Digilab4u: General architecture for a network of labs

The paper presents the architecture designed to create a network of remote and virtual laboratories, to integrate and enhance them with new technologies and methods for lab-based education, within five universities inside the Open Digital Lab For You (DigiLab4U) project. Many factors lead to an increase in interest in networks of labs. The main ones aim on increasing the exploitation of laboratory equipment, together with the increasing necessity of practical experience in students’ careers. Lead by this necessity, the network developed an education environment with a strong focus on Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things. Moreover, its aim is the integration of new technologies and alternative teaching methods within the environment through an iterative approach. Compliant with these objectives and considering the standards available for such concepts, a new architecture of a network has been created based on the Industrial Reference Internet Architecture. With respect to these standards, the general architecture has been built as a client-server architecture composed of three elements: (i) Client, (ii) Web server, and (iii) Local server. We also took into consideration that the project aims to enlarge the network in the future, making it accessible from different institutions all over the world, to enable the learners to perform new experiments and enhance their skills. Besides, it enables the integration of technologies such as Serious Games and Learning Analytics, as they are becoming more and more widespread and necessary for teaching and assessing the students. To ease the understanding and the scalability of the network, three different points of view architecture has been proposed, by splitting and describing it into software, hardware, and logical perspectives.