Non-Traditional Labs and Lab Network Initiatives: A Review

Lab-based education has always played an important role in teaching students. Making remote and virtual labs communicate with one another by creating networks of labs can enhance the traditional way of learning as well as reduce the costs of implementing and using labs. This paper provides a review of the literature on non-traditional labs and lab network initiatives up to 2020. With the term ‘non-traditional labs’, we mean virtual, remote and hybrid labs, whereas with the term ‘lab network’, we indicate a set of two or more cooperating labs typically connected through the internet. In this study, we used a recent and comprehensive framework for data collection, organization, and analysis to gather information on 40 non-traditional labs and lab network initiatives. Thanks to this framework, the outcomes of our work highlight interesting trends of lab-based education, which pertain to didactical, organizational, and technical aspects.