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Higher education institutions are facing growing pressure to expand online course offerings. This has led to a need for alternative ways to provide laboratory learning experiences for science courses due to high demand for them by both major and nonmajor students. At the same time, the high cost of expanding existing or building new laboratory facilities is making this prohibitive, resulting in enrollment bo lenecks. The North American Network of Science Labs Online (NANSLO), established in 2012, includes two web-based science laboratories available for use by institutions on a fee-for-service model. Using a web interface, students access an assigned lab activity and, using real high-end scientific equipment, generate real data, collaborate with other students, and collect information used to complete their labs—all done in 2377-9527/17/$35.00 © 2017 by Begell House, Inc. www.begellhouse.com 1. NANSLO ADDRESSES KEY ISSUES FACING INSTITUTIONS Pressures on higher education today are driving the need to look for alternatives to traditional face-to-face science laboratories. Enrollments are expanding, pu ing additional pressures on institutions to serve ever-increasing student numbers. In fall 2013, there were 10.5 million undergraduate enrollments at four-year institutions and 7 million at two-year institutions. Between 2013 and 2014 enrollment at two-year institutions was projected to increase by 15 percent (8 million students) and by 11 percent (11.6 million students) at four-year institutions (Kena et al., 2015). The number of students taking classes online continues to increase, requiring courses to be redesigned to meet quality standards that are consistent with the same courses offered face-to-face. New approaches need to be considered for these online offerings, especially in the sciences, where face-to-face labs may be a hardship or impossible for students to complete. Joel Hartman, an administrator at the University of Central Florida and president of the Online Learning Consortium, notes that the 2014 Survey of Online Learning Grade Levels: Tracking Online Education in the United States “shows evidence that online learning has reached the mainstream” (Haynie, 2015). That study’s co-author, Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, indicates that online learning accounted for nearly three-quarters of all US higher education’s enrollment increases in 2014 (Seaman, 2016). “The demand for online education is primarily student-driven” (Jeschofnig and Jeschofnig, 2011). Nontraditional and part-time students prefer online education Schmidt International Journal on Innovations in Online Education real time. NANSLO currently has 28 lab activities available in biology, chemistry, allied health, and physics, and two lab manuals—NANSLO Survey of Chemistry and NANSLO Survey of Biology Lab Manuals, each containing 10 lab activities—used in non-science and science major courses. All of these can be used as-is or customized by faculty to meet course needs. With over 2,000 students served to date, NANSLO is capable of delivering high-quality NANSLO laboratory experiences to students via the Internet wherever they are located at a time convenient for them.

NANSLO provides online students a web based laboratory option using real scientific equipment, generating real data, in real time!