Remote Teaching of Electrical Engineering Laboratory Course in the Context of COVID-19

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has produced worldwide mandatory social immobilization. Peruvian universities decided to implement a 100% distance learning modality for the May-August 2020 academic semester. This research focused on the application of immediately available resources to reorganize and continue teaching laboratory courses in the context of the pandemic. We evaluate MATLAB/Simulink, scientific papers and technical papers in laboratory courses of our electrical engineering program. Through classroom observation and interviews, the impact of the use of these resources in 6 laboratory courses has been evaluated. The use of software reduced the experiment time by more than 40% and doubled the number of cases evaluated. Technical articles and reports increasing student's knowledge through new analysis techniques and new measurements processes. © 2023 IEEE.

A Case Study of an Effective Approach to Utilize the Active Learning for Virtual Basic Electrical Engineering Laboratory in Covid-19

In this paper, through the use of laptop/desktop, web-portal, and internet, we have developed and created an environment for implementation of a virtual BEE laboratory and their effectiveness for our 1st year engineering students during Covid-19. The development of a virtual BEE laboratory is not intended to replace the existing physical laboratory rather it is a supplement to it during this pandemic and also proper exploration of the ICT tool. The student's outcome of this virtual lab is elaborated in terms of assessment and examination marks. It is observed from the outcome that the student's performance is enhanced in terms of efficiency and efficacy, when they are taught through the virtual laboratory during the pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.

Development of a Virtual Telecommunication System Research Laboratory

Researchers are utilizing cutting-edge technology to accelerate the discovery of solutions to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual reality (VR) also provides a vital role in the operation against this outbreak. Daily tasks have remained unchanged since life has entirely halted. The method for recovering people's lives and enabling them to work from home is described in this article. The digital Telecom Lab at Chulalongkorn University was developed using virtual 3D technology. Several methods were employed gradually to build this lab. The VR lab was developed using Unity, a cross-platform game engine, to deliver the greatest experience. The actual outcome, which was created with the expertise of Blender and Unity, is incredibly immersive. © 2022 Asia-Pacific of Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA).

Hybrid Mode: A New Norm for Electrical Engineering Laboratory Education?

CONTEXT The COVID-19 pandemic has created an incredibly challenging period in which to deliver engineering laboratory exercises. Utilising available digital technologies, the authors converted traditional hands-on laboratory exercises to virtual labs and remote labs. Commencing in Semester 2, 2020, the authors' School has offered a hybrid teaching model which simultaneously delivers laboratory content to an on-campus cohort (who participate in traditional hands-on labs) and a remote-learning cohort (who participate via virtual and/or remote labs). While trying to ensure that the learning experience of both on-campus and remote-learning students were similar, and that teaching outcomes were maintained, the authors observed that the success in adaptation of existing course content to the hybrid teaching model differs between Units of Study (UoS). There is a challenge to understand the basis for these differences and how to optimally design teaching material and manage classes to achieve the best learning outcomes. PURPOSE The authors manage and coordinate operation and teaching across six electrical engineering teaching laboratories. This paper aims to report the degree of success of introducing hybrid laboratory education across twelve UoS. Specifically, based on student responses to a survey undertaken in Semester 1, 2021, the authors evaluate the effectiveness of the hybrid model by seeking to answer two questions: (1) Could the students be satisfied with the new hybrid model? (2) Could on-campus and remote-learning students have similar learning experiences? METHODS The study covers the School's teaching laboratory programs that span three broad teaching disciplines: power/energy, communications/photonics, and computer/digital electronics. They are organised in either mixed mode (both on-campus and remote cohorts undertake the same exercises) or parallel mode (cohorts complete different exercises that have common learning outcomes). Student survey data across twelve UoS are available, including responses about learning experience, tutor teaching, and additional comments. The method is mainly quantitatively statistical analysis, supplemented by qualitative study. OUTCOMES Overall, the hybrid lab program results in a satisfactory learning experience for students. This means that implementing electrical engineering laboratory teaching using a hybrid model is found to be both practical and applicable. However, students on-campus in the mixed mode and both cohorts in the parallel mode tended to adapt more successfully to the hybrid model than those remote students in the mixed mode. It prompts the educators to fine-tune the hybrid program to better accommodate the remote mixed mode students. CONCLUSIONS While the hybrid model can deliver effective laboratory education, the degree of success and student experience was found to vary between different cohorts. Further study is warranted to understand the factors behind these differences and to then explore more effective approaches to maximise the students' learning experience. This paper serves as a starting point for the community to discuss the new norm for engineering laboratory education. The pandemic has already had a transformational impact on the delivery of engineering education, and hybrid education may not be transient but instead a future steady state. Copyright © Huang, Chu & Jones, 2021.

