On Using Distance Labs for Engineering Education

Laboratory courses (labs) are an integral part of engineering education. They help students deepen the knowledge taught in lectures and support the application of this knowledge to concrete problems. However, labs do have several known problems such as a lack of resources (personnel, time, and equipment). This paper reports about the DistLab project at Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, Germany. DistLab aims at introducing a standardized concept for remote and virtual labs in engineering education. Remote labs allow students to work off-campus on systems that are located and running on-campus. Virtual labs, on the other hand, provide students with a virtual twin of an experiment that is a high-fidelity digital copy of its real counterpart. Students start working with the virtual twin and transfer their solution later to the real-world twin. First experiences and student feedback show that these concepts allow for learning independently of location and time, thus giving students more freedom in acquiring the material. On the other hand, freedom implies more self-discipline and self-organization.