Integrating Learning Management Systems and Practical Learning Activities: The Case of Computer and Network Experiments

Even if virtualization technologies are mature enough to deliver remote experiment in a distance-learning context, they are not well-integrated into existing learning environments; as a consequence, they do not provide teachers with any mechanisms to get feedbacks on actions handled by learners. To tackle these issues, this paper presents an approach based on the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard. Full integration of learning and experiment contexts is ensured by an intermediate layer acting as a bridge, while tracking mechanisms stand on (1) an abstract modeling of experiments and learnerspsila information from an observation point of view, and (2) some components able to extract, store and retrieve data specified within the model. We demonstrate how this approach can be extended to satisfy additional requirements, and present an implementation based on existing open source software that validates our works.