Remote Intelligent Access to Labs in Higher Education

Remote Intelligent Access to Labs in Higher Education (RIALHE) aims to improve the students’ understanding of scientific procedures starting from remote access to real lab experiments followed by collaborative activities using tech platforms.

Lab work is a key aspect of scientific education and students can seldom access public and private labs of excellence. While several Erasmus+ projects and national initiatives have focused on digital L&T, our project is innovative in addressing a pedagogical framework (RIALHE) for lab training as a particular field.

Despite providing scientific labs, many educational bodies lack the resources to meet the costs of reagents or maintenance. Digitising the hardware components of a lab is complicated and costly. In the context of virtual labs, where the experiment is simulated, students face situations where aspects of the procedures remain hidden because simulations do not address contingencies or measurement errors. A lab operator needs to address such situations that are present in a real-life experiment.

Acquiring this ability is an important part of the learning process that is lost in the over-idealized virtual world. An innovative methodology, shared at European level, implies the elaboration of basic competencies including gaining familiarity with cutting edge lab equipment not necessarily accessible to all academic institutions.

RIALHE project leader and Senior Researcher Mohammad Khalil presenting RIALHE at the annual faculty day at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, December 2022. Photo: Ingvild Abildgaard Jansen.

Objectives

1. Improve both the quality and relevance of Higher Education laboratory activities for all partners by providing remote access to state of the art laboratory environments and by opening up to new actors, not normally involved in the educational paths.

2. Increase partners’ capacity to operate jointly at a transnational level creating and developing synergies through the establishment of a common framework that uses participatory approaches and digital methodologies.

3. Boost the internationalisation of the partners’ activities, through exchanging and developing new practices and methods, and through sharing and confronting ideas.

Project Period:

September 1st 2022 – August 31st 2025.

Project Period:

Funded By:

Erasmus+, Cooperation partnerships in higher education.

Project Leader:

Mohammad Khalil.

Project Members:

SLATE, University of Bergen: Mohammad Khalil, Barbara Wasson, Kamila Misiejuk, Jorunn Viken. Department of Biological Sciences (BIO), University of Bergen: Runar Stokke. Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia (CRS4): Carole Salis, Christian Lai, Marie Florence Wilson. University of Technology of Compiègne: Marie-Hélène Abel, Thierry Gidel, Claude Moulin.

Project Partners:

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‍Visiting Address:

Christiesgate 12, 2nd floor

Postal Address:

University of Bergen
PO Box 7807
N-5020 Bergen, Norway