The Electronic Laboratory Journal: A Collaborative and Cooperative Learning Environment for Web-Based Experimentation

Abstract

Abstract. Numerous tools have been developed for supporting the collaboration between students in education, tools that mainly include facilities for sharing documents and enabling discussions. However, these environments do not emphasize the use of facilities that sustain collaborative work in the framework of remote experimentation carried out by a group of students located at different places. The Electronic Laboratory Journal (eJournal) paradigm proposed in this paper is a collaborative and cooperative environment for Web-based experimentation in engineering education. The eJournal enhances the traditional laboratory journal, by providing a group of students with Web-based tools to collect, annotate, organize and share the data chunks necessary to complete their experimentation assignments. The data chunks, called fragments, may be composed of numerous objects of any format, such as text, images, graphics, manuscripts, measurement logs or experimental results. Fragments can be uploaded from local disks or imported from Web components. The eJournal also handles the submission of results to the educators and facilitates remote supervision, assistance and tutoring of the students. The eJournal paradigm is currently assessed at the School of Engineering, the É cole Polytechnique Fe´de´rale de Lausanne (EPFL), in the framework of hands-on experimentation activities focusing on remote manipulation of real setups and Webbased simulation. This paper presents the eJournal environment, its application and its evaluation as an enabling Web-based application for flexible learning.

The eLogBook Framework

“…Evaluations performed over the last 8 semesters' periods showed a great acceptance of the eMersion environment by students, Teaching assistants, and professors [2]. These results are all the more encouraging as the use of eMersion is completely optional and that the students always have the possibility of carrying out their experiments within the university campus in a traditional face-toface way.…”

Pedagogical evaluation of remote laboratories in eMerge project

“…One idea put forward in the open-ended answers takes up this point: 'It will be better that we can talk with people of other countries about the topics'. One possibility to establish such a kind of cooperation is the use of Electronic Laboratory Journals shared by students from different universities (Fakas et al 2005). The Electronic Laboratory Journal by Fakas et al not only allows on-line experiments and simulations to be conducted, it is moreover shared via Internet.…”

Digital assessment of individual engineering assignments in mass courses

“…Sometimes the effect of computer in teaching is substantial such that some tools are developed for particular courses. Another branch of computer application is the procedure for web assisted virtual experimentation as explained in . In special circumstances digital technology can cause perception enhancement in students .…”