Models of remote laboratories and collaborative roles for learning environments

One of the main concerns in development of remote laboratories in academic settings has been the lack of standardization in terms of technology, processes, operation and aspects related to their integration with formal educational environments. Remote laboratories are used in a variety of educational situations, for instance, when the equipment is not available in the physical laboratory, when physically laboratory space available is not sufficient to either set up the experiments or permit access to all students in the course, or when the teacher wants to provide laboratory experiences to students taking courses via distance education. Centers have been forming platforms that provide remote access to a collection of physical experiments that provide alternatives to educational institutions to reduce budgets of not only equipment purchases but also in other expenses such as: people, space, maintenance, and electricity consumption. This paper explains the different types of laboratories and hybrid combinations, and presents Unified Modeling Language (UML) models for remote laboratories in the educational context incorporating learning environments, as well as a model of the user roles that defines user interactions with remote laboratories.