Overview of the megaGEMS AEOP Summer 2021 Research Apprenticeship Camp

GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science) is a free STEAM and programming summer camp and after-school robotics club that focuses on educating girls about the fields of STEM. GEMS is divided into two main programs: miniGEMS for rising fifth through eighth middle school students and megaGEMS for rising ninth through twelfth-grade high school students. This paper will provide an overview of a new program within megaGEMS called megaGEMS AEOP (Army Education Outreach Program) for rising eleventh and twelfth-grade high school girls. The camp was initially piloted in the Summer of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as a virtual four-week research camp. For Summer 2021, megaGEMS hosted the inaugural eight-week in-person Apprenticeship Research Camp from June 7-August 6, 2021, for eight rising juniors or seniors. This Apprenticeship Research Camp was held at the Autonomous Vehicle Systems (AVS) Research Laboratories located at the University of the Incarnate Word provided the students with an experiential research camp mentored by both faculty and graduate students in the science of autonomy. The camp was funded through two grants provided by the Army Education Outreach Program. Examples of projects included brain-computer interfacing, virtual reality, and Infrared and LIDAR sensor collection. One apprentice was able to obtain her FAA Part 107 UAS Operator license to collect images using a drone. The camp provided opportunities to expand soft skills, explore college-level research, and community outreach. The apprenticeship curriculum was implemented by undergraduate and graduate students which included: daily Python coding classes, developing quality research skills, improving public speaking, and introducing careers in STEAM. Local female STEM leaders were guest speakers and provided career advice. The program concluded with a research symposium where they presented their research in poster and presentation format. This paper will provide details about recruiting, lessons learned working with students and parents under COVID-19 restrictions and developing research agendas for high school students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Digging Deeper with Data: Engineering Research Experiences for STEM Undergraduates and Teachers

It has become increasingly important for K-12 students to learn how to investigate patterns, correlations, and significance in data. The Berkeley Engineering Research Experiences for Teachers plus Data (BERET+D) pairs undergraduate pre-service teachers and experienced in-service science and mathematics teachers (PSTs and ISTs) to engage in engineering and data science research, exploring and analyzing data sets drawn from a variety of STEM fields and laboratories across the UC Berkeley campus. In addition to conducting independent summer research projects with guidance from university research faculty, the program provides opportunities for: (1) PSTs to develop data science-based lessons inspired by their research and aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), (2) ISTs to create data science-based curricula designed to inspire middle and high school students to see STEM classes as exciting and with real-life applications, and (3) ISTs to collaborate with and mentor PSTs preparing to enter K-12 STEM classrooms. Contributing towards broader impacts, CalTeach recruits a racially and socioeconomically diverse population of PSTs, and all ISTs were recruited from local public schools, in order to educate, prepare, and encourage more minority and female K-12 students to consider higher education and careers in STEM. During the first two summers of this project (2020-2021), participants completed over forty data-science related projects, developed over thirty K-12 data-science related lesson plans in math, science, and engineering, and created six classroom-ready and publicly accessible (teachengineering.org) curricular units showcasing data science. As an example of these curricular units, and as further evidence of the project's broader impact, one IST has developed an ongoing partnership between their classroom and a research laboratory on campus allowing high school physics students to learn data science techniques by analyzing and interpreting distant satellite signals collected by radio telescopes. Preliminary evaluation of this ongoing project revealed that participants viewed data science as important and essential in K-12 curriculum, that data analysis is a critical and useful skill for youth, and that data science aligns closely with the science and engineering practices called forth by NGSS. Though constrained by work-from-home restrictions due to COVID during the first two years, participants described their experience as positive and valuable, particularly in conceiving of ways to engage young learners with data-science through remote instruction. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Online Engineering Education: Laboratories During the Pandemic - A Case Study

