Abstract-The aim of the PeTEX-project is to establish an eLearning platform for the development, implementation, and delivery of educational training programs in the field of manufacturing engineering. The PeTEX team designs both: a technical platform for eLearning based on "Moodle" including distributed tele-operated experimentation facilities, and didactic and socio-technical requirements for a successful online learning community. User interfaces are deployed for remote access to instruments, data analysis and multiplexed data access via network protocols. Hence, the platform provides complex tools in order to perform various activities to support the educational process, from telemetric experimentation to virtual project groups for an entire community to the purpose of domain specific learning. This paper describes important steps of interdisciplinary participatory design and development of a remote lab-prototype in the field of manufacturing engineering.Index Terms-Engineering education, e-learning, interactive systems, international relations, laboratories, learning systems, online learning, remote laboratories, experiments. Remote laboratories in engineering education are nothing new. According to [5], a wide range of distance learning environments have been developed and deployed over the last decade, particularly in electronics, microelectronics, control engineering and robotics. However, remote "hands on"-laboratories in production engineering education, surprisingly, do not yet exist.
I. PETEX PROJECT OBJECTIVES
A. General aims of the projectThe unique aspect of the PeTEX environment is that teaching and learning arrangements involve interactive live experiments through a real-time video-based access into three physical-real laboratories in the fields of forming, cutting, and joining [6].The physical-real laboratories are located in the three European countries of Germany (TU Dortmund University, Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Construction -IUL), Italy (University of Palermo, Department of Mechanical Technology, Production and Management Engineering -DTMPIG), and Sweden (Stockholm Technology University, Department of Production Engineering -KTH). The Center for Research on Higher Education and Faculty Development (TU Dortmund University, HDZ) contributes to the development and deployment of the educational model and moderates all collaborative designing processes during project lifetime.The principle goal of this project is to establish individual and group oriented learning within a platformsystem able to sustain a multi-country learning community in the field of manufacturing engineering.Hence, an educational model is designed which integrates the tele-operated experimentation platform with teaching content and learning activities in order to support a successful learning walkthrough.A framework to integrate the technical, educational and social dimensions in the design is provided by the approach of socio-technical systems and networks [7]. Instances of learning and teaching in soc...
