E-training in mechatronics using innovative remote laboratory

This paper describes a novel E-training developed for teaching mechatronics. The training has been developed as part of the Leonardo da Vinci lifelong learning programs and MeRLab project (Innovative Remote Laboratory in the E-training of Mechatronics). The primary target group are engineers or technicians who have already completed formal education in the field of mechanical, electrical engineering or other technical fields, but have no knowledge of mechatronics, although their job requires it. For the training, special E-learning platform has been built in the user friendly environment, which is based on combination of commercial eCampus platform and open-source Moodle platform. The complete materials with the animations, graphical presentations, tests and the utilities such as discussion forums are offered. In addition to E-learning materials, the remote laboratory experiments are also available. The training has been executed with a group of 70 participants from Slovenia and second group of 6 participants from Austria. 90% of participants have successfully finished this quite extensive training. Results of anonymous survey show that they have evaluated the training as excellent and think that the gained knowledge will be useful in their further career. (C) 2010 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.