Engineering laboratories plays a key role in the engineering education curricula. Virtual or remote laboratory concept already existed in several institutions that provide a well-designed platform for students to access labs remotely with similar experience to physical labs. However, this type of labs, remote lab, has limitations in term of engineering hands on experience and essential social skills students need for their future engineering practice. As educational institutions forced to switch from traditional face-to-face to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no option but to utilize the online laboratory resources and platforms available. Fully remote or blended solutions were provided for students to assure meeting the specific learning outcomes of engineering courses. This paper will focus on highlighting a specific case study during the pandemic when switching from the traditional face-to-face learning for an engineering lab course to fully online. © 2022 IEEE.

Watchful System to keep track of Hazardous waste during COVID'19 epidemic

Biomedical waste is broadly classified as Hazardous and non-hazardous healthcare waste. Hazardous waste includes Pathological waste, Pharmaceutical waste, infectious waste and chemical waste etc. Non-hazardous waste is the general health care waste that adds waste while packaging, administrative and from housekeeping etc., from a research laboratory and any pharmaceuticals. Around 25% of the healthcare wastes are infectious, which produces serious health care issues and a hazardous consequence on the environment if not handled properly. This paper aims at providing a monitoring and alerting system in disposing of waste that releases harmful gases into the environment. The proposed method monitors the gas leakage from the collected waste. If the waste concentration exceeds the optimum limit, it alerts the system to dispose of it immediately. © 2022 IEEE.

IoT Based Patient Health Monitoring System to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic

Despite the vaccination campaigns in most countries in the world, we see horrible numbers of contaminations and even deaths daily. According to the WHO, 181 521 067 confirmed cases including 3 937 437 deaths. As of 30 June 2021, a total of 2 915 585 482 vaccine doses have been administered. Although efforts to raise awareness of the severity of the corona virus, many people no longer respect the health protocol, which manifests through wearing a mask and respecting physical distancing. Research laboratories have spared no effort to find an effective vaccine. This will help minimize the effects of the virus and save the lives of those infected. On the other hand, COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals ensure permanent control of their health conditions and intervene at the right time. Saving the lives of these is a necessity, and we are all cooperating to bring life back to its normal pattern before pandemic, which took a toll on countries' economies. This research focuses on the development of an intelligent system based on the IOT for remotely control the covid-19 patient from a monitoring unit. This solution will be very useful for treating patients during COVID-19 outbreak. It is a question of exchanging clinical information between medical staff thanks to new technologies and of putting the patient under permanent control. The virtualized treatment guarantees a healthy environment for personnel. © 2022 IEEE.

DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program: Modernizing the Warfighter HPCMP Annual Highlights FY2019/2020

I am excited to share with you the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) Annual Highlights for 2019 and2020. As you will see, the HPCMP has had another outstanding 2 years of accomplishments and growth. Using the 2018 National DefenseStrategy as a guidepost, we have focused on supporting our customers from the government, industry, and academia with state-of-the-arthigh-performance computing (HPC) services and resources to help them find solutions to the most challenging science and technology(S and T), test and evaluation (T and E), and acquisition engineering problems facing our Department of Defense. With national defense prioritiesshifting to potential conflict with near-peer adversaries like China and Russia, the HPCMP ecosystem that has been developed for the past25 years has proven it is ideally suited to these challenges.

