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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Article
    Use of Advanced Technologies in a Rf and Microwave Engineering Course
    (IEEE, 2010) Aydın, Elif; Çağıltay, Nergiz
    In RF and Microwave Engineering course, usually students struggle to build connections between the theory they have learned and practical applications in the laboratory. The laboratory applications are usually very limited for hands on experience since the high cost and maintenance requirements of the equipment. Additionally, new engineers need to know how to use at least one engineering design tool in order to practice designing RF components, circuits, or antennas. In this study, a curriculum model including recent developments and technologies in the RF and Microwave Engineering field by addressing above problems of the course is proposed. This study covers the description of the content of theoretical and hands on applications, the integration model of the technological tools into the proposed curriculum, and the instructional approaches used in the new course design which covers the use of a remote laboratory environment, Concept Maps and an engineering design tool. The course is structured with a balance between theory and laboratory, including remote and in lab measurement experiments as well as modeling and designing microwave components by means of computer tools and design fabrication. The newly designed course is implemented at the Atilim University. The first semester implementation shows promising results.
  • Article
    Distance Laboratory Applications ERRL: A Study on Radio Communication in Electronic Field
    (IEEE, 2008) Aydın, Cansu Çiğdem; Özyurt, E.; Aydın, Elif; Çağıltay, Nergiz; Özbek, Mehmet Efe; Alparslan, Ceren; Kara, Ali
    In the last decade, the effect of internet usage in education is gradually increased. When we look from academic perspective, the new technologies provided alternatives for students learning. As distance education becomes important everyday, the indispensable elements of teaching and education, laboratories must be reachable via remote connection. Consequently, the education that is going to be given to the students will be more flexible with respect to place and time constraints and students can reach laboratory facilities at any time and anywhere not only in lectures and practical hours. In this study, European Remote Radio Laboratory (ERRL) which is a distance remote Radio Frequency (RF) laboratory designed for electrical-electronics students, is described generally. The software architecture, infrastructure and experiment that can be done with a remote connection have been described.
  • Article
    How To Teach Usage of Equipments in a Remote Laboratory
    (IEEE, 2007) Alparslan, Nimet Ceren; Çağıltay, Nergiz; Özen, Mustafa; Aydın, Elif
    European Remote Radio Laboratory (ERRL) is an e learning project for students, teachers and technicians of the universities who will use the very important devices of this laboratory remotely. These devices are very expensive to buy and can be broken easily while they have been using by the people who does not really know how to use them professionally. As a solution we have developed an e-learning system which aims to support the ERRL learners while studying on how to use equipments in the system. The system is developed according to the electronic performance support systems (EPSS) approach. An EPSS is a computer-based, well structured system which improves the performance of individuals. It is an electronic infrastructure that contains, stores and distributes personal (individual) or corporate knowledge to enable people to reach necessary levels of performance in the fastest possible time and with minimum teaching support of other people. This paper discusses how the content for such a system is developed and how this content is interactively used in the EPSS platform. The technical details of the developed EPSS are also discussed in this study. We believe that this paper will help instructional system designers for designing different alternatives to improve learners’ performance.
  • Article
    How Assessment System of an Open Source Learning Management System Can Be Integrated To a Remote Laboratory Application? Problems and Solutions
    (IEEE, 2007) Aydın, Cansu Çiğdem; Çağıltay, Nergiz
    Most of the education programs need an assessment system for formative and summative evaluation purposes. Similarly, in the ERRL* project which is a distance remote radio frequency laboratory application, assessment system is required. However, developing an assessment system cost is very high and requires some extra time for testing and development purposes. Open source systems provide these services in a standard way. Since the source is open, it is possible to make some modifications to better adapt these systems to the requirements of developed systems. Similarly, in the Moodle part of the system we need to integrate the test and the experiment platforms. In order to better guide the learners in the system, they should take some tests about the devices and the theoretical content included in the system. It is important to prevent users who do not have the enough knowledge directed to the experiments platform. These testing requirements should be integrated into the remote laboratory system, so that, the learners should not need to jump between different systems and interfaces. This article presents implementation process of open source Learning Management System software’s assessment module to a remote laboratory application and it also discusses the advantages, disadvantages of using an open source Web based assessment system.
  • Article
    A Remote Laboratory for Training in Radio Communications: Errl
    (IEEE, 2007) Kara, Ali; Aydın, Elif; Öktem, Ruşen; Çağıltay, Nergiz
    This paper presents, first, a short survey of remote laboratory initiatives in electrical and computer engineering, and then discusses design and development phases of remote laboratory environment on radio communications, the ERRL (European Remote Radio Laboratory). As being the first attempt in establishing of such a large scale remote laboratory on radio communications, ERRL enables access to high technology RF equipments and setups through the Internet. The software structure, target groups and experimental set ups of ERRL are shortly discussed. First attempts on implementation of pilot experiments are discussed.
  • Article
    Principles for the Design of a Remote Laboratory: A Case Study on ERRL
    (IEEE, 2010) Çağıltay, Nergiz; Aydın, Elif; Kara, Ali
    Remote laboratories are getting very popular in engineering education programs. However, there are not many studies addressing the requirements and design issues of such laboratories. This paper discusses the results of a study of the requirements for developing a remote Radio Frequency (RF) laboratory for university students. This study draws on the perspectives of the students at the university, department of electrical engineering. The results are based on a research study established by 111 engineering students from France, Germany, Romania and Turkey. It investigates how students would like to use the technical content of a state of the art RF laboratory. The result of this study is also compared with the previous outcomes showing perspectives of the other learner groups of such laboratories; engineers and technicians in the technical colleges on the Radio Frequency (RF) domain. Considering the outcomes developed so far, some principles that need to be considered while designing and developing such a laboratory have been proposed. As a case study the proposed principles are implemented in a remote laboratory project. In this paper, the details of user requirements of such laboratories, the proposed principles and the implementation examples are all provided and discussed. Primarily, the general aim of this study is to guide remote laboratory platform developers towards the most effective design of their platforms.