An architecture for virtual labs in engineering education

This paper describes the preliminary results of an educational innovation project in which virtual world technologies have been used to build up a set of virtual laboratories oriented to engineering studies. Focusing on the architecture of a biotechnology laboratory created in this project, we describe how this architecture will also be adopted in other labs under construction, so that these labs can also take advantage of the same educational benefits. Instead of relying on a commercial software solution, these labs have been created with an open source software infrastructure named OpenSim. The limitations found in OpenSim and the solutions that have been provided to overcome these limitations are shown.