Strategy of active case-finding for COVID-19 in Bogota city, 2020-2021

Introduction. With the national guidelines of the Sustainable Selective Test-Tracking-Isolation program (PRASS in spanish) and the districts strategy of Detect-Isolation-Report (DAR in spanish) from the Public Health Plan of Collective Interventions (PSPIC in spanish), during 2020 were implemented activities of active search for positive cases of SARS-CoV-2, in order to identify risk areas and implement mitigation and containment strategies for the COVID-19 pandemic in Bogota. The objective of this work is to describe the strategy of active case-finding for COVID-19 in Bogota city, 2020-2021. Materials y methods. Using descriptive statistics, we described the search sessions carried out in the city. Thus, the integrated health services subnets with their home environment public health teams, integrated by professionals and trained technicians, carried out swab sampling in the following clusters: Select groups with greater vulnerability or high exposure to the virus given their daily activities, or specific areas of the city with a high rate of virus transmissibility or apparently silent. Samples were sent to the district public health laboratory for processing using the Charite protocol RT-PCR, Berlin. They also carry out communication and education activities for health and notification of cases to the Public Health Surveillance System-SIVIGILA. Results. Between June 2020 and June 2021, were performed 9997 journeys of active search, where 1000.225 samples were taken along the 20 localities of Bogota city, with a higher concentration of samples in Ciudad Bolivar (11%), Kennedy (9%), Tunjuelito (7%), Suba (6%), Usme (6%), Puente Aranda (6%) and Bosa (6%). Acumulative positivity ratio of 20% was observed for the observed period, in the three moments with the highest frequency of positive cases for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the city, positivity ratios of 14% were reached in the months of July and August 2020, 19% between December 2020 and January 2021 and 39% in the third peak of infections between May and June 2021, finding for the latter period time, days with positivity proportions that exceeded 45%. Conclusion. In the city, epidemiological surveillance actions are continued, such as Field Epidemiological Investigations (IEC in spanish), as well as the increasing of collective interventions in the different environments of daily life, wich are focused on the areas with the higher positivity, developing actions aimed at empowering the community in relation to care and biosecurity guidelines to reduce the COVID-19 contagion risk. © 2021 IEEE.

Intermural Online Research Group Meetings As Professional Development Tools for Undergraduate, Graduate, and Postdoctoral Trainees

In academic research laboratories, well-organized group meetings are common training tools that can benefit individuals and the group as a whole. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual meetings have become an increasingly important format for research group meetings. Virtual meeting formats also offer an important and underappreciated advantage: ease of collaboration with researchers at other (potentially distant) institutions. Herein, we describe the strategies we employed to facilitate engaging and productive online meetings and academic exchanges between environmental chemistry/engineering laboratories at a primarily undergraduate program and a doctoral research intensive institution. Over a period of 12 months, six intermural group meetings were held through videoconference. All meetings consisted of two segments: (1) a literature or research discussion and (2) a professional development session that emphasized topics such as navigating life after completing a bachelor's degree, advice on securing graduate school admission and funding, and characteristics of effective instructors (from the undergraduate perspective). Student-led discussion of scientific literature and research is valuable in enhancing trainees' communication skills, interdisciplinary perspectives, and critical reading of the literature. Professional development sessions facilitate unique opportunities for professional mentorship. Given the substantial pedagogical and other professional benefits of intermural group meetings, we recommend this meeting format as a useful training tool for research trainees even after the current pandemic wanes. © Copyright 2022, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 2022.

Diagnostic Testing for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Related Coronavirus 2: A Narrative Review.

Diagnostic testing to identify persons infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is central to control the global pandemic of COVID-19 that began in late 2019. In a few countries, the use of diagnostic testing on a massive scale has been a cornerstone of successful containment strategies. In contrast, the United States, hampered by limited testing capacity, has prioritized testing for specific groups of persons. Real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction-based assays performed in a laboratory on respiratory specimens are the reference standard for COVID-19 diagnostics. However, point-of-care technologies and serologic immunoassays are rapidly emerging. Although excellent tools exist for the diagnosis of symptomatic patients in well-equipped laboratories, important gaps remain in screening asymptomatic persons in the incubation phase, as well as in the accurate determination of live viral shedding during convalescence to inform decisions to end isolation. Many affluent countries have encountered challenges in test delivery and specimen collection that have inhibited rapid increases in testing capacity. These challenges may be even greater in low-resource settings. Urgent clinical and public health needs currently drive an unprecedented global effort to increase testing capacity for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, the authors review the current array of tests for SARS-CoV-2, highlight gaps in current diagnostic capacity, and propose potential solutions.

