[u' @article{rodriguez-gil_new_2019, title = {New {Approach} for {Conversational} {Agent} {Definition} by {Non}-{Programmers}: {A} {Visual} {Domain}-{Specific} {Language}}, volume = {7}, issn = {2169-3536}, shorttitle = {New {Approach} for {Conversational} {Agent} {Definition} by {Non}-{Programmers}}, doi = {10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2883500}, abstract = {Intelligent tutors and conversational agents (CAs) have proven to be useful learning tools. They have potential not only as stand-alone devices but also as integrable components to enrich and complement other educational resources. For this, new authoring approaches and platforms are required. They should be accessible to non-programmers (such as most teachers) and they should be integrable into current web-based educational platforms. This paper proposes a new approach to define such agents through a visual domain-specific language based on Google Blockly (a scratch-like language). It also develops a web-based integrable authoring platform to serve as a prototype, describing the requirements and architecture. To evaluate whether this novel approach is effective, a multi-stage experiment was conducted. First, participants learned to use the prototype authoring platform through an interactive tutorial. Second, they created a CA with a specific domain model. Times and performance were measured. Finally, they answered a standardized usability questionnaire (UMUX) and a purpose-specific survey. Results show that participants were able to learn to use the domain-specific language in a short time. Moreover, the purpose-specific survey indicates that their perception of the approach (and its potential) is positive. The standardized questionnaire indicates that even in its prototype stage, its usability is satisfactory.}, journal = {IEEE Access}, author = {Rodr\xedguez-Gil, Luis and Garc\xeda-Zubia, Javier and Ordu\xf1a, Pablo and Villar, Aitor and L\xf3pez-De-Ipi\xf1a, Diego}, year = {2019}, keywords = {Authoring systems, Computer languages, DSL, Google, JCR, Prototypes, Tools, Visual programming languages, Visualization, conversational agents, customizable systems, intelligent tutoring systems, jcr3.557, online labs, online learning}, pages = {5262--5276} }']

[u' @inproceedings{orduna_weblablib:_2019, address = {Bangalore, India}, title = {weblablib: new approach for creating remote laboratories}, abstract = {Remote laboratories are hardware and software tools that enable students to access real equipment through the Internet. Remote Laboratory Management Systems (RLMS) are software tools developed for creating remote laboratories in an easier way, providing some of the transversal features common in most remote labs (such as authentica- tion, authorization, scheduling platforms or administration tools), and some protocols or APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for cre- ating the laboratories. WebLab-Deusto is a popular open source RLMS used in different universities to create or administer their remote labo- ratories; and it offers two approaches for developing remote laboratories: managed (where all the communications go through WebLab-Deusto) and unmanaged (where the communications are managed by the remote lab developer). While originally the managed approach had a number of advantages over the unmanaged, nowadays, with web development tech- nologies fastly changing and increasing productivity, it became important to provide a proper support for the unmanaged by creating a completely new framework called weblablib, developed by LabsLand and also Open Source. This article describes this framework, and the different trade- offs that remote lab developers have to deal with when implementing a remote laboratory.}, author = {Ordu\xf1a, Pablo and Rodriguez-Gil, Luis and Angulo, Ignacio and Hernandez, Unai and Villar-Martinez, Aitor and Garcia-Zubia, Javier}, month = feb, year = {2019} }']

[u' @article{villar-martinez_improving_2019, title = {Improving the {Scalability} and {Replicability} of {Embedded} {Systems} {Remote} {Laboratories} {Through} a {Cost}-{Effective} {Architecture}}, volume = {7}, issn = {2169-3536}, doi = {10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2952321}, abstract = {Online remote laboratories are a particularly promising tool for effective STEM education. They offer online universal access to different hardware devices in which students can experiment and can test and improve their knowledge. However, most of them have two significant limitations. First, given that most of them are developed as, or evolve from single-user proofs of concept, they have no scalability provisions other than full laboratory replication. And second, when this is done, cost efficiency is often neglected. This paper presents the requirements for the creation of a novel remote laboratory architecture focused on, but not limited to, embedded systems experimentation. An architecture, based on Redis (an open source, in-memory data structure store, which is often used as database, cache or message broker), a modular design, and hardware-sharing techniques, is proposed in order to achieve the combined requirements of high scalability and cost efficiency. This mixed hardware-software architecture serves as a basis for the development of remote laboratories, especially those focused on microcontroller-based systems experimentation and embedded devices experimentation. From a user perspective the architecture is web-based, and has provisions to be easily adaptable to different Learning Management Systems and different hardware embedded devices. A new microcontroller-oriented remote laboratory based on the architecture has been developed, with the aim of providing valid evaluation data, and has been used in a real environment. The architecture and the resulting remote laboratory have been compared with other state of the art remote laboratories and their architectures. Results suggest that the proposed architecture does indeed meet the main requirements, which are scalability through replicability and cost efficiency. Furthermore, similarly to previous architectures, it promotes usability, universal access, modularity and reliability.}, journal = {IEEE Access}, author = {Villar-Mart\xednez, Aitor and Rodr\xedguez-Gil, Luis and Angulo, Ignacio and Ordu\xf1a, Pablo and Garc\xeda-Zub\xeda, Javier and L\xf3pez-De-Ipi\xf1a, Diego}, year = {2019}, keywords = {Computer architecture, Embedded systems, Hardware, ISI, Reliability, Remote laboratories, Remote laboratory, Scalability, Servers, architecture, embedded system, jcr4.098, online experimentation, scalability}, pages = {164164--164185} }']

