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This Paper reports on a state of the art remote laboratory project, so-called Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR), VISIR allows wiring and measuring of electronic circuits remotely on a virtual workbench that replicates a physical circuit breadboard. The wiring mechanism is developed by means of a relay switching matrix connected to a PXI (PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation) instrumentation platform. The entire equipment is controlled by a LabVIEW server software, in addition to a measurement server software that protects the equipment by verifying input circuit designs, sent by students, before being executed. The paper addresses other approaches such as remote labs based on Data Acquisition Cards (DAQs), NetLab and RemotElectLab, comparing them with VISIR in order to emphasize its singularity. The technical description, software, operation cycle, features and provided services are discussed, in addition to the feedbacks received by students at several universities, and the encountered drawbacks along with proposed solutions. The paper finally addresses the ongoing and future challenges within the VISIR community including its integration with Learning Management Systems (LMS) and iLab Shared Architecture (ISA), its new hardware version release that is based on LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation (LXI), and its new open platform version that supports federated access.

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The increasing adoption of remote laboratories in education along with the shift from eLearning 2.0 towards eLearning 3.0, have demanded several considerations in their implementation and delivery format. In response to these needs, this contribution introduces a novel model, Laboratory as a Service (LaaS), for developing remote laboratories as independent component modules and implementing them as a set of loosely-coupled services to be consumed with a high level of abstraction and virtualization. LaaS aims to tackle the common concurrent challenges in remote laboratories developing and implementation such as inter-institutional sharing, interoperability with other heterogeneous systems, coupling with heterogeneous services and learning objects, difficulty of developing, and standardization. Beyond the academic context, LaaS will facilitate the incorporation of remote laboratories in the ecosystem of the ubiquitous smart things surrounding us, which increases everyday with the approaching Web of Things (WoT) and artificial intelligence era. This, in turn, will create a breeding ground for online control, experimentation, and discovery—in either formal or informal context and with neither temporal nor geographical constraints.

Abstract-It is of crucial importance the integration of practical sessions in engineering curricula owing to their significant role in understanding engineering concepts and scientific phenomena. However, the lack of practical sessions due to the high costs of the equipment and the unavailability of instructors has caused a significant declination in experimentation in engineering education. Remote laboratories have tackled this issues providing online reusable and shared workbenches unconstrained by neither geographical nor time considerations. Thereby, they have extremely proliferated among universities and integrated into engineering curricula over the last decade. This contribution compiles diverse experiences based on the deployment of the remote laboratory, Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR), on the practices of undergraduate engineering grades at various universities within the VISIR community. It aims to show the impact of its usage on engineering education concerning the assessments of students and teachers as well. In addition, the paper address the next challenges and future works carried out at several universities within the VISIR community.