”Examining the Changing Perceptions of Graduate Students' Role as Teaching Assistant with Online and Hybrid Labs during COVID-19” (Instruction)

The transition from traditionally face-to-face “in-person” courses to hybrid/online laboratory courses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered how these labs are delivered in the mechanical engineering curriculum at Clemson University. This paper seeks to capture the graduates' and undergraduates' changing perceptions of the roles and responsibilities that graduate laboratory assistants (GLAs) have in the delivery of course material within the context of this transition. GLAs from the mechanical engineering laboratory courses were invited to participate in a survey to provide feedback on how they perceived their own roles and responsibilities as GLAs for in-person labs compared to their roles after the labs had transitioned to hybrid/fully-online formats after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Junior- and senior-level undergraduate mechanical engineering students currently enrolled in a hybrid/online lab were also invited to participate in a survey to provide similar feedback on how they perceived their GLAs pre- and post-transition to hybrid/online lab modality. The analysis of the survey responses then informed the selection of two experienced GLAs to participate in more in-depth individual interviews to share their experiences during this transition and discuss best practices for moving forward. An overarching theme of the results was that while undergraduate students consistently viewed their GLAs' roles as those of graders, knowledge resources, and facilitators, the GLAs began to identify strongly as facilitators only after the transition to hybrid/online labs. Interview participants expressed frustration with the lack of meaningful interaction with students in the hybrid/online course modality that warred with their desire to help students grow and think more deeply about course material. Both undergraduate students and GLAs alike agreed on a need for change in several key aspects of the hybrid/online lab delivery in order to improve its sustainability as a lab course modality. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Undergraduate Engineering Laboratories during COVID-19 Pandemic

Laboratories have always been considered an integral part of undergraduate engineering education. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has globally affected higher education and educators are devising innovative ways to minimize the impact of the pandemic on student learning. The most popular approach of converting instruction to online is applicable for teaching theoretical knowledge. However, laboratory experiments require hands-on activities. Simulations can replace the hands-on experiments to a limited extend. Moreover, laboratory sessions involve social interaction as students work in groups, share laboratory equipment, and interact one-to-one with laboratory instructor. This paper explores the impact of COVID-19 on laboratory courses in Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) department of Indiana State University (ISU) through statistical analysis of grade distribution of students and number of experiments covered. The authors present the comparison of Fall 2019 laboratory course when the challenges of pandemic did not exist with the Fall 2020 laboratory course when the precautions for COVID-19 pandemic were observed. The comparison is done for laboratory courses taught by the same instructor in Fall 2019 and Fall 2020. Faculty members from ECET department explain the adjustments they have made to their laboratory courses to minimize the impact of the pandemic on students learning. Overall, the authors managed to cover almost all the experiments in Fall 2020 as they used to cover in Fall 2019. The statistical comparison of final grade distribution also indicates no difference between these two semesters which were conducted under quite different circumstances. The null hypothesis is that there exists no difference between the course final grades for pre-pandemic (Fall 2019) and post-pandemic (Fall 2020) semesters. The hypothesis has been tested using Chi-square goodness of fit test at p=0.05. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Work in Progress: Online Electrical Engineering Laboratories Sessions: Analysis, Challenges, and Border Environment

The global COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the adoption of online delivery methods supported by accessible technologies, applications, and academic learning platforms. There is a larger demand for remote courses by companies, universities, and grade schools. Distance education has become one of the learning options most used by universities, where interactive learning is available. Students can also review the content of the courses on a Learning Management System (LMS) and study in their own time, supplemented with face-to-face or remote tutoring sessions in case of specific doubts. Online education is focused on learning content more than the communication between students and tutors. At the University of Texas at El Paso, Texas, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, we have additional challenges due to the USA and Mexico border's geographic location because some of our students are living in Mexico, and we are supporting them virtually. The delivery of online laboratories was implemented using remote access to the equipment in the university's physical laboratories;moreover, students acquired portable equipment designed to work at home, creating an environment similar to a real laboratory but with some limitations. Students opted for one method or another depending on vendor availability or their resources. This paper explores the differences, as well as the limitations, between the tools used for distance learning in the circuit's laboratories. As a case of study, there is a comparison between face-to-face and remote laboratory sessions and personal laboratory at home scenarios. Also, the paper describes the students' benefits and challenges and the response of students due to geographic limitations. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Development of Cloud-enabled Live, Virtual and Constructive Agile Training

