Demonstration of collaborative features of remote laboratory NetLab

In this presentation we would like to demonstrate collaborative aspects the remote laboratory NetLab. Many universities worldwide have developed remote laboratories that are now common part of laboratory component used by their students. NetLab is one of them, and is used by undergraduate students to perform experiments on electrical circuits. Unlike majority of other laboratories NetLab is from the beginning designed as an interactive collaborative environment where a number of students can access the equipment remotely from different places in the world and collaboratively wire circuits, connect and set up instruments and perform measurements. All that are concurrently logged on have full control of the system. Because NetLab is an interactive learning environment students are required to coordinate their actions. Unlike in a real laboratory where students see what everyone is doing, collaboration in remote laboratory is not a trivial task. To enable this collaboration NetLab has a number of features to support interactive collaborative work. In the proposed session these features will be demonstrated.

laboratory; on-line electrical circuits;

INTRODUCTION
The l aboratory paradi gm in engi neering, technology and sci ence educat ion i s i ncreasingly moving t oward incorporating to larger or lesser extent e-learning methods. Real laboratories wi th hands-on ex periments on phy sical equipment are still an im portant part of the curricula but, increasingly, virtual laboratories -web-base d simulations -bot h l ocally and rem otely, and rem ote l aboratories, where e xperiments are cond ucted rem otely on real equipment, are be com ing to be a routine part of the laboratory programs worldwide [ I].
A rem ote lab oratory (RL) i s a new c omputer-based learning environm ent that a 1I0ws students to access and perform experiments on real laboratory equipment from a distance via the Internet.
The experime nts are not simulated and are not virtual. As such, RLs are potentially excellent pI atforms for st udents to n etwork and collaborate with students from other countries and through this interaction to learn skills that will prepare them for an international career at the global professional job market.
The reason for the growth 0 frem ote laboratories in engineering and science must be seen in the growing need for flexibility of access a t any time from any geographical location vi a the Int ernet to sup port st udent-centred learning and st udents wi th special needs. Re mote laboratories in trinsically req uire far less su pervlsory support th an trad itional laboratories wi th th e ad ded advantage of user safet y and securi ty of eq uipment. Reduced num bers of set s, hence redu ced cost of equipment and need fo r maintenance, translate into sca les of eco nomy i n operat ion. F urthermore, rem ote laboratories enabl e st udent access to share d unique and expensive hardware and software at external academic and industrial institutions. Experiments in real 1 aboratories, al so cal led pro ximal laboratories, pr omote st udent collaboration by t heir very nature. Th is is n ot necessarily so in th e case 0 f RLs as only a han dful of t hem, wo rldwide, pro vide a collaborative en vironment. N etLab, the remote laboratory developed at the University of South Australia (UniSA) is a co lIaborative 0 n-line en vironment, al lowing multiuser interactive synchr onous acc ess from anywhere i n t he world to real laboratory equi pment placed at the Mawson Lakes Campus 0 f Un iSA in Adelaide. In this publication we describe and demonstrate the collaborative features of NetLab.

