An Information Taxonomy for Remotely-Accessible Engineering Instructional Laboratories

This paper introduces an information taxonomy for remotely-accessible engineering instructional laboratories [REILs]. A taxonomy within some given domain organizes and clarifies the domain content and provides a common framework that supports and facilitates reasoning, discussion, and communication about the domain in question. In this case, the taxonomy aims to support reasoning, discussion, and communication about remotelyaccessible engineering instructional laboratories. This taxonomy was emergent from peer-reviewed remote laboratories literature. Twenty-five papers were initially selected and analysed for terms which were characteristically descriptive of a REIL. Over 1,000 such terms were identified. This number was reduced to some 800 through the elimination of duplicates and the conflation of equivalents. These 800 were then examined, line-item by line-item and placed into a containing category. If a an appropriate containing category did not exist, one was created. In the end, there were 37 containing categories to hold all the terms. Five additional REIL papers were then selected and close read for terms that were descriptively characteristic of remotely-accessible engineering instructional laboratories. As before, these terms were then considered, line-item by line-item, and placed in a containing category. No additional containing categories were required during this follow on phase, indicating that categorical saturation was achieved. Four top level categories were added to the 37 containers; effectively creating an hierarchical taxonomy for REILs.