In today’s world, technology is playing a huge role in simplifying the lives of people. This is because of the widespread use of computer science and information technology, which have entered almost all areas of life. Education is no different. The emerging technologies are providing opportunities for improving and enhancing the learning and education process and using technological tools effectively in the teaching process will help change learning and communication methods. One such innovative method of learning is Virtual Labs.

The prominence and the use of virtual lab in science and engineering is illimitable. As science is an empirical field that involves conducting experiments in laboratories and without practising in labs, students can’t get experiential knowledge. Hence virtual labs has become essential to enhance current learning methods. Today in India, these virtual labs are being used by the top institutions like IITs, NITs and others, but in the same time, there is a large number of professional institutions who are lacking in terms of laboratory work and hands-on experience of a laboratory environment. Even if such facilities are available, their efficiency is poor due to the quality of equipment, general instructions and readiness to challenge the standard conventions. Here is where availability of virtual laboratories helps to bridge that important gap by providing access to quality laboratory experimentation with a feature of access anytime, anywhere and by anyone. Above that, these labs can benefit everyone, including Engineering Students to BioScience & Medical Students and school students to researchers from any background.

The Growing Importance of Virtual Labs

In this COVID situation, the question of uncertainty keeps arising, as the opening of labs and innovation centres are uncertain. Virtual labs are the answer to this uncertainty. Leveraging virtual labs, researchers can keep innovating, even in this lockdown period. Apart from that, there are several advantages of using virtual labs. Such as they have considerable educational potential as they offer kinesthetic learning and can provide an opportunity to ‘learn by doing’ through remote experimentation. It can protect students and teachers from hazards, given there is no direct contact with toxic chemicals and there is no handling of volatile substances or electricity. Advanced virtual labs support complex functions, such as virtual simulation and emulators, using which users can explore a variety of ‘what if’ scenarios by altering the input and observing the effect on the output. It can also help students keep up with the technological development of the digital age. Not just that, but virtual labs can help induce a great deal of interest as well as confidence in the students in performing experiments independently. Such labs can also help students undertake quiz tests or Q&A sessions before they are allowed to perform the experiment virtually. This is a step that can be very essential to evaluate the pre-requisite knowledge and preparedness of a student.

Virtual labs in India is available for a long time, and there are several virtual labs service providers currently in the country. With their commendable work, they are creating a new transformation in the education space of India. One of the most prominent virtual labs in India is ‘Virtual Labs’ that is being operated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. It is a project initiated by the MHRD, under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology. A number of top institutions are participating in the project, which includes seven IITs (Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Roorkee and Guwahati), IIIT Hyderabad, Amrita University, Dayalbagh University, NIT Karnataka, and College of Engineering, Pune. Several other organizations like A-VIEW (Amrita Virtual Interactive e-Learning World), OLabs, labOnLaptop, ScienceLab, LabInApp and many others are also contributing their best to transform the education sector.

Though virtual labs in India came in existence almost eight years ago, and are being used by various top institutions since a long time, the adoption took a huge pace in 2020 pandemic as various institutions, as well as students, started realizing the potential of this technology. IIIT Hyderabad recently announced that it has witnessed a huge leap in page views for its virtual labs. Coinciding with the imposition of the lockdown in India, statistics show a steep rise in page views of the materials – from 6,28,300 on March 25 to nearly four million in June 2020. Dr. Venkatesh Choppella, Principal Investigator (PI), Virtual Labs, IIITH stated in the blog “We’ve seen a surge in the number of usages due to the recent COVID-19 situation. This reiterates the importance of virtual labs for students across the country and also across the world”.

But there is nothing in the world that have only advantages but no disadvantages, the same is here with virtual labs. Virtual labs come with certain requirements, such as – a student should have a computer and working internet connection to leverage the virtual lab facility at home. However, in India, connectivity is a great issue and students from rural areas do face a problem. So utilizing the virtual lab is possible only when the students have good internet access. To deal with this situation MHRD and other lab service providers have to come up with a solution which will enhance the flexibility of the labs.

The Future

To be true, virtual labs are key to the establishment of virtual universities of the future. Above that, the need of the hour for other institutions who haven’t implemented virtual labs yet is to learn from the top institutions like IITs and NITs, as it has been benefitting them since last eight years and the results can be clearly seen by the performances of the students. With times, virtual labs are proving themselves as one of the best ways to teach students and allow them to conduct experiments instead of simply viewing them. Moving from Hands-On Labs to Virtual Labs could also reduce costs and increase teaching efficiency. Moreover, teaching techniques should always be modern and flexible so they can keep up with evolving technologies. India can easily achieve that by having virtual labs in all schools in the future and linking them with current e-learning systems.

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