VISIR+ Project Follow-up after four years: Educational and research impact.

- This full paper addresses an innovative practice in the experimental teaching/learning in Engineering courses. Engineering is a practical profession where doing is the key. Experimental work and the immersing in the lab environment (hands-on, simulations, remote labs) helps students to construct and strengthen their knowledge. The VISIR+ Project (ERASMUS+), launched in November 2015 and concluded in Abril 2018, intended to disseminate VISIR - Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (the most used remote lab in electric and electronics area of expertise) in Latin American countries (Argentina and Brazil) by installing a system in five Higher Educational Institutions. It involved 13 educational institutions, 25 different courses, several of them with successive didactical implementations. It comprised 49 teachers and 1,595 students. During the project about 27 research papers were published disseminating the projects' results. At the end of the project, the expectations were that the impact could remain in the long-term promoting VISIR remote lab and the dissemination of good practices. The project ended four years ago, and each installed VISIR system continued to promote teaching diversification using different experimental resources (including VISIR) then contributing to student learning. The aim of this work is to understand the impact of these didactical practices while using VISIR in these last years. This study was based on a questionnaire complemented with an interview with each person of contact. The results point to an increase of VISIR's usage in almost all institutions, particularly during the pandemic period. Overall, the educational impact involved more than 23 different institutions, 45 courses (most of them with several editions), 118 teachers and 4,866 students. The impact in the scientific community implied additional 31 publications with VISIR as its main core. These numbers support the sustainability of the VISIR+ project over the years, positively contributing to a more diversified engineering education of these students and their experimental competences development.