REmote labOratories for Practical Experiments on renewable energies at EU uNiversities Erasmus Project

Project Title

REmote labOratories for Practical Experiments on renewable energies at EU uNiversities

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Energy and resources; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

EU HEIs have to cope with the Digital transformation and the challenges created by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many universities have suddenly moved their lessons online leaving aside other activities usually performed in presence, such as laboratories. Practical experiences are crucial for STEM and engineering subjects for the students further employability and to acquire pivotal technical and social skills, and experimental skills (set up an experiment, use real equipment, elaborate acquired data). Virtual labs and simulations allow to mimic the lab setting but, for how realistic they are, they cannot include every real situation. Remote labs could be a solution allowing students to access remotely to the physical labs to perform practical experiences.
Several EU universities have already developed their own remote labs, but by developing its own solution, so it is very difficult to reuse programming code and share the experiment results. The project objective is to design, test and validate an innovative standard educational model and ICT solution for the Augmented Reality-AR remote labs setting up on renewable energies topics in EU universities.
Project target groups and participants are university professors, technical staff and students of STEM and engineering subjects, actors of the renewable energy sector. Especially, during the project at least 15 professors, 25 students, 5 technical staff for each partner university will be interviewed for the mapping phase and 10 students each partner university for the testing and validation phase.
The main project activities are: mapping of the hands-on/remote labs in EU universities, designing of the standard ICT-based learning solution and pedagogical model of AR remote laboratories, remote lab ICT system and learning management system (LMS) setting up, developing of experimental modules/projects on renewable energy, testing and validation in each partner university.
In order to map the currents labs at EU university a bottom up approach will be applied integrating a literature review with a field work research. The AR remote lab model developing and testing follows the Project Based Learning-PBL method based on the constructivism approach. It engages students in complex tasks by developing the ability to use facts (knowledge) to solve problems. This is particularly important for practical learning contents where the theoretical knowledge is based on the practical experience. The Virtual PBL allows to promote the students practical/active learning into an online environment in which students can learn by doing, receive feedback and continually refine their knowledge.
The project main results to be achieved will impact on target groups as follow:
– empowerment of universities capacities to develop innovative educational learning paths with the support of ICT-based and automatic control systems to allow students a flexible access to integrated theoretical and practical learning contents.
– enrichment of the university staff and professors opportunity of learning and teaching with creative and more innovative training methods based on ICT solutions;
– improvement of students experimental skills, working groups and critical-thinking, ICT skills in using remote control and IT tools;
– promotion of the access to practical activities to the students with disabilities.
The project main tangible results are:
1.Report on best practices and standard model for remote labs setting up in EU universities (IO1) designed based on the mapping of both remote and physical labs on renewable energy at EU partners universities;
2.ICT system for the connection at distance of the physical laboratories (IO2) with the support of the Augmented Reality (AR) technique. The system includes a LMS platform (SCORM) (IO4) as users interface to host the experimentation projects, collect and analyse the experiment data and students’ reporting/self-assessment results;
3.remote experimentation modules/projects on renewable energy topic for the performing of remote practical activities (IO3);
4.testing and validation report on remote Laboratories setting up in EU partners universities (IO5).
Potential longer term benefits of the project will be the adoption by the universities of the ICT-based solution for AR remote labs setting up to be applied/transferred to other preexisting laboratories and subjects of study. Universities and students can benefit for an easy and creative distance access to the learning contents both theoretical and practical. Besides, the solution will be designed for the developing of complex experiments applicable to research activities creating synergies between learning and research, thus promoting access to scientific research. The experimental modules could be further adapted to overcome obstacles of making hands-on laboratories usable for learning disabled students, who experience difficulties in following the instructions to perform remote experiments

Project Website

https://www.reopenproject.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 298665 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI GUGLIELMO MARCONI – TELEMATICA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• VJ TECHNOLOGY S.R.L.
• NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU
• Munster Technological University
• UNIVERSIDAD DE HUELVA
• Fachhochschule Technikum Wien