Krishnashree Achuthan

The VALUE @ Amrita Virtual Labs Project: Using Web Technology to Provide Virtual Laboratory Access to Students

In response to the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) Initiative, the Virtual and Accessible Laboratories Universalizing Education (VALUE @ Amrita) Virtual Labs Project was initiated to provide laboratory-learning experiences to college and university students across India who may not have access to adequate laboratory facilities or equipment. These virtual laboratories require only a broadband Internet connection and standard web browser. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University (Amrita University) is part of a consortium of twelve institutions building over two hundred virtual labs covering nine key disciplines in science and engineering. This National Mission project hopes to reach out to Indias millions of engineering and science students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The Virtual Labs Project is providing virtual laboratory experiments that directly support the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) model curricula for engineering and sciences undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Preventing Insider Attacks in the Cloud

Cloud computing is becoming popular due to its ability to provide dynamic scalability and elasticity of resources at affordable cost. In spite of these advantages key concerns that prevent large scale adoption of cloud computing today are related to security and privacy of customer’s data in the cloud. The main security concerns of clients are loss of direct control of their data and being forced to trust a third party provider with confidential information. Among security threats in the cloud, insider threats pose a serious risk to clients. This paper presents a new access control mechanism that can mitigate security threats in the cloud including those caused by insiders, such as malicious system administrators. The problem is challenging because the cloud provider’s system administrators have elevated privileges for performing genuine system maintenance and administration tasks. We describe an access control mechanism that generates immutable security policies for a client, propagates and enforces them at the provider’s infrastructure.

Enhanced facilitation of biotechnology education in developing nations via virtual labs: analysis, implementation and case-studies

Methods for educating students in biotechnology require intensive training in laboratory procedures. Laboratory procedures cost Universities in terms of equipment and experienced guidance which often come short in many developing countries. Universities need revitalizing approach and well-adapted curriculum especially in terms of laboratory practice. For enhanced education at the level of University-level laboratory courses such as those in biology or biotechnology, one of the key elements is the need to allow the student to familiarize laboratory techniques in par with regular theory. The Sakshat Amrita virtual biotechnology lab project focusing on virtualizing wet-lab techniques and integrating the learning experience has added a new dimension to the regular teaching courses at the University. Establishing virtual labs requires both domain knowledge and virtualizing skills via programming, animation and device-based feedback. This paper reports a cost-effective process used in virtualizing real biotechnology labs for education at Universities. The major challenge in setting up an effective knowledge dissemination for laboratory courses was not only the scientific approach of biotechnology, but included the virtualization aspects such as usage/design scalability, deliverability efficiency, network connectivity issues, security and speed of adaptability to incorporate and update changes into existing experiments. This paper also discusses an issue-specific case-study of a functional virtual lab in biotechnology and its many issues and challenges.

Remote triggered photovoltaic solar cell lab: Effective implementation strategies for Virtual Labs

Remote triggered laboratories are an excellent way to provide access to costly labs and equipment for students in areas without such facilities. A novel remote triggered photovoltaic solar cell experiment is presented here. This experiment enables the student to learn in a hands-on, practical way about the fundamental characteristics of photovoltaic solar cells. The experiment has a web interface in which the student can turn a number of light bulbs on and off, adjust the load voltage of the solar cell, and view the experiment in real-time via a web-cam. In addition, the characteristics of the solar cells under these various conditions are measured and displayed on the web interface in a spreadsheet and are plotted in a novel and learning-effective manner. This experiment has been hosted on our Virtual Labs website for over a year, with a large number of students using the site. This paper presents implementation strategies and methods used which have proven effective for Virtual Labs, along with a technical description of the experiment and the system used to create and host the experiment.

Biotechnology Virtual Labs - Integrating Wet-lab Techniques and Theoretical Learning for Enhanced Learning at Universities

For enhanced education at the level of University courses such as those in biology or biotechnology, one of the key elements is the need of time and expertise to allow the student to familiarize laboratory techniques in par with regular theory. The Sakshat Amrita virtual biotechnology lab project focusing on virtualizing wet-lab techniques and integrating the learning experience has added a new dimension to the regular teaching courses at the University. Establishing virtual labs requires both domain knowledge and virtualizing skills via programming, animation and device-based feedback. Challenges in the biotechnology sector in setting up a laboratory that integrates both the feel and phenomenon includes the medley of multiple techniques. This paper reports one such cost-effective process used in virtualizing a real biotechnology lab at the University-level. The major challenge in setting up an effective knowledge dissemination for laboratory courses was not only the scientific approach of biotechnology, but included the virtualization aspects such as usage/design scalability, deliverability efficiency, network connectivity issues, security and speed of adaptability to incorporate and update changes into existing experiments. This paper also discusses an issue-specific case-study of a functional virtual lab in biotechnology and its many issues and challenges.

