An organization of the virtual intellectual laboratory works

Abstract

A method of organizing virtual laboratory work is proposed where it is assumed to acquire skills of work with complex equipment or with a complex of industrial facilities from the control panel. In such cases, real laboratory equipment is very expensive and can be easily damaged. The purpose of the method is to increase the didactic effectiveness of teaching, to provide automatic evaluation of the student’s work, to reduce the teacher’s work in class, to reduce the cost of laboratory equipment and to eliminate the risk of equipment damage. In compliance with this method each student works according to his own variant which forms a mathematical model of the studied object or process and the correct results that should be obtained after the laboratory work has been completed. All the actions of the student are controlled by a computer in order to prevent malfunctions in the mathematical model and to guide the learning process. If the student’s action is correct, it is transferred to the mathematical model. If the action is incorrect, it is ignored and the corresponding information is transmitted to the message base and explanation base. Here, the computer selects a message for the student which explains the incorrect action. The student takes the necessary measurements, processes them and receives the final results. The computer compares them with the correct results. If the error of mismatch between the student’s and the computer’s results exceeds a critical level these results are not accepted. If the error is below the critical level, these results are accepted and evaluated. After the work has been completed the final mark is recorded in the student’s registration file