This paper proposes a process based on learning analytics and recommender systems targeted at making suggestions to students about their remote laboratories activities and providing insights to all stakeholders taking part in the learning process. To apply the process, a log with requests and responses of remote experiments from the VISIR project were analyzed. A request is the setup of the experiment including the assembled circuits and the configurations of the measuring equipment. In turn, a response is a message provided by the measurement server indicating measures or an error when it is not possible to execute the experiment. Along the two phases of analysis, the log was analyzed and summarized in order to provide insights about students' experiments. In addition, there is a recommendation service responsible for analyzing the requests thus returning, in case of error, precise information about the assembly of circuits or configurations. The evaluation of the process is consistent in what regards its ability to afford recommendations to the students as they carry out the experiments. Moreover, the summarized information intends to offer teachers means to better understand and develop strategies to scaffold students' learning.
This work reports the incorporation result of a Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Program in the two-years master's degree in Instrumentation and Metrology Engineering (MEIM) held at the School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP). The procedure developed to find internships in industrial companies and institutions, which have needs for engineers in the areas of instrumentation and metrology is displayed. The authors also present the information on the situation of students that, by the end of the first academic year, could get enrolled in the curricular unit Dissertation/Project/Professional Training (opting either for a professional internship in a company or by a research project conducted in ISEP laboratories). In order to understand the benefits and impact of a WIL program, from a student perspective, students were asked to answer a questionnaire. Lastly, the results achieved during the study period are presented, including the student reported outcomes (from the questionnaire), as well as the informal feedback from students and companies' supervisors. The good results achieved, regarding the development of theoretical-practical competencies as well as generic or soft skills, during the master's, were also confirmed by the fact that students are hired by the companies to continue their work after the end of professional training.
This paper presents a low-cost scaled model of a silo for drying and airing cereal grains. It allows the control and monitor of several parameters associated to the silo's operation, through a remote accessible infrastructure. The scaled model consists of a 2.50 m wide x 2.10 m long plant with all control and monitor capacities provided by micro-Web servers. An application running on the micro-Web servers enables storing all parameters in a data basis for later analysis. The implemented model aims to support a remote experimentation facility for technological education, research-oriented tutorials, and industrial applications. Given the low-cost requirement, this remote facility can be easily replicated in other institutions to support a network of remote labs, which encompasses the concurrent access of several users (e.g. students).
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