Outlook: What role will online laboratories play in the future of laboratory teaching?

For the conclusion of the present anthology 'Laboratories in university teaching', seven relevant international experts were asked about their experiences and visions regarding the future of teaching and learning in the laboratory. In this article, they and their personal perspective are largely unfiltered. Their concrete answers therefore form the core of this chapter. A particular focus of the survey was on teaching and learning with online laboratories. Looking back at the experience gained over many years, it is clear that setting up and operating online laboratories - be it remote or virtual - represents a technically complex and cost-intensive challenge. The experts see this as one of the main reasons for the lack of dissemination of corresponding solutions in teaching to date. However, it is also becoming clear that - not only in times of the current crisis caused by COVID-19 - there is an increasing demand for online laboratories and a corresponding market is developing with it. Although individual studies show that users of online laboratories initially need a considerable period of familiarization, they then achieve good learning results. According to the experts, for the future of online laboratories it is particularly important to offer a target-oriented mix of on-site laboratories and online laboratories in order to combine the advantages of both worlds