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) 711th Human Performance Wing (711 HPW) Warfighter Integration and Readiness Division is a partner in the Department of Defense's (DoD) Red Flag-Rescue (RFR) exercise. Red Flag-Rescue brings together US Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy to collaborate in a join-force combat search and rescue exercise. RFR uses Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) methods to provide realistic training for individuals and teams operating in the personnel recovery domain. As LVC technologies continue to develop, so does the need to operate LVC in a physically distributed environment. Operations Centers are typically geographically separated from exercise locations, and in order to accommodate this, the future of LVC training must include increased utilization of cloud-based services. Cloud-based solutions allow for centralized infrastructure, data collection, verification, post-exercise review and a reduction in support personnel. In 2020, COVID-19 created a unique scenario for the RFR exercise staff in that the support team was limited in its ability to directly support the exercise on-site. By utilizing cloud-based technology and tools, the research support team was able to remotely monitor the exercise and by doing so, was still able to provide targeted assistance to the units on site. The RFR 2020 support team overcame this challenge by developing new software capabilities which demonstrated that Live, Virtual and Constructive Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) network traffic from multiple physical locations could be combined and recorded successfully into cloud storage. These cloud-based data recording and playback capabilities created an opportunity for live monitoring of the exercise from distributed locations. The collected data was used for real-time within-exercise analysis and to provide rich after-action review. This paper will detail the process of creating the prototype, the issues found during cloud data recording, and the immediate as well as after-action review methods. In addition, this paper will discuss ongoing challenges of integrating DIS-based applications with cloud architectures. © Copyright 2021 Lockheed Martin Corporation.

A Simple Brushless Motor and Propeller Test Stand for Experiment from Home

A brushless motor and propeller test stand is used to test brushless motors and propellers. This testing instrument is still only available in research laboratories. Students and researchers are unable to use laboratory facilities because of the Covid-19 epidemic, thus students must be able to do tests independently from home. Purchasing this testing instrument would be too expensive for students. It is essential to construct a brushless motor and propeller testing instrument at home using simple components that are easy to get on the marketplace. The design concept reads force data using a loadcell sensor and an HX711 driver, and current and voltage data with an INA 219 sensor. The brushless motor's rotational speed is controlled by a potentiometer. Force, current, voltage, and power are all examples of test results data. A 16x2 LCD is used to show data immediately. Data is also transmitted via a USB connection to a computer device for storage or additional analysis. This study proposes a simple brushless motor and propeller test stand that can measure forces from 0 gf to 1000 gf with an error rate of 0.72 %. The power that can be read ranges from 0 mW to 18960 mW, with a 0.59 % error rate. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.

Self-paced learning in virtual worlds: Opportunities of an immersive learning environment

Digitalisation in education is inevitable and must be driven forward even more consistently. Accordingly, the current COVID 19 pandemic further underlines and accelerates this necessity. Instead of persistently philosophising about infrastructure and learning platforms, teachers and students are suddenly confronted directly with digital teaching and e-learning. Among technologies for digitalization there is one with a huge potential in the course of digitalisation in education, namely Virtual Reality (VR). VR can be applied as a powerful and multifunctional tool for accessing problems usually considered as hard to taggle. For education, VR can create a connection between theory and real-world scenarios and makes the presentation of facts and applications tangible for students. In addition to a theoretical and literature-based consideration of VR in the concepts of e-learning and blended learning, this paper presents the integration of learning content based on VR through the LMS platform OPAL and discusses the achieved results. Linking to this, an additional chapter will discuss the promotion of the learning process through an immersive learning environment, i.e., what opportunities and challenges arise. The idea and implementation of a virtual research lab modelled based on the physical Industry 4.0 research lab by Professor Christoph Laroque and his Team Industry Analytics is intended to highlight the possibilities and potential of an immersive environment and provide an outlook for future work. This paper addresses the questions to what extent and in which context an immersive learning environment can be more effective than traditional face-to-face learning environments in courses and seminars. Furthermore, challenges and difficulties regarding the use of immersive learning environments from the projects experience will be described. Thoughts and ideas on how these challenges and difficulties can be overcome sum up the considerations within this paper. © the authors, 2021. All Rights Reserved.