Virtual Education: Reality or Virtuality?.

This research explored the challenge of how students might successfully perform real laboratory experiments over the Internet without being in a laboratory. Numerous distance learning environments were surveyed, and the effectiveness and disadvantages of laboratory facilities currently available over the Internet were assessed. Full and part-time virtual laboratory programs of prominent universities in North America and the United Kingdom were examined, as were pure virtual universities that have no established campus structure. Research revealed that existing labs that were promoted as virtual environments were merely software simulations that were far from authentic lab experimentation. Hence, the researchers created an environment that renders remote performance of genuine lab experiments, or genuine remote experiments (GRE) . Advantages of GRE, interactive breadboarding technology, and system design are highlighted. (Contains 16