PW, students are asked to fill a multi-choice
question (MCQ) quiz to assess their acquired knowledge and to fill a table to check
the measurements they retrieved during the experimentation.

Platform evaluation and discussion

The process of the platform evaluation is intended to contribute to continuous
improvement. The main reasons of the evaluation are the optimization, upgrade,
and correction of bugs. The environment is evaluated with regard to its effective-
ness, the perception and expectations of students, and the learning effect and
outcome with regard to the budget allocated by the institution.
The purpose of our investigation was to determine the opinion of students
about our remote laboratory, in the Moroccan university context and especially
in our own institute. We wanted to know whether the experiment was as effective
as we assumed it would be and scroll through the problems and difficulties students
might face while using it.
At the end of the course, students that followed the PW were asked to respond
to a survey to assess the quality and impact of the use of our remote lab; both a
technical evaluation and a pedagogical evaluation were conducted.
We divided a panel of 31 students into three groups: G1: 9 students, G2: 11
students and G3: 11 students.
The first group (G1) conducted the PW in a conventional laboratory first,
whereas the two last ones (G2, G3) started conducting it remotely via SEITI
RMLab. The first remote PW took place in a classroom equipped with computers
and internet connection at school, while the other was done by each student at
home. Then we switched the groups two times in order to make all students try
conducting the experiment in all the offered ways.
G1: hands-on > remote at the university > remote at home.
G2: remote at the university > remote at home > hands-on.
G3: remote at home > hands-on > remote at the university.
The interval of time between each experiment for the same group was two
weeks. And all the experiments took place in the first semester of 2017.
18 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

Table 3. Evaluated issues.

i01: Availability i02: Ease of use i03: Real time

i04: Level of interaction i05: Autonomy i06: Collaboration

i07: Documentation i08: Accuracy of i09: Pedagogical and
measurements didactic efficiency
i10: Evaluation i11: Help and Support i12: Safety

Table 4. Questionnaire sample.

Question Corresponding issue

Q01: Is the interface easy to use? Ease of use

Q05: Being far from the remote Lab, did you feel Autonomy
yourself to be in control of it?
Q13: Are the technical details of instruments and Documentation
other documents good and clear?
Q18: Did the remote laboratory help to deepen Pedagogical and didactic efficiency
your prior knowledge of the subject?

For the evaluation purpose a questionnaire, scoring the 12 main issues reported
in Table 3, has been worked with about 20 questions. A sample is given in Table 4.
The answers were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale and for each question, the
student should select the adequate grade from very bad (grade 1) to excellent
(grade 5).
Students’ ratings are graphically presented in Figure 6.
Results can be used to show us whether it is reasonable to continue the project
or not and guide us on the possible improvements and rectifications. Despite these
results are not meaningful enough to draw categorical conclusions from, they give
rational indications for further research.
In order to fetch more accurate information, all the students were interviewed.
The feedbacks gave us a clearer perception regarding students’ ideas and position
about the concept. Instead of discussing questions results here, we opted for dis-
cussing the issues that were addressed by these questions, which highlights more
significantly our findings.
When exploring the students’ satisfaction with the availability (issue 1) of the
platform and real-time response (issue 3) we found that students claim not to have
a good enough quality of internet connection at home or don’t have internet at all,
and so they cannot access the platform anytime they want to, which affected their
impression of conducting a real-time experiment too. Furthermore, there was
diverse opinion regarding the ease of use (issue 2) of the platform and that is
due to the fact that some students are accustomed to the computer tool and so
they didn’t have any problems when conducting the remote experiment, while
others have difficulties in handling the computer to conduct the experiment.
Zine et al. 19

Figure 6. Evaluated issues students’ ratings.

Note: for the questions that addressed the same issue, an average mark was calculated.
The average overall satisfaction is about 3.47/5 for group 1 (Hands-on).
The average overall satisfaction is about 3.36/5 for group 2 (Remote access, in a classroom).
The average overall satisfaction is about 2.74/5 for group 3 (Remote access, at home).

