3DVL@ES: A 3D Web-Based Virtual Laboratory for Collaborative Learning in Experimental Science Practical Work

Introduction

With the rapid and continuous spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning has become the only way in the world to ensure learning at all levels. Distant learning offers online theoretical courses on education institutes during COVID-19 but also introduces considerable learning challenges when it comes to engineering and experimental science practice works, not only in providing online courses and tutorials such as Moodle (Rice 2015) but also to ensure effective collaboration for online learning during COVID-19. When learners carry out practical experiments, they will understand the theoretical concept in more depth. Therefore, virtual laboratories are needed in the COVID-19 pandemic to meet the growing demand for distant practical works. Therefore, it is a question of how to design and develop 3D web applications to meet the collaborative requirements of learners and provide them the opportunity to practice what they learn in the theoretical courses in a similar way to traditional laboratories.

Several research works that focus on the development of Virtual Laboratories (VLs) are available online and freely integrated into universities (Rice 2015; Abramov et al. 2017; Mostefaoui et al. 2017; Broisin et al. 2017; Astutik et al.2018; El Kharki et al.2018; Wästberg et al. 2019; Carlos et al. 2019; Salame et al. 2019; Wahyono et al.2020; Kolil et al. 2020; El Kharki et al. 2020), but the use of these virtual laboratories is still limited compared to traditional laboratories. Currently, researches focus on the design and development of advanced VLs (Carlos et al. 2019; El Kharki et al. 2020; Wahyono et al. 2020). However, the majority of learners are facing difficulties in finding suitable VLs that ensure typical learner interactions and remote collaborations during COVID-19 (Mechta et al. 2012; Wästberg et al. 2019) in the field of experimental sciences. Thus, a remote collaboration between learners is essential to successful practical work. This kind of learning offers significant benefits such as reduced effort and increased efficiency for learners who specify and realize their practical works and interpret related test results. In addition, it would also allow for better learner engagement. Thus, remote collaborative and cooperative interaction must be considered to improve the quality of learning when designing and implementing VLs.

Few solutions take advantage of collaboration between learners within virtual environments. In this context, some VLs (Astutik et al. 2018; Radhamani et al. 2021) use only individual learning or data collected by the teacher. Therefore, the best way to fully reach the objective of VLs in a COVID-19 is not only to individual work but also to keep in mind that a VL is suitable for many learners and workgroups which have to cooperate together towards realizing the same unique global aim, good practical work with reduced efforts and time.