Sharing online laboratories and their components - a new learning experience

1. Sharing online laboratories and their components- a new learning experience K. Jeppson, P. Lundgren, J. del Alamo, J. Hardison, D. Zych Chalmers University of Technology Massachussetts Institute of Technology Solid State Electronics Laboratory Cambridge, MA, USA Göteborg, Sweden

2. Sharing online laboratories Experiences from using MIT WebLab in large classes (~350 students) • What are critical issues for successful sharing? • How do students perceive, relate to and use this tool? • How do we design courses to benefit from the resources of shared online laboratories?

3. So what is WebLab? A remote laboratory is ... • a cost effective way of opening up the laboratory hall for measurements 24 hours a day • a cost effective way of making state-of-the-art devices available to students • a measurement tool organized to simplify data aquisition and to minimize time spent on practical details • more specific, WebLab is an online remote laboratory setup for I-V characterisation of MOSFETs

4. WebLab graphical interface

5. Critical issues for sharing • Lecturer must have opportunity to set course focus so that resources offered by the online laboratory can be fully utilized and appreciated • Good and fast communication between host and user site when system goes down or device is broken • Simple and self-instructive graphical interface • Easy access – no waiting time • Dependable – the system must be accessible whenever students have planned their measurement session

6. Critical issues for sharing • adding online laboratory exercises to courses previously without hands-on exercises is one thing… • ...but successfully replacing traditional on-campus laboratory exercises with remote ones online is quite another • The on-campus and the remote laboratories are two qualitatively quite different learning tools - just as listening to a lecturer is something else than reading a book

7. Can shared online laboratories help create a competitive learning environment? • We choose to change a traditional closed-task laboratory assignment to an open task where students were expected to plan measurements themselves and to find important device parameters to study • Exploring device properties and how to model them must be an integrated part of the course

8. Measurement task The objective of using WebLab became an issue of moving student focus • from handling instruments for collecting data • to analysing (readily available) data by comparing experimental data to models Measurement results expected to be presented orally

9. An important measure of success is the impact on student learning (in relation to the teaching costs) • Student time spent on subject • Student attitude towards subject • Student focus within subject • Student learning outcome

10. When did students login to WebLab?

11. Positive comments on WebLab • Access (43%): • ”You can decide for yourself when to do the laboratory exercise!” • ”means less stress!” • ”gives opportunity to see how different settings affect results” • ”offers flexibility – you can work from home at your own pace” • Interface (19%): • ”Clear graphs!” • Real devices (16%): • ”You get a feeling for realistic values” • Repeated use (15%): • ”Measure one day – think a bit – then measure again!” • Methodology (9%): • ”focus is on assignment, not on instrumentation or wiring” • ”avoids many practical problems”

12. What students thought about WebLab “Accessibility” and “Educational value” ratings not correlated

13. Technical Problems • The use of WebLab in undergraduate courses at Chalmers was the largest and most ambitious deployment of WebLab to date • This was bound to result in identification of new bugs and problems not seen before

14. Peak performance • On February 25, 2003 between noon and 1 PM EST WebLab performed 134 characterization experiments in one hour – on average that means one experiment every 27 seconds • This was a 35% increase over previous WebLab record

15. Two types of technical problems • A handful of system blackouts during which WebLab was unavailable for measurements – due to improper resource allocation setting in web server • System returned error message in response to valid experimental request – problem was eliminated by increasing time-out settings of the device driver

16. Negative comments on WebLab • System instabilities (35%): • ”WebLab performs poorly – at first web site is not available, then it keeps on crashing” • Supervision (30%): • ”WebLab is difficult to handle – much to learn and no instructors” • Time consumption (17%): • ”It takes TOO MUCH TIME!” • Reliability (16%): • ”Quite a few bugs in new graphical interface” • Speed: • ”WebLab is slow”

17. Negative impacts on students • At Chalmers students worked in groups while at MIT assignments were of individual nature – more difficult for group to re-schedule when WebLab was down >> frustration & project delay • Time zone differences – even trivial problems with WebLab took long time to correct since MIT staff was off duty

18. Improvements needed (according to student opinion) • More powerful server to handle heavy traffic • I/V range limits to prevent device breakdown • Measurement examples available online • Options to save graphs directly • Simplified data export to Excel and/or Matlab

19. WebLab vs hands-on • Lucidity and tangibility are important • Provides practical device experience... • ...but gives no instrumentation experience • However, avoids hazzle with ”boring” instruments • A real lab is better – because supervisor is available and topic is ”easier” to grasp

20. Video evaluation

21. Conclusions • It is not trivial to design a course that fully benefits from the resources of shared online laboratories • Online laboratories are not simply replacements for traditional hands on laboratories • The most important concern from the students´ point of view is that of accessibility • On the negative side, lack of supervision when stuck on trivial matters is very frustrating for many students

22. Conclusions • A successful implementation should carefully address the topics of how assignment is organized, where supervision is available, and maybe supply a list of FAQs and some measurement setup examples • Nevertheless, WebLab motivated students to undertake more advanced data analysis than before • Over all, WebLab was received positively in the introductory (second year) microelectronic device course