The engineering students understand the engineering concepts effectively when they conduct the experiments in the laboratory. Hence, laboratory is as important as theory; however, the ill-equipped laboratory facilities affect the students’ learnability. The virtual laboratories may help the students overcome the problems faced by them in the conventional laboratory. In India, educational activities during the middle of the semester were affected due to lockdown related to COVID-19. However, the theory classes were conducted online, and educational institutions are finding it difficult to complete the laboratory experiments due to closure of colleges for the students due to COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, we have conducted a faculty development programme for the engineering college faculty members on mechanical engineering virtual laboratories. Similarly, we have trained the mechanical engineering students on fluid mechanics virtual laboratory. We have taken feedback from the participants of these virtual laboratory training programme and analysed it. From the analysis we have observed that more than 90 per cent of the participants were happy about the virtual laboratory and they expressed that their learning process improved with virtual laboratory experiments. Also, they felt that the virtual laboratories can be used till the COVID-19 pandemic issues are solved. Since the vaccine for COVID-19 is not available yet, the virtual laboratories will help the mechanical engineering students to conduct the laboratory experiments for the academic year 2020–2021.
In this paper, we first introduce intuitionistic fuzzy sets [IFS] with n-parameters. This method of approach is different and singular in certain aspects. In this n-parameters method the relationship between membership values and hesitancy values and hesitancy values and non-membership values are studied to diagnosis the cause of diseases. The symptoms are checked once and even if there is slight variations in the symptoms the doctor can diagnosis the disease accurately, but this is not studied in other existing methods.
The teaching and learning process in the laboratory is different from theory classes. The students get better knowledge and understanding of the concept when they perform experiments in the laboratory. The hands-on practice will help the students to remember the concept. However, the lack of facilities and limitations in the laboratory infrastructure may affect the student learning process. In India, few technical institutions lack adequate laboratory facilities, and hence, the government of India has started a new initiative called the virtual laboratory to overcome this issue. The Government of India provided funding to the premier institutions in India to establish virtual laboratory facilities to help the institutions which do not have sophisticated laboratory facilities. The advancement in IT and internet facilities helps this initiative. In this chapter, basics of virtual laboratories, different types of virtual laboratories, impact of virtual laboratories in students learning process, opportunities, and limitations of the virtual laboratories were discussed.
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