"Dissemination of Remote and Virtual Laboratories for Natural Sciences and Engineering"
Grant agreement n ° 214006 (FP7) ECP-2008-EDU-428037
Participation of LTFN
Project Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Sabina Jeschke
AUTh Sci. Responsible: Prof. S. Logothetidis
www.lila-project.org
In this project virtual laboratories and remote experiments (i.e. simulated experiments and experiments which are controlled remotely by computers) spread out over Europe are combined for the first time. They are reachable in an environment with central retrieval and access facilitating synchronous collaboration and user generated production.
At present, virtual laboratories and remote experiments are only used by the universities that created them, and these circumstances are changing only very slowly. The situation is awkward since the benefits and potentials of virtual laboratories and remote experiments are very high: No single university can afford the development of all the virtual laboratories and remote experiments necessary to cover the whole curriculum itself; this goal can only be attained at a European level. To lay the foundations for this, the big players in virtual laboratory and remote experiment technologies unite to create the technical and organizational framework for the mutual exchange of experiments and the future affiliation of other institutions. The "Library of Labs" is a unique access to virtual laboratories, remote experiments, transfer services, know-how transfer and opportunities for cooperation open to all European countries. This is especially of benefit to those countries and institutions that don't have the financial capacities to develop virtual laboratories or to set up remote experiments themselves. The embedding of the experiments in the curricula ensures a very sustainable use of the eLearning content. The universities of the consortium (and as we suppose others as well) will have great interest in the new infrastructure since it will on one hand improve the quality of the physics and engineering education and on the other hand reduce the costs of the experiments for every single partner. Thus, partners have an intrinsic interest in using and supporting the LiLa infrastructure beyond the termination of Community funding.