Laboratory classes are an integral part of undergraduate engineering education, providing a valuable alternative to lectures and tutorials. Recently there has been a trend towards providing these laboratory classes through remote or simulated access where the students are separated from the hardware and interact through a technology-mediated interface. This trend is driven by a demand to provide increased flexibility and opportunities in the delivery of laboratory classes to students, but it also has the consequence of affecting the learning outcomes of the laboratory class.

Dr Lindsay's work in Remote and Virtual laboratory classes has shown that there are significant differences not only in students' learning outcomes but also in their perceptions of these outcomes, when they are exposed to the different access modes. These differences have powerful implications for the design of remote and virtual laboratory classes in the future, and also provide an opportunity to match alternative access modes to the intended learning outcomes that they enhance.

This presentation will address not only the nature of these changes and the factors that cause them, but also the place that remote and virtual laboratory classes have within an undergraduate engineering curriculum.

Dr Euan Lindsay is the Discipline Leader for Mechatronic Engineering at Curtin University of Technology, in Perth, Western Australia. His research interests include engineering education, telecontrol (particularly internet-based telecontrol), artificial neural networks, and rehabilitative technologies for people with sensing impairments. He is a member of the Executive of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, and co-edits the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education. Dr Lindsay was the recipient of a 2007 Carrick Award for Australian University Teaching. In 2005 he was named as one of the 30 Most Inspirational Young Engineers in Australia.