Biotechnology Virtual Labs: Facilitating Laboratory Access Anytime-Anywhere for Classroom Education

Biotechnology is becoming more popular and well identified as a mainline industry. Students have shown greater interest in learning the techniques. As a discipline, biotechnology has led to new advancements in many areas. Criminal investigation has changed dramatically thanks to DNA fingerprinting. Significant advances in forensic medicine, anthropology and wildlife management have been noticed in the last few years. Biotechnology has brought out hundreds of medical diagnostic tests that keep the blood safe from infectious diseases such as HIV and also aid detection of other conditions early enough to be successfully treated. Medical kits for diabetes, blood cholesterol and home pregnancy tests are also biotechnology diagnostic products. Industrial biotech applications have led to cleaner processes that produce less waste and use less energy and water in such industrial sectors as chemicals, pulp and paper, textiles, food, energy, and metals and minerals. Laundry detergents produced in many countries contain biotechnology-based enzymes making them nature friendly and safer. Agricultural biotechnology benefits farmers, consumers and the environment by increasing yields and farm income, decreasing pesticide applications and improving soil and water quality, and providing healthful foods for consumers. Biotechnology has created more than 200 new therapies and vaccines, including products to treat cancer, diabetes, HIV/ AIDS and autoimmune disorders.

Virtual Labs Improve Student’s Performance in a Classroom

With the world wide acceptance of virtual educational technologies, it has been shown that they play a vital role in the scientific arena. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the role of Biotechnology virtual laboratories in integrating student’s learning ability and introducing it as an effective instructional tool in biotechnology courses. A post-usage survey was conducted among the users and included questions about perceptions of virtual laboratories, its role in virtualization of sophisticated instruments. The survey suggested virtual labs usage enhanced autonomous and guided educational methods. Comparing groups on usage of virtual labs against a control (traditional lab), our studies suggest improved performance in students using virtual labs. Usage analysis and surveys indicated that biotechnology virtual labs are significant elements in adaptive learning process in blended classroom environment.

Implementing a Remote-Triggered Light Microscope: Enabling Lab Access via VALUE Virtual labs

Biotechnology and biology education has been known to show declining student interest due to classroom environments and instructor teaching styles, hence we introduced virtual labs as an interactive self-learning material in a blended environment. With ICT-based education becoming ubiquitous, virtual and remote triggered labs have become a novel platform that helps users to engage in a proactive learning process. A promisingly new trend in virtual labs-based education is the development of remote laboratories that are available over the internet and can be accessed by students and teachers. We implemented and deployed a low-cost light microscope using a simple front-end to enable users to have anytime-anywhere access. This paper reports the implementation, deployment and user-case studies on the learning and usage based on the remote-triggered virtual lab. This study also focuses on the analysis of using remote-triggered experiments as supplementary laboratory resources for overcoming the problems faced in a traditional lab environment. The study used online feedback surveys for evaluating the learning outcome and the flexibility of user-interactions with the remote labs and reports the status of usage of remote triggered techniques in biology courses. The statistical analysis suggests that remote labs are an easy learning and interactive platform for users from different places.

Explicit Interactions by Users Form a Critical Element in Virtual Labs Aiding Enhanced Education -- A Case Study from Biotechnology Virtual Labs

Virtual laboratories are ICT tools that are becoming more prevalent in classroom education complementing the lack of resources or tutors while enabling anytime-anywhere student participation scenarios. Specifically disciplines such as biotechnology, which are interaction rich, have seen several types of virtual labs. In this paper, we explore an analysis of student feedback post virtual labs sessions suggesting virtual labs improve teaching and learning experiences via user-interactions. Feedback was collected from undergraduate and postgraduate level students belonging to biotechnology programs. We look at two objectives namely perceived usefulness and the role of interactions on the virtual platform and simulators, in addition to animations. Most data were collected using direct approach via organized workshops. This approach allowed us to extract useful information without concerns of sparseness and unsolicited data compared to remote feedback. Our studies on feedback analysis indicate that student users interpret results in animation based virtual labs. However, a larger percentage of users suggest student usage and performance improved only with interactive simulators rather than animations. Although further tests are being performed, our preliminary studies on 200 participants suggest novel virtual labs models must include a simulation or emulations of lab environment in order to enhance student laboratory skills.

Serious games based approach to cyber security concept learning: Indian context

In the world of computer based gaming most of them are purely for entertainment but recently serious games are also emerging. Our research study focused primarily on a type of serious game with multiple scenarios designed specifically to support cyber security concept learning. We studied the impact of game based learning on cyber security graduate engineering students (N=20). Existing game scenarios were enhanced with summative assessments. A control group (EG1=10) was given the summative test without playing the game and a different group (EG2=10) was given the same test after playing the game. Results indicate that EG2 had better learning outcomes though there was learning curve with the game itself.