Virtual Laboratory ontology for engineering education

Abstract

-Virtual Laboratories are an indispensable space for developing practical activities in a Virtual Environment. In the field of Computer and Software Engineering different types of practical activities have to be performed in order to obtain basic competences which are impossible to achieve by other means. This paper specifies an ontology for a general virtual laboratory. The proposed ontology provides a mechanism to select the best resources needed in a Virtual Laboratory once a specific practical activity has been defined and the main competences that students have to achieve in the learning process have been fixed. Furthermore, the proposed ontology can be used to develop an automatic and wizard tool that creates a Moodle Classroom using the practical activity specification and the related competences.

Practical Work of Digital System Course Based on Virtual Laboratory

“…The results obtained are good perceptions from students in terms of the perception components on the instructional aspects and the appearance of the virtual laboratory model. These results are in line with [7] which states that virtual laboratories are as effective as using real laboratories, can be done anywhere and anytime [2], and facilitate students to learn independently and can practice repeatedly outside class [18].…”

“…Previous research has proven that simulators: (1) can improve students' understanding of the material [4] [5]; (2) as effective as using real laboratories [6] [7][8] [9][10]; (3) can be more efficient than real laboratories [11] [12]; and (4) provides high convenience and flexibility [13]; (5) allows to practice in real systems [14], low cost, and has a better pedagogical aspect than other types of laboratories [15]; (6) increasing the number of lab sessions and the number of student teams/groups per week [16]; (7) wide accessibility, because it can be accessed anywhere and anytime; (8) safer during experiments with hazardous substances [17][18] [19], and ( 9) promote a resilient, inclusive and sustainable approach to supplement knowledge and training resources and common limitations to laboratory skill training [20]. Based on these advantages, virtual laboratories can be applied to Digital Systems courses when viewed from the characteristics of these courses.…”

A Survey on Usage of Ontology in Different Domain

“…The classes like subjects, competence and tasks are defined to perform the practical activities of the Virtual Lab in a virtual learning environment. They have used standard reasoner tools like Pellet or FaCT++ for validation [43].…”

Virtual laboratory for supporting chemistry learning and practicing

“…A Virtual Laboratory is an interactive virtual space that incorporates all the technological, pedagogic and human resources in order to perform practical activities, adapted to the student's and teacher's needs in a virtual learning environment [9].…”

“…Additionally, the interface has a constructivist approach and a learning component based on the resolution of problems, some examples are showed in table 1. Josep Prieto-Blázquez, Joan Arnedo-Moreno, and Jordi Herrera-Joancomartí [9] IV. METHODOLOGY The development of the project involves a combination of several methodologies: one for the development of the research process Table 2, one for an interaction device (virtual reality glove) Table 3, another to do the motion capture device Table 4, one for the design and development of a software interface that reflects a virtual world of a basic distillation laboratory supported in the teaching model of problem solving Table 5.…”