Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 4 | Linking African Universities with MIT iLabs, page 4

Anywhere Anytime iLabs
It all began because of frustration. “I was teaching my students using books and charts, just as I had been taught microelectronics,” del Alamo recalls. “But I was frustrated because I felt they should be working with actual transistors in an experimental setting.” Hands-on characterization of transistors and other devices substantially enhances the educational experience, he believes, but courses usually do not include a laboratory component because of equipment, space, user training, safety and staffing constraints.

It occurred to del Alamo that the Internet might hold the answer. He then made what he calls “one of the decisions I am most proud of in my technical career.” He hired an MIT sophomore majoring in electrical engineering and challenged him to build a prototype of a semiconductor test lab that could be operated through the Internet—something del Alamo wasn’t sure was even possible. And the student simply did it! Within a few months, he had devised a system for testing and probing various microelectronic devices online—which could be utilized 24 hours a day from any location with Internet access. The lab functioned beautifully, students loved its ease of use and del Alamo knew they had a winner.

“Once the lab is set up, you can lock it up and go,” he explains. “No one needs to tinker with the complex equipment, which can get in the way of learning and detract from higher-level goals. There are no logistical issues, such as bringing people to the labs, so it can serve far more students. They may spend quite a bit of time online setting up the experiment or analyzing the data, but because the measurements go so quickly, users are burning very little instrument time. And there are open-ended opportunities for trial and error, which creates an ideal environment for learning.” For all these reasons, del Alamo’s initial online lab was so successful it caused the spread of Internet-based labs to other disciplines. iLabs then became a key part of MIT’s ambitious iCampus program, sponsored by Microsoft Research, which redefines the institution’s philosophy of “hands-on learning.” iCampus fosters innovation that aims at revolutionizing higher education through information technology. The program supports new projects from the MIT community that make significant, sustainable improvements in how students learn, and in how they apply that learning.

The invention of iLabs is one of the most exciting and promising educational developments made possible by the Internet, in del Alamo’s view. “Instead of conventional laboratories in which every institution must own every single lab, iLabs can be shared, giving students access to many more laboratory experiences than they have today,” he explains. “We envision a future in which students will be able to perform experiments that simply aren’t possible today, such as taking measurements inside the core of a nuclear reactor or making weather observations at the North Pole,” he predicts.

Although global outreach wasn’t part of their original plan, del Alamo’s team soon realized that, because this was an Internet-based process, spare lab time could be used beyond MIT. “As we started doing international experiments with our microelectronics online lab, we learned very quickly that distance from MIT did not seem to make a significant difference. The lab was very responsive from anywhere in the world where there was a broadband Internet connection.” The labs were soon in use from Sweden to Singapore and then all around the world. “iLabs transcend time and space,” del Alamo says.

Another innovation to grow out of the project was the iLab Shared Architecture, a suite of software protocols and tools to boost the efficiency of creating new online labs. A shared architecture promotes iLab dissemination by eliminating the need to reinvent each lab from the ground up. Instead, it provides a turnkey operation for new labs that, in turn, can scale to large numbers of users worldwide, and also allows multiple universities with diverse network infrastructure to share remote labs. According to del Alamo, this aspect of the project has “the biggest potential payoff—a software development kit and a set of standard modules that will allow iLabs to mushroom around the world.” The resulting ability to construct labs that address local needs will make the iLab technology that much more accessible for developing countries, such as MIT’s partners in sub-Saharan Africa.

Next page: The link between Africa and MIT was forged in 2003, when the vice chancellors of several sub-Saharan universities receiving Carnegie Corporation support visited MIT and toured a number of educational initiatives, including iLabs.

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