-------- Original-Nachricht -------- Betreff: [computational.science] 2nd Call for Papers to IEEE trans. on Learning Technologies: special issue on "The many faces of Remote Labs" Datum: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 10:07:09 +0100 Von: Christophe GRAVIER christophe.gravier@telecom-st-etienne.fr Organisation: "OptimaNumerics" An: Computational Science Mailing List computational.science@lists.OptimaNumerics.com

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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a second call for papers for a Special Issue to be published in IEEE transactions on Learning Technologies (http://www.computer.org/tlt ). Deadline 31st March. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Colleagues,

TELECOM Saint-Etienne and the Carinthia University of Applied Science are organizing a special issue in the "IEEE transactions on Learning Technologies" International Journal.

The issue is focused on Remote Laboratories, and is entitled "The Many Faces of Remote Laboratories in Engineering Education".

Enclosed is the detailed call in PDF file format. Please feel free to distribute it to interested colleagues and students.

The Web site of the IEEE trans. on Learning Technologies is http://www.computer.org/tlt (and the associated Manuscript Central is located at : https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tlt-cs) .

Best Regards, The IEEE TLT Guest Editors of the Special Issue on Remote Labs.

Christophe Gravier, christophe.gravier@telecom-st- etienne.fr TELECOM Saint-Etienne, Université de Saint-Etienne, Université de Lyon, France.

Michael E. Auer, M.Auer@IEEE.org Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, School of Systems Engineering, Austria.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “IEEE TLT Special Issues: The Many Faces of Remote Laboratories in Engineering Education”

Over the last decade, changes in demography have lead universities to envision new geographical and temporal patterns to deliver Higher Education. The “anytime, anywhere” paradigm in the field of Distance Learning, developed in the 90’s, has contributed to bringing part of the University right to the student’s door, through the Internet.

Labs have always played an important role in education, and so do Online Labs for distance Education. Online Laboratories can be of different kind, mainly, Virtual Laboratories (model-based Web simulations as hands-on exercises), Remote Laboratories (real remote control of devices for distance learning hands-on sessions), or Hybrid Laboratories (a mixed approach as part is simulation, and part is real remote control).

Meanwhile, modern learning theories, including constructivism, have emerged and been more greatly employed in Higher Education teaching practices. This trend has significantly modified the traditional learning process model, in that students are more and more expected to build their knowledge by themselves and their interactions with learning experiences, as well as materials and different actors they have to interact with as they complete their curriculum. In the field of Engineering Education, this suggests a stronger contribution of hands-on approaches in the process of quality of learning.

During these last years, many Remote Laboratory platforms have been developed and used in Distance Learning situations. The primary focus of research was to tackle issues related to software development for Remote Laboratories. Because of the important of software development issues, many other significant areas of study, including distributed architectures, reusability, performance, platform and middleware, among others, were somewhat secondary.

While these subjects are still highly important for Distance Learning, new challenges of Remote Laboratories have emerged due to student lifestyle changes. Students now have different expectations for their learning activities, as well as new technologies to live and personalize their learning experiences. In other words, the issues in Remote Laboratories are no longer restricted to bringing a device to the student's room, but the new challenges Remote Laboratories must meet, including:

- Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) - Mobile Learning (m-Learning) - Personalized and Adaptive Learning

At the same time, the tutors also use these learning/practice platforms. They therefore have their own perspectives and expectations about how future Online Laboratories platforms, should perform, such as:

- closing the gap between Remote Laboratories and other learning activities hosted in other systems to better provide follow-up and feedback of student progress. - creating of authoring tools that can easily edit and create personalized Online Laboratories, based on their own personalized input (with the intuitive support of a software architecture). - evaluating objective student assessments: Many evaluations today are somewhat subjective because a tutor cannot follow all the students groups simultaneously, - guaranteeing of the reliability and safety of the devices involved in the Online Laboratory platform.

Using remote laboratories has the potential to significantly reduce obstacles related of cost, time-inefficient use of facilities, inadequate technical support and limited access. This kind of development leads to the seamless integration of work and learning through obtaining practical knowledge that reinforces theoretical knowledge by actually resolving physical or mechanical problems (embedded learning).

Submissions are expected to present original research that illustrates the application of the described Online Laboratories approach with real-world cases, including an evaluation of the proposed ideas. The scope of this issue is the following:

- State of the art in Remote Laboratories. - Mobile Learning and Remote Laboratories, - Personalized and Adaptive Learning for Remote Laboratories, - Computer Supported Collaborative Learning in Remote Laboratories, - Assessment of students in Remote Laboratories, - Safety of devices in Remote Laboratories, - Authoring tools for Remote Laboratories, - Online Laboratories architectures and use cases, - Networking and grid technologies, - Mixed Reality environments, - Assessment of Remote Laboratories performance, - Standards and standardization proposals, - Reusability in Remote Laboratories, - Issues in Hybrid Laboratories.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published or be currently submitted for journal publication elsewhere. As an author, you are responsible for understanding and adhering to our submission guidelines. You can access them at: http://www.computer.org/portal/pages/transactions/tlt/mc/author.html .

The journal is now accepting submissions for this special issue through Manuscript Central at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tlt-cs, which provides instructions about formatting and length. If you have any questions, please contact the guest editors at the addresses listed below.

Important dates:

o 31st March 2009: Deadline to submit a full paper.

o 7th May 2009: Authors notified of acceptance, rejection, or needed revisions.

o 5th June 2009: Revisions due.

o 30th June 2009 : Notification of final acceptance.

o 24th July 2009: Final versions due.

If you have any questions, please contact the editors of this special issue:

Christophe Gravier, christophe.gravier@telecom-st- etienne.fr TELECOM Saint-Etienne, Université de Saint-Etienne, Université de Lyon, France.

Michael E. Auer, M.Auer@IEEE.org Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, School of Systems Engineering, Austria.