From F2F to Online: A Guide to Creating Online Versions of your On-campus Labs

The consensus is clear. To stay competitive, steadily increase enrollment, and expand access to important STEM disciplines, programs need to get serious about transitioning and offering more lab courses online. But how serious?

Of nearly 2,000 students surveyed, 88% said it was important and necessary for them to take the course online, while 32% would enroll somewhere else and 30% wouldn't enroll at all! That could mean a pretty serious and significant dent to your enrollment numbers.

But we know that transitioning your existing face-to-face lab courses online isn't easy. Unlike other disciplines, yours relies on inquiry-based, hands-on learning to reinforce concepts and instill the skills students need. That's tricky in an online setting, raising valid concerns for both administrators and instructors around resources and support, as well as the quality and rigor of the experience.

This guide addresses all of this (and more!) from both the administrator and instructor point of view, with proven strategies and practical solutions that when implemented together enables you to deliver and maintain a quality learning experience across any modality.

Whether you’re a department chair, dean, director of online learning or other academic administrator, creating online versions of on-campus courses and programs can seem daunting, from enabling students to do hands-on work to time management and the inability to course correct students in real time. If you know that online science labs are the way to expand access and improve enrollment, but worry you and your instructors may not be ready for the transition, you’ve come to the right place. 

In this section, we’re focusing on the areas that matter most when it comes to a smooth transition and sustainable online STEM programs.

Not sure yet if offering online lab courses is the way to go? Consider this: In original research conducted in the summer of 2024, 300 surveyed deans/department chairs and instructors revealed what’s happening with their lab courses.

• More than half cited declines in enrollment in on-campus labs, while nearly 75% reported continued growth in online options and increases in demand for hybrid/blended courses.
• More data shows that 88% of students who took an online science course cited it was important to them to take the course online—with 32% saying they would enroll at another institution if online options weren’t available. 

Now is the time to start building your case for online lab courses. While some faculty may resist the shift to online science labs or be skeptical of their effectiveness, their buy-in is non-negotiable if you want your students to have a rigorous, high-quality learning experience. It’s up to you to show them the value.

Here are some resources with key metrics and data to help you show instructors that offering lab courses online can help boost enrollment and access—and that not doing it could be a big mistake!

Neglecting this area has serious ripple effects. The amount & quality of support instructors have directly impacts students’ success. Without the appropriate funding, manpower, resources, professional development, and support, your instructors won’t be able to deliver the quality learning experience your institution is known for.

To fully support a digital learning environment for instructors, students, and your program, infrastructure and technology are imperative for a productive learning environment.

Be sure to collaborate closely with your institutional/program IT as well as office of digital learning/distance education to ensure you have the digital learning tools and infrastructure set up to support online lab courses.

Consider the following technology considerations and work with IT to ensure you have the technology you need.

Just as instructors are expected to establish clear and regular communication with online students, your communication with instructors remains just as important. It creates a level of transparency and trust with instructors, and can serve as a model for their own communication with students—that’s a win-win! 

• Sharing information openly: Providing faculty with access to relevant information regarding school policies, budget updates, and strategic plans.
• Active listening: Actively listening to faculty concerns, feedback, and suggestions.
• Regular communication channels: Establishing consistent communication channels like meetings, email updates, and surveys.
• Providing/Receiving feedback: Offering constructive feedback to faculty on their performance and initiatives and being open to / inviting the same in return.
• Addressing concerns promptly: Responding to faculty concerns in a timely and transparent manner.

• Keep instructors informed with regular updates about institutional/programmatic plans, timelines, and available resources for the transition.
• Collaborate with marketing and student services to clearly outline and promote online course and lab formats, and come up with ways to promote offerings so students know about them.
• Respond to faculty feedback, concerns, and input quickly and follow up as needed. Schedule regular check-ins with faculty groups as needed.

You’ve got courses selected. You’ve got technology and support in place. You’ve got instructors lined up. It’s time to go live!

But wait, the work is not done … Once your online science courses and labs launch, be sure to continually monitor and assess progress.

