A study of ICT enabled laboratories

The rapid advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), availability of quality infrastructure and cheap services have led to exponential expansion of applications of ICT in almost all the fields of endeavor. The world of education has also been greatly affected by advancements in ICT. It has enabled a variety of new avenues and methodologies for enhancing the experience of learning and teaching. It is well known that relevant laboratory experience can significantly improve the students' learning and interest level in the course material for both the Traditional and Distance Education program. However, the effective integration of relevant experiments into courses remains the most challenging aspect of any program due to constraints of time and space and limited resources available for the provision of laboratory infrastructure. A cost effective and technologically feasible solution to this problem is to use Information and Communication Technologies for providing Laboratory Experience. ICT can enhance laboratory experience by three generic methods viz. ICT Aided Experiments in Real Labs, Experiments by Simulation Programs and Experimentation in Remote Laboratories. The paper describes the comparison of the three ICT enabled methods of providing laboratory experience at undergraduate level and critically analyzes them to highlight the situations in which each is more appropriate than the others. Case studies of actual implementations of ICT enabled laboratories around the world are described to provide further basis for the comparison. A model of ICT enabled Laboratory is thus derived considering all the relevant issues that emerge as a result of the in depth analysis.