IT. NETLAB DESCRIPTION
Many universities wo rldwide h ave d eveloped rem ote laboratories that are now used by their students to perform laboratory ex periments [2] . Net Lab i s one of t hem developed at the Uni versity of So uth Australia (Uni SA). The development of the remote laboratory NetLab started in year 2001 after the Un iSA awarded a Teaching and Learning Gra nt (AU $40,000) fo r its devel opment [3,4] . NetLab is now fully operational and used ina num ber of courses both by on cam pus and off-campus st udents [5]. The laboratory is designed for electrical circuit analysis. It includes a nu mber of passi ve circuit co mponents and a standard list of instruments which are: • Web camera -for telepresence in the remote lab.
NetLab allo ws an y circu it that can be created from these co mponents and i nstruments to be wi red and configured remotely using an in-house developed software called Circuit Builder (CB). A sample of a circuit wired in CB is shown in Fi g. 1. M ore details on technical aspect s of Net Lab can be found in our previous publications [6].
All concurre nt users have e quaI l evel of pri vileges regarding th e control of th e syste m. Th is also in cludes wiring a new circuit. In case a new circuit is wired by one user (e.g. used) all other concurr ent users (e.g. user2 and user3) receive a message that the circuit has been changed also shown in Fig. 1. Pressing OK by user2 and user3 will cause the system to update the image of the CB graphical user interface (GUT) on their screens in orde r to show the new circuit.
The circuit configuration has. changed. As a sy nchronous col laborative envi ronment Net Lab must provi de for com munication bet ween users. This i s accomplished at several levels. The sim plest one is a tex t based chat as shown in lower left-hand corner of Fig. 2.
NetLab GUT includes also a window that broadcasts the actions of each user. This is placed in the lower right-hand corner of the GUI shown in Fig. 2. This way each user can trace actions of all other users. This elimina tes a possible perception of the system misbehaving.
The syste m automatically discloses al l users th at are logged 0 n and al lows t hem to type messages in t he chat window. Al though the num ber of conc urr ent users is not limited by the design of th e system, the administrator can impose th is Ii mit to make co llaborative sessio ns manageable. Cu rrendy th is Ii mit is set to th ree m ainly because in real laboratories at UniSA students work in groups of 2-3.  To 1 imit t he number of co ncurrent users a booki ng system has been devel oped which allows up to 3 users t 0 book the sam e 1 hour session. Fi g. 3 sh ows the booking system where three green dots (seats) are available in each one hour for 3 users. However, a user ca n book all 3 seats if he or she wishes to work alone. Blue dots show booking of the pa rticular user. Green seats are still a vailable. Red seats are book ed by ot her users. B y pI acing the curso r over a b ooked sp ot t he na me of t he us er appears , so students can sel ect the grou p part ners for t heir experiments.  The system also displays time in the local time zone of the user who is booking the session.
Over th e past years 0 fu tilization 0 f NetLab we observed students attitude towards the use of collaborative features and co ncluded that students prefer to work either individually or col laborate by si tting and perf orming experiments from t he sam e co mputer. R emote on-I ine collaboration is used rarely and almost only when no other option is available. An example of this is our project titled Enriching st udents I earning ex periences t hrough international co lIaboration in rem ote lab oratories, supported by the Australi an Learning and Teaching Committee Com petitive grant ( AU$220,000) 0 ver tw 0 year peri od, 2009-2010, where st udents fr om di fferent countries performed l aboratory experi ments collaboratively in ord er to gain in tercultural ex perience and learn international collaborative skills.

Ill. AL TC PROJECT
The AL TC project had a number of stages and involved ten academic staff from four partner institutions; two from Australia and two international partners.

Recruitment
In the onset of the project recruiting volunteers Uni SA students fr om Adelaide and from Si ngapore enrol led i n 3rd year co urse Si gnals an d Systems to co llaborate with each other on a co mmon experiment for which the RL NetLab was used. Th e in itial p Ian was to h ave four collaborating teams: two teams composed of two students from Ade1 aide and t wo st udents fr om Singap ore (2x (2+ 2)); and two teams with one student from Adelaide and one student from Singapore (2x( l+ 1)). However, none of the st udents want ed to work al one wi th student (s) from other country, so we formed 4 groups of 2+ 2 students.
In the second part of the project students from Blekinge Institute 0 fTech ology, Sweeden were recru ited by th e international partner to co lIaborate with Un iSA stu dents from Adelaide and Why alIa ca mpuses. These students collaborated 0 n a di fferent experi ment whil e enrol led in the 2nd year c ourse Electrical Circuit Theory that can be expected to be a co mmon fundamental c ourse fo r all electrical engineering students worldwide.
It was al so planned tor un collaborative sessi ons that would i nvolve Aust ralian student s and st udents fr om University of Port 0, P ortugal. Ho wever, t his had not eventuated due to the diffe rence in year scheduling of a common cour se on m icrocontroller p rogramming. A number of 0 ptions were considered, e.g. i nvolving students from different courses, but it was finally decided not to proceed due to the high level of complexity of th e context in which students will find themselves.

