Virtual labs in engineering education: Implementation using free and open source resources

The laboratory experience is a very essential component in education especially in the engineering education. The students develop the practical skills such as real world problem solving, designing, communication, team work, independent thinking and creativity while working in the laboratories. The advances in ICT have led to the development of Virtual laboratories. In this paper we discuss the different types of virtual laboratories used in engineering education with the advantages and disadvantages compared to the traditional laboratories in the first section. In the second section the technological aspects of development of virtual laboratories using free and open source resources is described and the final section gives details about the progress of the survey instrument tailored for virtual laboratories.