Presentation of "Remote electronics lab within a MOOC: design and preliminary results" inside the exp.at'13 conference celebrated in September, 2013, in Coimbra, Portugal http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~expat/

1. REMOTE ELECTRONICS LAB WITHIN A
MOOC: DESIGN AND PRELIMINARY
RESULTS
Manuel Castro (mcastro@ieec.uned.es)2013, September,
20
Gabriel Díaz, Félix García Loro, Manuel Castro,
Mohamed Tawfik, Elio Sancristobal, Santiago Monteso
Dto. Ingeniería Eléctrica Electrónica y Control
UNED – Spanish University for Distance Education
2nd Experiment@
International Conference
http://www.slideshare.net/mmmcas
tro/

2. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Design of the new MOOC
3. Course structure and practices
4. Preliminary results
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3. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Design of the new MOOC
3. Course structure and practices
4. Preliminary results
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4. Introduction
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• Recent emergence of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses
promoting different lifelong learning experiences and continuing
education models and allowing free access to learning resources
at any time and from everywhere
• However, a significant challenge exists for the provision of
real
laboratory work online along with the theoretical contents
inside MOOCs• Also, the practical and the theoretical contents must be design
support an indeterminate number of users from around the world a
with different time zones

5. Introduction
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• A first approach to this problem is clearly the use of
simulators and virtual labs
• But they are still a bit far from bringing to student the real
performance and features of equipment under real-life
operation conditions
• We consider all these issues and present a novel approach
that integrates remote-accessed real experiments into a
MOOC on basic industrial electronics

6. Introduction
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• The experiments included in the MOOC are based on the
remote laboratory platform Virtual Instrument Systems in
Reality (VISIR), a remote lab for electric and electronic
circuits experiments, developed at Bleckinge Institute of
Technology (BTH) in Sweden and in use in several
universities all around the world
• The main advantage of VISIR
when
compared with traditional electronic
laboratories lies in its availability
that has neither temporal nor
geographical restrictions

7. Introduction
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• The basic electronic practices included in this MOOC are
focused on:
• Basics of digital oscilloscope
• Measurements of resistances, voltages and currents
• Half-wave Rectifier with and without filter
• Regulator with zener diode
• Inverter and non-inverter operational amplifier
• Operational amplifier as a driver

8. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Design of the new MOOC
3. Course structure and practices
4. Preliminary results
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9. Design of the new MOOC
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• The name of the MOOC is “Bases de circuitos y electrónica
práctica”
• The evaluation and activities spin around the remote
laboratory and the objectives and evaluation are focused on
the handling of the instruments and measurements
• The MOOC is running since May to September 2013, as
one of many in UNED COMA initiative
(https://unedcoma.es/)• The students have not time limitation for completing the
different tasks
• The acquisition of the competences for analyzing circuits is not
an objective for this MOOC. Knowledge, at least theoretical, on
analysing electrical and electronics circuits and the electrical
characteristics of most common components are necessary
requirements

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Design of the new MOOC
Learning objectives:
- Gaining practical competences in basic electric and
electronic circuits, by using a lab with real components. Also
gaining practical competences in the use of the usual
equipment in such laboratories
- Improving the knowledge for designing electric and
electronic circuits
- Increasing the use of simulation tools used in the process
of electronic circuits design
At the start:
- Pre-course survey for obtaining some statistics basic data
- A basic electric and electronic exam, not evaluable

11. Design of the new MOOC
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• All the evaluation forms in each module are closely related
with the experimental results and try to highlight the
differences between theoretical, simulated and real results
• Students are encouraged to use VISIR to build different
circuits, not proposed by the teachers, using this opportunity
and the different social tools inside (and outside) the MOOC to
improve their knowledge

12. Design of the new MOOC
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The MOOC has two different support levels:
- A mentor, in Spanish a “facilitador” that is continuously
tracking any possible issue with the reservation system. Also
she helps the students trying to resolve any problem related
with the documentation, the tools in the MOOC and general
questions
- When the problem is related with electronics, and although
foundations knowledge is a prerequisite as commented, a
teacher is accessible for helping the students
- Is possible to use a curator (tutor) but this role is not inside
the course now
As in many other current MOOCs, this one is almost
completely based on self-learning, video-based paradigm and
peer to peer collaboration

