A virtual laboratory for computer organisation and logic design (COLDVL) and its utilisation for MOOCs

This paper presents the usabilities of a newly developed web based virtual laboratory package as a self-learning tool in association with online courses with the facility for evaluation of user assignments without the intervention of the instructor. This virtual lab contains a hierarchical module level logic design tool equipped with a logic simulator, a set of pre-designed experiments and also the facility to add new experiments to enhance learning. The tool contains a repertoire of components and design functionalities to aid learning through experiments. For complex experiments, such as CPU design, the tool provides an interface for specifying the controller abstractly as a control state chart. All the experiments can be conducted on a regular desktop or a laptop computer and can be saved with user identification at any point and resumed later. This virtual lab has been successfully deployed to support several of courses at IIT Kharagpur. Additionally, workshops to familiarize this system to teachers and students in several colleges have been conducted. Feedback from an academic institute conducting the lab with online courses indicating satisfactory usability has been gathered.