Intelligent User-Support in Learning Environments for Remote Experimentation

Distance-learning engineering courses supporting remote laboratory experimentation, afford a number of critical benefits including flexible access to resources. Creating an effective and integrated learning environment, which allows the access, control and monitoring of embedded devices and instrumentation over the Internet is challenging. Recent advances in Web technologies and applications have enabled increased levels of functionality and accessibility for remote laboratories. However, remote learning by its very nature provides limited educator assistance and from a students' perspective it is inevitable that at some stage of the experimental process, context specific help will be required. This paper addresses the support for intelligent user help in the context of remote experimentation for embedded systems and presents a semi-automated user-assistance system, which supports the current remote experimentation laboratory available at the University of Ulster. An example micro controller experiment is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the user-help system