To determine if an instructor is ready to teach online, monitor the following indicators:

Committing to course and program quality is critical to the success of any online program. 
Courses should have specific learning outcomes and goals that directly support the outcomes of the program, following the institution’s uniform standards for course quality in order to encourage a culture of academic rigor online.

Consider the following areas and engage your office of online/digital learning to continually assess your online courses against key outcomes.

• Create a unified program map and sequence for all course offerings that aligns program- and course-level outcomes.
• Regularly involve faculty leaders and other instructors in the development of online curriculum.
• Verify that courses and labs meet accreditation and compliance standards by coordinating with academic affairs.
• Empower faculty to deliver high-quality online courses through adequate support and infrastructure.
• Determine and address all programmatic requirements and expectations prior to online course development.
• Create and enforce program standards for all online offerings during course design and facilitation.
• Promote transparent communication across departments to ensure alignment and secure buy in.
• Adapt academic integrity policies for online learning and discuss them with faculty members and students frequently.
• Ensure a scalable and sustainable model for future online and hybrid programs.

• Context-Specific Adaptation: Adjust as needed based on the course level, subject matter, and student population.
• Student Feedback: Incorporate student surveys and feedback to inform course evaluation.
• Peer Review: Consider peer review processes, including other departments/programs that have found success online, to provide additional feedback on course quality.

From building out your course lectures and creating a quality lab experience to ensuring clear communication, ample support, and hoping your students come away with an enriching experience, constraints on your time and resources make it challenging. But with the right resources and partner, you can streamline the transition and ensure you’re delivering a consistent and rigorous experience across any modality whether online or on campus. 

In this section, we’re focusing on the areas that matter most when it comes to teaching an effective, authentic online course and lab that leads to greater student success.

One of the most important steps in preparing to teach online science courses and labs is creating a solid online course foundation. This will provide a structured, engaging learning environment for students, ensuring they can easily navigate the course material, understand learning objectives, and achieve desired outcomes—ultimately leading to a positive learning experience.

Finding ways to adapt your on-campus learning activities for an online environment will help strengthen your course foundation. This means maintaining a hands-on lab experience, and supplementing that work with virtual simulations. Among other benefits, this approach has proven to spark your online students' curiosity, inspire greater interest in the topic you’re teaching, and engage them more deeply by reinforcing lecture content—moreso than relying solely on virtual simulations. 

There are some important steps to think through when deciding your modality. Keep in mind what students will gain from the lab, how students will complete the lab successfully, and what technology tools might be useful in implementing either virtual or hands-on labs.

• Increase inclusivity by activating all the different styles of learning.
• Engage students in a more authentic lab experience, helping them better master course concepts.
• Elevate the quality of the online learning experience by helping students learn the physical & critical thinking skills necessary to run an experiment.

• The size, cost, and safety concerns associated with certain equipment or materials are too high.
• The physical, ethical or religious concerns might exclude some students from being able to perform the experiment. Keep labs as accessible as possible by offering a virtual simulation as an alternative for all hands-on labs.
• You want to expose students to a topic/concept that does not directly align to your course objectives or provide a low-stakes way for students to practice and reinforce learning, consider a virtual simulation.

1. Find the right mix: Using a strategic mix of hands-on labs paired with virtual simulations will help you better engage students and reinforce learning.
2. Prepare students: Include kit instructions, lab timelines, and transition details in the syllabus.
3. Coordinate hands-on kit access: Hands-on lab kits help replicate the hands-on learning that occurs in campus labs. Either have kits shipped directly to students or work with your campus bookstore to ensure financial aid can be used. Explore inclusive access models—like incorporating costs into course fees—to streamline the purchase of hands-on lab kits, ensuring affordability and easy availability for all students. Check out this guide for more on at-home lab kits.
4. Start off strong with virtual: This might be some students’ first online course, let alone lab course. Begin with virtual lab simulations during the first couple weeks to give students time to acclimate both to learning online, and so you can cover core concepts and review lab safety before students dive into hands-on learning.
5. Combine modalities: Start incorporating hands-on labs and pair them with virtual simulations. Use virtual labs for complex concepts and hands-on kits for skill and inquiry-based learning. Build engagement by encouraging students to share progress with photos or videos.
6. Offer lab support: Set up virtual office hours for lab-specific questions and consider open lab hours for in-person support when possible (more on this later!). Be sure each hands-on lab has a walk-through video or images.
7. Prepare students: Include kit instructions, lab timelines, and transition details in the syllabus. Build engagement by encouraging students to share progress with photos or videos.