[u' @inproceedings{buitrago_use_2018, title = {Use of {Remote} {Laboratories} in {Engineering} as an {Alternative} to {Pedagogical} {Mediation} and {Social} {Inclusion} in {Distance} {Education}}, doi = {10.1109/CONIITI.2018.8587076}, abstract = {The use of new learning tools based on ubiquitous learning has become a pedagogical mediation tool in which the student can learn from anywhere, however, the incorporation of infrastructure based on remote administration systems has made it more and more possible that this type of learning permits to be a real alternative of pedagogical mediation and at the same time generate social inclusion, making it possible to cover students who are located in distant areas and who have difficulties in accessing laboratory practices. Being the access to resources the predominant factor that prevails in any high quality accreditation process in institutions. The institutions in favor of improving the institutional demands make enormous efforts so that these requirements are met; however, the infrastructure in the institutions becomes a great problem to solve, since there are not enough laboratories and each one of them does not have the supplies to perform laboratory practices and this is added to the high costs they incurred, in addition to the maintenance of them. The development of this type of projects allows students to involve the use of new technologies in the emerging processes of engineering in their social environment as well as real experiments, in sufficient quantity and quality that enhance the ability to learn and master the science.}, booktitle = {2018 {Congreso} {Internacional} de {Innovaci\xf3n} y {Tendencias} en {Ingenier\xeda} ({CONIITI})}, author = {Buitrago, Paola and Camacho, Raul and Ordu\xf1a, Pablo and Villar, Aitor and Rodr\xedguez-Gil, Luis and Angulo, Ignacio and Garc\xeda-Zub\xedo, Javier}, month = oct, year = {2018}, keywords = {Mediation, RLMS, Remote laboratories, Robots, Schedules, Tools, Training, U-Learning, UNAD, computer aided instruction, distance education, distance learning, educational institutions, further education, institutional demands, learning tools, pedagogical mediation, pedagogical mediation tool, remote administration systems, remote laboratories, social environment, social inclusion, ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous learning}, pages = {1--6} }']

[u' @inproceedings{orduna_addressing_2018, address = {San Jose, USA}, title = {Addressing technical and organizational pitfalls of using remote laboratories in a commercial environment}, abstract = {A remote laboratory is a hardware and software solution that enables students to interact with real equipment located somewhere else on the internet. This way, students interact with a real laboratory as if they were on a hands-on- lab session. Once the equipment is remote, it is also possible to share it among institutions, so students from one school or university can access a lab in another university. While there is an interest by many universities of sharing their laboratories, and there are several experiences doing so, the impact has been typically limited. One of the reasons for the limited impact is the lack of robustness in most solutions due to technical issues, which leads to a lack of trust and interest by the potential consumers. LabsLand is a spin-off of the WebLab-Deusto research group which sells access to laboratories of universities to other schools and universities. This contribution analyzes through use cases what are the technical and organizational pitfalls that were found in the process of taking real laboratories and making them available commercially and what are the solutions used to tackle the issues arisen.}, author = {Orduna, Pablo and Rodriguez-Gil, Luis and Angulo, Ignacio and Martinez-Pieper, Gabriel and Villar, Aitor and Hernandez-Jayo, Unai and Buitrago, Paola and Camacho, Raul and Marmolejo, Paola and Garcia-Zubia, Javier}, month = oct, year = {2018} }']