Engineering education depends on hands-on experimentation, but laboratory access is often limited by time, availability, and resources. Remote laboratories mitigate these barriers by enabling online access to real experiments, with the Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR) standing out as a long-established system for teaching electronics and electrical circuits. Based on an extensive literature review and on substantial experience, this study qualitatively analyzes VISIR and identifies limitations related to scalability, interoperability, and integration with emerging technologies. From these insights, the paper proposes a set of improvements and technologies to enhance or replace key components while preserving its core infrastructure. The conclusions contribute to practical recommendations for those developing remote laboratories for electrical circuits and analog electronics education, thus offering achievable design suggestions and outlining directions for future research and development.
Jacob et al. (2025) studied this question.