Induction
Students wer e i nducted i nto t he pr ogram wit h explanations of the aim s of the project and their roles in the pro ject. Th is induction ga ve st udents the op portunity to clarify all their concerns related to th e p roject an d especially in relation of the use of the recorded sessions in which they were to participate.
Then st udents in Adel aide were t rained in the use of Centra® soft ware by Saba ® Lt d as a com munication environment b ecause it provid ed a suitable interactive collaborative envi ronment and 0 ption of recording th e sessions. It was decided to provide Centra® training only to st udents in Adel aide, i n or der t 0 st art the fi rst collaborative sessio n with a relativ ely e asy task , i.e. Australian students teaching 0 ffshore students to use Centra software.

Online Collaboration
Students were provided a di scipline specific task where they needed to discuss a nd to assign roles and tasks t 0 members of the team. To complete the given task students needed to arrange several collaborative sessions, firstly to prepare for t he l aboratory s ession w hich may include analysis 0 fth e task an d simu lation 0 fth e system to be examined, seco ndly to wo rk co lIaboratively 0 n th e experiment usi ng R L Net Lab, t hirdly t 0 anal yse t he measurement results, and finally to write a group report. It was noticed that some groups merged some of the sessions as it was more convenient for them to meet less frequently for longer sessions due to work and other commitments.

Analysis of recorded sessions
The col laborative sessi ons were recor ded and st udents interactions were an alysed. It is i mportant to no te th at students were not supervised during any of these sessions and that they have full cont rol over the rec ording of the sessions. Duri ng t he i nduction pr ocess st udents were advised to feel free t 0 st op recording at any time if the y felt a need t 0 do s o. Des pite t he ri sk of i mpeding t he analysis 0 fin teraction, we felt th e n eed to g ive th e students th is flex ibility. We also co ncluded th at i t was impossible to control students' communication outside the recorded sessions, so we adopted the approach to su rvey the ways students comm unicated out side these sessi ons, rather than attempting to prohibit it.
This decision was made early in the project during the first meeting 0 fthe pro ject management team including the international partners. In th e course of the analysis of the recorde d sessions it was t aken into an account that some parts of the recorded sessions were deliberately or accidently omitted by student s and not available to us for analysis. However, we fel t it was an important decision to make in order to develop the trust and make students feel comfortable with their participation in the project.
The recorded sessions were a nalysed in terms 0 f th ree aspects 0 fth e in ternational co lIaboration: d iscipline knowledge, use of technology and intercultural capability. A particular attention was focused on how each aspect affects t he other aspect s of t he col laboration. In ot her words, the activities and interactions were analysed within the context of situated learning within the full co mplexity of this particular collaborative environment.
From our pilot experiments evident are th e attempts by students to minimise the di vides bet ween cuI tures whi ch agrees with findings by Montgomery in [7]. However, this may suppress their attention to differences and je opardise their opportunities in developing intercultural competencies including intercultural curiosity.
Analysis of recordi ngs of the collaborative sessions show stud ents p racticing p oliteness, wh ich is n atural behavior i nest ablishing an d m aintaining reI ationships, including in tercultural relatio nship. However, th is may have negative consequences in professional col laborative environment asp oliteness often ind uces co nsiderable amount of ambiguity, uncertainty and indirectness. On the other ha nd, a caut ion sh ould be exe rcised when encouraging directness in comm unication as it should not appear to encourage people to be rude to each other, but to be m ore to lerant to directness bu t less to lerant to misunderstandings a nd am biguity i n com munication within the professional co lIaborative environment when it can have se rious c onsequences on 0 utcomes of joi nt international projects.
Consequently, students need t 0 learn to balance cl arity and am biguity, underst anding an d m isunderstanding, directness and indirectness in their comm unication. They also need to learn to balance their discipline task focus and intercultural I earning fo cus tom aximise their I earning opportunities in th e d evelopment 0 fin tercuItural competencies in the context of professional intercultural collaboration.

TV. CONC LUSSION
In th is article we gave a sh ort description of a nu mber of unique features that supp ort on line co llaborative wo rk in remote laboratory NetLab and some details of a project where st udents had a uni que op portunity t 0 use this learning envi ronment for advanci ng t heir i nternational collaborative sk ills through on lin e co lIaboration with students from different countries.
This articl e is an 0 utIine 0 fth e liv ed emonstration session during the conference.