CyberLab

Objective, aim and motivation

Objective is to improve the quality of, and access to, continuing vocational training by developing and offering distance laboratory training. This enables access to a large variety of expensive laboratory equipment instead of depending on the limited regional facilities. Vocational training becomes in turn much broader in its curriculum (by offering to work with much more different laboratory equipment and trainers) and consequently significantly increases the quality of training skills on a European level, as demanded by industry. Important is that access no more depends on the regional situation, but permits easy participation in training at the best laboratories in Europe. The only requirement is broadband telecommunication access, preferably by a local training organisation participating in the laboratory network.

The CyberLab project puts priority to new forms of

• Learning
• Teaching
• Basic skills in vocational
• Educational training by developing the new method of distance laboratory training via ergonomic interactive videoconferencing.

The success of videoconferencing of classroom lecturing nowadays encourages realising the same for laboratory training, even though the complexity is much higher.

The project aims to reach the overall objectives by improving the quality of laboratory training by enabling distance training at various faraway laboratories by an interactive videoconferencing environment. Usual videoconferencing, which is successfully applied in distant classroom lecturing nowadays, is by far not sufficient to transfer the impact of laboratory training. Laboratory experiments involve a series of complex human actions such as moving around in the lab (compared to the stationary classroom), team and tutor communication, observation of facility details and of samples, observation of the experiment (accompanied by monitoring of measurements), visual testing of the result (often via microscope), manual handling, etc.

Strong ambition of the project is to identify these ergonomic key elements of laboratory training behaviour and to develop methods to maintain them as much as possible in an interactive videoconferencing environment. One or two trainers in the lab shall carry out the manual actions, accompanied by coordinating camera manipulation, while the trainees, supported by a local trainer, observe and communicate with the operator via sophisticated videoconferencing in a highly interactive manner of highest ergonomic quality. As the ultimate challenge a distributed videoconferencing environment shall permit multiplexing of several lab senders and training receivers.

Main motivation of the CyberLab proposal inherently is to homogenize and commonly improve the laboratory training opportunities across Europe. The method shall permit distance participation at the best available facilities all over Europe in an easy, cheap and time efficient manner. The distance laboratory method will permit easy participation in laboratory training for everybody, widely independent of disadvantages with respect to geography, gender, the individual financial situation, limitations in time, or handicaps.

The distance training method will also provide women equal opportunities as men, e.g. as time efficiency will be a key benefit from the project by avoiding or reducing travelling and thus significantly reducing the time off from home.