Abstract:

Three priorities for Europe information technologies were established for the year 2010:
i) The completion of a Single European Information Space which promotes an open and competitive internal market for information society and media;
ii) Strengthening Innovation and Investment in ICT research to promote growth and more and better jobs;
iii) Achieving an Inclusive European Information Society that is consistent with sustainable development and that prioritises better public services and quality of life.
Although more than 50 experiments of significant size Living Labs are already in place in Europe, the concept of Living Labs is still developing in a rather fragmented way.
For this reason many distance learning courses were created in Humanity, Law and Economy discipline, whereas no similar results were obtained for more technical disciplines in which lab experience is fundamental.
In 1996 we created a TNP network in Biotechnology and we developed an international course in English for the first level (Job creation oriented Biotechnology ) and for the second level (Biotechnology Medical application). On the basis of this experience in 2000 we decided to prepare distance ODL modules corresponding to the subject of the courses. The teachers together with an IT expert started to prepare some modules taking care to develop an interactive program in order to stimulate the students. For this reason tests with the students following regular courses were made in order to evaluate the efficacy. Our ambitious was to create the entire course including the laboratory experiences. Some modules were also prepared in which laboratory methodology was explained in order to stimulate the student to repeat the experiment in the lab and to be able to evaluate the correct process. These ODL modules may be utilised with efficacy only in presence of real labs. which create the adequate environment and offer all the technical support for the student work.
The creation of virtual reality was in the past very expensive in terms of computing equipment and interfaces (MMI), now specialised IT technologies (protocols and data layers) has been developed and new low cost devices were designed making possible, through internet connections, to gain benefit of them.
Therefore we intend to extend our e-learning platform introducing new specialised modules dedicated to the simulation of laboratory experience making use of virtual reality in order to create a simulated environment in which several objects are represented and the interaction with some of them (actuated devices) is completely simulated.
In order to increase the level of interaction it has been proposed to introduce the adoption of haptic devices (at client side) in order to enrich the virtual experience with some sensorial feedback given back to the learner.
We intend therefore to examine and discuss the most relevant systems that may be used and to compare the results obtained by creating a network of Living Labs.
In this way we intend to enhance the quality of e-learning courses in technological disciplines, like biotechnology, trying to reach the same efficacy than the traditional one thus permitting also to students living in disadvantaged areas and to the working people to follow easily the entire course with the same profit.

Keywords:

Biotechnology, virtual laboratory.