Web services for virtual simulation

Great development in distance learning has been made in the two last decade; the principal reason for that is due to the rapid evolution of technology, the huge development of computer networks, the large use of internet and personal computers. The World Wide Web with its different web services offers learners and teachers´ new ways of learning and teaching; students can study at their own pace and perform practical works remotely. We, at the University of Bordj Bou Arreridj, are involved in a TEMPUS project; its acronym is eSience which stands for rESeau maghrébIn de laboratoirEs à distaNCE, it aims to link three elabs around the Maghreb countries namely Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The project is coordinated by the University of Bordeaux 1, France with the participation of many other European partners. These elabs will propose practical and theoretical teaching units to their students and will be part of their degree program. In this paper we present the architecture of the platform proposed by our university and we will focus on the web interface which permits to students to perform their practical works on the virtual simulator called SMARTSPICE of SILVACO. The first part of the paper is an introduction to the service broker, which will allow students from different universities (partners) to communicate and use their different platforms without having to enroll in the different platforms. In the second part we present the simulation server and give an example of its usage.