International cooperation for remote laboratory use

Abstract

Experimenting is fundamental to the training process of all scientists andengineers. While experiments have been traditionally done inside laboratories, theemergence of Information and Communication Technologies added two alternatives accessible anytime, anywhere. These two alternatives are known asvirtual and remote laboratories and are sometimes indistinguishably referred asonline laboratories. Similarly to other instructional technologies, virtual and remote laboratories require some effort from teachers in integrating them into curricula, taking into consideration several factors that affect their adoption (i.e., cost) and their educational effectiveness (i.e., benefit). This chapter analyzes these two dimensions and sustains the case where only through international cooperation it is possible to serve the large number of teachers and students involved in engineering education. It presents an example in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, based on a remote laboratory named Virtual Instruments System in Reality, and it then describes how a number of European and Latin American institutions have been cooperating under the scope of an Erasmus+ project, for spreading its use in Brazil and Argentina.