Integrating real equipment into virtual worlds
Tania Machet, David B. Lowe · 2012
Background: Remote Laboratories have been shown to provide a number of benefits to engineering educators and students (Abdulwahed, 2009; Aziz, Esche, and Chassapis, 2009; Cooper and Ferreira, 2009). The computer-mediated interface of remote laboratories also presents the opportunity for educators to manipulate the presentation of the laboratory in order to provide additional information and context to students conducting the laboratories. There are a number of learning affordances of virtual worlds have been identified (Chapman and Stone, 2011; Dalgarno and Lee, 2010; Oloruntegbe and Alam, 2010) that would allow educators to convey this supplemental information to students. Virtual worlds provide the ability to add domain context to a laboratory activity with explicit illustrative examples of how the learning outcomes of the laboratory could be applied in the real world. In order to achieve these enhanced interfaces however, it is essential that the real laboratory equipment can be integrated into the virtual world without compromising students' ability to complete the laboratory or their awareness of the reality of the laboratory equipment they are using (Lindsay, Murray, Liu, Lowe, and Bright, 2009). Purpose: In this paper we consider how well existing different virtual world systems support the representation of, and interactions with, physical equipment and associated contexts. This paper investigates this question in order to understand what the implications are for implementations of remote laboratories in virtual worlds. Design/Method: The investigation was conducted by analysing the literature describing current implementations of real equipment integration into virtual worlds. Additionally two virtual worlds (Second Life and Open Wonderland) were analysed in detail with respect to the extent to which remote laboratory integration is supported. The specific needs of remote laboratories were determined in terms of the representation within the virtual world and the ability to support user interaction with that representation in a way that could maintain a suitable connection with the real physical equipment. The potential and problems associated with integrating real equipment into the currently available virtual world environments was then analysed in terms of the extent to which these specific needs were supported. This included assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the virtual worlds, comparing existing implementations in terms of the identified requirements, and the analysing the factors that affect how easily labs could be developed and integrated into the specific virtual world. Results: The investigation has identified the potential of integrating real equipment into virtual worlds with the aim of supporting learning in remote laboratories by adding contextual information that is not normally available in a traditional laboratory. Specifically, Open Wonderland and Second Life have been shown in existing applications to have the potential to meet the requirements for integrating with remote laboratory equipment and the limitations and potential of each of these are identified. Conclusions: The results show that for the authors' future research aims, Open Wonderland has the potential to provide a cost effective, extendable solution that can be implemented to facilitate the provision of context to students in such a way that the reality of the equipment they are using, or their ability to complete the laboratory, is not likely to be compromised.