Remote access laboratories in Australia and Europe

Abstract

Remote access laboratories (RALs) were first developed in 1994 in Australia. The main purposes of developing them are to enable students to do their experiments at their own pace, time and locations, and to enable students and teaching staff to get access to facilities beyond their institutions. Currently, most of the experiments carried out through RALs are heavily biased to electrical, electronic and computer engineering disciplines. RALs in different Australian and European universities were mentioned and their pros and cons were also discussed. It can be argued that RALs will develop further and faster in the future with improving Internet technology; the rising costs of real experimental equipment will also speed up their development because by making the equipment remote accessible, the cost can be shared by more universities or institutions and this will improve their cost-effectiveness. Their development would be particularly rapid in large counties with small population like Australia, Canada and Russia.