Paradigms in Remote Experimentation

Experience in teaching engineering related subjects has shown that a complementary approach combining theoretical and practical exercises is vital for effective learning. Increasingly, teaching institutions are offering remote access to distant laboratories as part of an overall e-learning strategy. However, the majority of remote access laboratories developed to date have suffered from a major deficiency, namely the provision of a web based environment that accurately recreates the collaborative group working and tutor driven experiences of traditional on-campus based laboratories. New collaborative remote experimentation environments and architectures are required to enable students in disparate locations to simultaneously and collaboratively complete complex experimental exercises. This paper presents several clientserver paradigms that facilitate single user remote access, collaborative working and lecturer led approaches to the provision of remote experimentation facilities.