Design of a System to Track Student Progress in Virtual Laboratories

Laboratories are an important part of technical and scientific education. To amortize the cost of setup and maintenance, some laboratory facilities can be shared and via remote network access. Such virtual laboratories provide realistic environments and allow for interactive student experimentation. When students access a virtual laboratory via the Internet, it makes it more difficult for instructors to track student progress. In this paper, the authors present the design of a system that can track student progress as an extension of the Open Network Laboratory. Their design presents a mechanism for recording student work, comparing it to a master solution, and visualizing the status of the entire class.