A TRAINING DEMONSTRATION FOR EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING IN OPC BASED PROCESS AUTOMATION DATA ACCESS

The focus of university classrooms is changing from a lecturing approach to a learning-by- doing approach. Consequently, many universities are moving towards incorporating hands-on or experiential learning approaches in their teaching methods. In this paper we present a training demonstration that we have developed to support experiential learning in the teaching of Open Process Control (OPC) based access to process automation data. This is a topic in the Advanced Components and System Integration course of the joint McMaster University and Mohawk College bachelor of technology program. Generally, the paper presents the design and implementation of an OPC data access system, and how the system is used as demonstration to inspire learning.