Embedding virtual and remote experiments into a cooperative knowledge space

Today, experimental environments and setups in natural sciences and engineering are neither available sufficiently, nor accessible enough to cover the broad demand. Yet, they form an essential part of the scientific methodology within the technological disciplines. Additionally, the ability to cooperate and work in teams when performing experiments is crucial. By integrating experimental setups into a virtual cooperative knowledge space, availability and accessibility can be enhanced for a wide range of people, working individually or in groups, making them independent of limitations in time, budget or access to classical laboratories. This article describes a SOAP-based architecture by which this objective can be achieved, and which is currently being implemented for CURE, a room-based cooperative knowledge space platform developed at FernUniversitaet Hagen.