13. Design of the new MOOC
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14. Design of the new MOOC
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• The remote laboratory reservation system is integrated in the
platform of the MOOC, UNED COMA
Administration and support
issues
• Freedom degrees: number of slots per turn, time per turn,
number of simultaneous turns and total number of allowed
turns in the course. These parameters allow to regulate the
remote laboratory availability to the demand of use
• Students will get a course certificate by accomplishing two
conditions: they must complete all the activities in all the
modules within the MOOC and the global grade must exceed
the cut-off grade point established

15. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Design of the new MOOC
3. Course structure and practices
4. Preliminary results
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Course structure and practices
• The MOOC is structured in eight modules, with an estimated
workload of 10 hours per module
1- Dedicated to electronics simulation. It reviews the needed
knowledge of analysis and simulation software. MicroCap
software is proposed, although many other tools are valid
2- Basics of use of VISIR: the components (resistances, diodes,
etc.), the breadboard, the instruments (multimeter, function
generator, oscilloscope, power supply, etc.). It also presents the
students how to access the remote lab and how to reserve time
for the experiment

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Course structure and practices

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Course structure and practices

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Course structure and practices
3- The first real approach to build circuits with VISIR. The goals
here are basic power and current measurements
4- Building two basic RLC circuits and check the correct
measurements
5- Building diodes circuits, as for example a half-wave rectifier
6- Building of filtered rectifiers circuits
7- Explores the features of Zener diodes. Students must build
typical zener circuits and check their characteristics
8- Different possibilities of operational amplifiers

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Course structure and practices

21. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Design of the new MOOC
3. Course structure and practices
4. Preliminary results
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Preliminary results
• 2.200 enrolled participants at start (now 2.999)
• More than 43% are 35 years old or older, with an 5% of people
younger than 20 years old
• 89% of the participants are male
• 75% declare Spain as country of origin, 6% Colombians
• More than 37% are active workers
• 13% are students of a grade related with electric and/or
electronic engineering
• 16% has a grade related with electric and/or electronic
engineering
• 18% has an engineering grade non related with these
disciplines
• 8% has a grade completely unrelated with science or
engineering
• 22% has a non-university grade (“formación professional”)

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Preliminary results
• More than 90% express that they enrolled for getting new
abilities and competences
• 47% say their expectative are more professional than academi
• More than 81% have enrolled this MOOC especially because o
the use of a real remote laboratory
• More than 91% explicitly assert that real laboratory practices
help a lot to establish the relationship between theoretical
contents and real behavior
• 80% think that real remote laboratories are suitable tools for
obtaining practical competences
• 45% have experience doing real practices in a real, on-campus
laboratory, 31% have used electronic circuits simulators, 9%
have worked with virtual labs and only 2% have experience wit
another kind of remote labs

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Preliminary results
• Knowledge pre-test:
More than 60% of participants do not have the minimum
prerequisites. The MOOC suggests for this case a number of
options, for example the possibility of enrolling other MOOC
before continuing
• Knowledge post-test:
Not enough information...
• Although the MOOC has not finished, 83 participants (4%) hav
finished, aligned results with other MOOCs

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Preliminary results
• As in many MOOCs, social interaction, mediated by the social
tools included in them, and the possibility of using any other
social tool out of the MOOC, have been relevant also in our
MOOC
• The activity in the forums shows a grade of natural
collaboration similar to other MOOCs, making the MOOC a
natural scenario of problem based learning

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Some modest conclussions
• The new practical MOOC offered by UNED, and dedicated to
real basic electronic practices by using the remote lab VISIR,
has risen great interest, with near 3.000 students currently
enrolled
• It appears that a lot of students without the minimum
prerequisites will leave the course, leaving only people with the
minimum prescribed knowledge
We recommended MIT MOOC
Circuits & Electronics
• As the pre-course survey demonstrates, the use of a real time
online lab has been a good claim

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Some modest conclussions
• This MOOC shall show much more interesting results
associated with the development of the much more practical
modules with VISIR
• These new modules will give us also many important details,
related with the booking system, essential for a stable and
reliable use of the remote lab, and also related with the
performance of the lab with so many concurrent users
• The next stage will be the careful design of something we can
maybe call MOOL (Massive Open Online Laboratory) > Go-Lab
Project & EPFL name (Denis Gillet)

28. Thanks a lot for your attention!
Any question?
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Remote electronics lab within a MOOC:
design and preliminary results
Manuel Castro (mcastro@ieec.uned.es)
http://www.slideshare.net/mmmcas
tro/