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Session 2420

Evaluating Student Performance in Online Laboratories

Charles Nippert Widener University

Abstract

This paper discusses a new online process control laboratory that provides an interactive process experience in a process control course that is structured as a conventional lecture course. Use of online simulations provides a low cost alternative to a laboratory and does not require a major change to the curriculum (i.e. adding a separate course or increasing the credit hours for the existing course). As in earlier works by the author, the online laboratory maximizes the capability of the web server by using JAVA applets to perform the simulations on the client (student) computers. However, the interactive modules in the new online laboratories are capable of reporting to the server how well students perform. The instructor can view these data over the Internet to monitor student performance. The software architecture provides information that the instructor can use to determine how well the course objectives are being met. Student response to this system has been positive. Additionally much valuable information about student performance (such as the time to perform an experiment) has been obtained and are discussed.

Introduction

The Online Widener Laboratories (OWL) are the result of an extended effort to incorporate interactive web–based instructional modules in a variety of courses. OWL consists of two laboratories that have similar organization and software architecture but different goals and uses. The first online laboratory, the Virtual Chemical Engineering Laboratory was the subject of previous papers (1,2, 3). This paper deals with the Virtual Process Control Laboratory and monitoring courseware that allows the instructor to assess performance.

The heart of each instructional module is an interactive simulation that recreates a process or experiment. The interactive simulations are contained in JAVA™ applets delivered by the web server to the client (user’s) computer. Applets run on the user’s computer in the browser window. This architecture (Figure 1, next page) reduces the server’s workload by shifting computational load from the server to the client and eliminates delays to the users’ responses caused by transmission delays between the client and the web server. Therefore the user sees a fast response and the server is able to

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Nippert, C. (2002, June), Evaluating Student Performance In Online Virtual Laboratories Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--11085