On the one hand, students assumed that they felt more autonomous while
conducting the PW at home because they had to do it by themselves (issue 5)
and acknowledged that all necessary documents were available whenever needed,
unlike the real laboratory where they have to share a limited equipment documen-
tation (issue 7). All of them argued that remote laboratory yielded reliable data
measures which are also accurate and easy to retrieve while using the platform
(issue 8) compared to the hands-on laboratory, and that when talking about secu-
rity, obviously, remote experiments are safer than handling equipment directly
(issue 12).
On the other hand, when asked about the efficiency (issue 9) students believed
that conducting the PW in a conventional laboratory is more efficient on the
grounds that: (i) handling equipment in a conventional lab was far more interactive
than handling it remotely (issue 4), (ii) conducting the PW remotely reduced the
opportunities of collaborating and made them feel isolated from each other (issue
6), (iii) their work cannot be evaluated and their acquired knowledge assessed
without the presence of the teacher (issue 10), the lack of immediate tutor support
to conduct the experience and of the teacher who can give extra information,
explanations and assistance when needed disadvantages the use remote laborato-
ries (issue 11).
Pedagogical efficiency was investigated deeper by comparing the academic
results of each student in the different modes. Knowing that it is the same PW,
students got approximately similar mark regardless of the type of the PW.
20 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 56(1)

In assessing the overall outcome of the experience, students asserted that the
remote laboratory was a valuable complement, enrichment and alternative to
hands-on experiments, since, for a matter of safety, remote access is becoming
the trend even in the professional world. They gave us some suggestion that
were taken into consideration for future works.

Conclusions and future works

This paper introduces and summarizes all concepts of distance PW in the engi-
neering curriculum and presents the development of an effective remote lab at low
cost and using open source software products. The development of the interface
with HTML5 makes the solution suitable for low-speed connections and for any
type of device. The project aims to offer an alternative to hands-on experiments to
those who cannot access the real laboratories for the previously cited reasons. The
conducted study results turned out to be promising and encouraging results con-
cerning the feasibility and the outcome of the project especially for low budget
institutions in underdeveloped countries.
The main originality of our proposition concerns at first the fact that the setup
of the remote lab will cost nothing in term of financial budget. Furthermore, the
highly flexible and evolutive structure of the remote lab will attract electrical engi-
neering researchers in our university to carry on the project, extend the platform
for more diversified experiments and ensure a totally remote assembly, setting
adjustments and handling of the equipment.
The system described hereby proved to be of notable value for lecture demon-
strations and student training either at school or at home, principally in an auton-
omous and student-centered context, but needs some improvements and
ameliorations to better enhance the learner motivation and the learning outcome,
indeed. Moreover, it turned out to be useful even for self-study, if instructions and
assignments were well formulated. And the opportunity to conduct real experi-
ments via any device that has an internet connection and incorporates a web
browser seemed to be attractive for students, which is a highly desirable educa-
tional impact.
The present state of the project is accessible via the address www.lecoinducher
cheur.com/rmlab/public/.
We target to make the system fully remotely controllable and allow students to
modify the environment and configure the equipment being handled, which will
make the platform accessible 24h/24, 7d/7 and increase the availability of the
system. Then we’ll incorporate a booking system to manage the access.
A session of PW implies a greater and more individualized exchange between
learners and teachers than in lectures. In order to enhance collaboration and to
ensure communication between learners and tutors and between the learners them-
selves, the platform will incorporate two types of communication activities:
(i) Asynchronous via an e-mail platform and a wiki so a student can ask a question
directly to a classmate or to a tutor or seek the response directly in the wiki;
Zine et al. 21

(ii) Synchronous via a chat platform to allow students to talk to each other to
discuss ideas or to request help.
We noticed that some reluctance from students who do not master or are not
used to the computer tool, so the need is clear for creating a featuring video and a
“how-to” to accustom students to the platform.
As we know, the quality of the PW is also worked out by the quality and
completeness of the guiding documents. To cope with that, we will improve it
by offering a richer documentation: (i) more appropriate lab work statement,
(ii) richer technical documentation, (iii) richer course that would help students
to review the theoretical knowledge necessary to understand the PW and enhance
the learning outcomes, (iv) a FAQ where would be listed all commonly asked
questions and answers in the context of the experiment.
We intend to extend the platform and offer a richer and more diversified set of
experiments and once the platform is fully deployed and operative, it can be shared
with other institutions or technological institutes of the university or even with
other universities. For this aim, we think of building a national network of online
laboratories to bring the experimental lab work by mean of remote real
experiments to students from universities and institutions that cannot afford the
expensive equipment and also to disabled students who, because of their state of
health, cannot access the real laboratory.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

ORCID iD
Othmane Zine http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6429-1666

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