Collaborative Research: Develop Next Generation Unified Framework for Remote Laboratory Experiments

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)This engineering education research award to the University of Houston in collaboration with Texas Southern University will employ researchers to develop a general framework for remote laboratory experiments with the goal of making access and use independent of the computer platform, operating system, and browser. Barriers to access to remote experiments would be reduced through the use of a web page interface. Existing experiments will be used to test and evaluate the remote laboratory framework, and this framework will be integrated into a number of courses. The unified framework will reduce the need for special computer expertise by faculty wishing to use remote laboratory experiments, so a larger pool of faculty can take advantage of these resources in laboratories and classrooms. This project will allow much wider use of physical laboratory work in educational environments which have limited space and physical resources. The project can also potentially increase the utilization of physical resources through scheduling of off-site users, thus making laboratory equipment more cost effective. Hands-on laboratory experience is an essential part of undergraduate engineering education, and this research will advance understanding of how to broadening access to remote laboratory experiments and improve engineering education to prepare students for engineering jobs.