Lab and lecture. Lecture and lab. You can’t have one without the other … that is, if you want a truly effective learning experience for students. But more often than not, what’s missing is the connection.

While it might seem obvious, students often struggle with connecting key concepts from lecture to what they’re doing in a lab—whether virtual or hands-on. That’s why it’s important to directly connect the concepts of digital lessons and lectures to labs; otherwise, they’ll just be going through the motions without processing and engaging with course material.

Just like teaching, learning online is different—a skill to be practiced and only effective when a student fully engages, which is why it’s so important to use proven strategies for engaging students online.

1. Use online class and small-group discussion forums to ask questions and encourage students to share thoughts and perspectives.
2. Enable community by assigning virtual lab partners.
3. Use written assignments to support the reflection process.
4. Assign research projects to help build critical thinking skills.
5. Employ a variety of multimedia, including video, to deliver content.
6. Incorporate kinesthetic activities and hands-on labs at home to activate different styles of learning and enhance retention.
7. Reduce anxiety by setting clear expectations by making sure a syllabus and rubric tied to the course’s learning outcomes are highly visible, communicating how students will be assessed, and letting them know in advance how to order their hands-on kits.
8. Increase the accessibility of materials and activities using technology that’s fully accessible, as well as transcripts, alt text, screen reader compatibility, flexible deadlines, and multiple formats to support diverse student needs.

Tibi Martin, chemistry instructor at San Joaquin Valley College and Blended Learning Innovator of the Year, says it best:

Without direct access to instructors in real time, you should prioritize student resources and support to ensure students don’t struggle in silence, fall behind, or miss critical course milestones. When we surveyed online instructors, they said they use the following methods to support students:

• Office hours
• Closely monitoring students
• Using discussion boards so students can interact
• Providing additional material and pre-recorded videos
• Using virtual simulations and hands-on labs

When we asked online students what supplemental resources would best support them, they said:

• Virtual simulations (86%)
• Virtual simulations as a practice lab (84%)
• Asynchronous videos (82%)
• Peer collaboration (55%)

To support the flexibility of your online students, you’ll have to be the most flexible of all! Use this checklist of tactics to empower your students to do their best work.

You’ve heard it before … do more with less! In this section, we’re going to share some time-saving resources so you can do just that. The goal here is to eliminate as much manual work as possible so you can spend your time focusing on what really matters: teaching.

Here are 5 practical tips to streamline your transition to online teaching.

When you measure and track successes as well as challenges, you’re able to make continuous adjustments that will make your online course and future ones even better.

But it’s worth it, especially when the result is something like this:

Teaching AND learning online is hard enough—and your discipline faces additional obstacles others don’t, which means the technology, tools, lab modalities, and support your program employs is critical for success. It also can’t happen with administrators and instructors collaborating and supporting one another throughout the process.

Together, you can deliver engaging online science labs that will expand the reach of your program and boost enrollment numbers, while providing students with a meaningful and authentic lab experience from wherever they choose to learn.

Science Interactive empowers its campus partners to deliver authentic lab experiences for every student through hands-on labs and world-class virtual simulations that provide students with the knowledge and skills they need—no matter how far they are from campus. Our integrated lab solution combines customizable kits, a rigorous digital curriculum, and cutting-edge technology that makes it easier to create and deliver a hands-on lab experience for students in online courses. Over 800 institutions nationwide partner with Science Interactive to expand their online science programs, increase student engagement, and improve success rates.

To learn more, visit www.scienceinteractive.com.