Virtual and remote control labs using Java: A qualitative approach

In our modern society, distance education has become aviable solution for students who require more flexible,accessible, and adaptive teaching systems, without spa-tial and temporal restrictions [1], [2]. In the past, the inter-action methods for distance education were limited to the telephone, postal mail, or fax. Today’s new information tech-nologies provide alternative tools for improving teacher-stu-dent interaction, two of which can be pointed to as the most capable and reliable for distance education. These tools are hypermedia systems as a new way of arranging information and wide-area communication networks (i.e., the Internet) for information support [3]. Although these tools are sufficient for constructing sup-port systems for subjects without a strong practical compo-nent, teaching of control systems or other subjects with strong experimental content requires a new element. This new element must allow students to apply the knowledg