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Practical training in experimental laboratory scenarios is indeed of great importance since mere lecturing is not sufficient enough to complete students' education in many engineering disciplines. Synchronous and asynchronous distance learning platforms have many advantages such as attending courses from a distance (e.g. in virtual classroom environments). However remote "e-laboratory" systems are just now beginning to develop. In this paper, the development of a "virtual and remote laboratory platform" in the field of robotics and the methodology of its experimental evaluation are discussed. In the past, in our prior work 10, a first pilot experimental study was conducted according to a special evaluation protocol, in order to evaluate system performance regarding remotely training students to program robot manipulation tasks using the robot's Teach Pendant. The results of the first pilot study are encouraging enough. In this paper, we are focusing on the methodology of the evaluation protocol and discuss ways to extend this study amongst three groups: group-I trained the "classical way" on the real robot, group-II (remote) trained remotely on the graphical user interface of the remote laboratory platform, and group-III (virtual) also trained on the user interface, but using only the "virtual robot" functionalities of the platform with no remote real robot connection on the loop. Initial results are showing the need for developing real training scenarios in the frame of remote laboratory education aiming to achieve effective learning schemes for students in the engineering field. ©2005 IEEE.
Tzafestas et al. (Sat,) studied this question.