Online Advanced Labs in Physics

Abstract

At Arizona State University we have built the first and only fully online Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, with a complete curriculum, including labs. The upper division Advanced Lab courses present a special challenge for online delivery. We address that using a set of custom-built simulator modules that replicate all the imperfections (noise, background, etc) inherent in real-world data. The set of experiments duplicates those of the in-person classes. In this paper, we present an overview of these labs and discuss the advantages and challenges of delivering them online. We assert that these labs provide a valid and rigorous component for the fully online degree. The entire set of labs is available as Open Source Supplemental Materials and is shared for others to use in part or in whole, with suitable attribution.