Abstract—When studying electronics, hands-on experience is considered to be very valuable for a better understanding of the concepts of electricity and electronics. Students lacking sufficient time in the lab are often put at disadvantage. A way to overcome this, is by using interactive multimedia in a virtual environment. Instead of proposing another new ad-hoc simulator for e-learning, we propose in this paper an e-learning platform integrating the SPICE simulator as a web service. This enables to make use of all the functions of the de-facto standard simulator SPICE inelectronics when developing new simulations. Keywords—E-learning, SPICE, Virtual experiments, Webservice I. INTRODUCTION NDERSTANDING the behavior and interactions of fundamental variables like voltage and current in inductors and capacitors of electrical circuits requires thorough insight. In practice, many students have difficulties with it, since these concepts are not directly observable. They should be measured with meters and oscilloscopes. Animations and simulations provide the perfect way to demonstrate the behavior of power electronic circuits. When these animations and simulations are available by means of a global medium, like for instance the Internet, a student can study at his own pace, independent of time and place. In the past, several systems offering simulations and animations in the area of electronics have been successfully proposed [1]–[6]. General remarks for most of the existing systems are that the multimedia is often ad-hoc generated, stand-alone as closed applications, only applicable for power electronics, and interactivity is implemented by means of Flash or Java. In this paper, we develop a learning platform, which integrates a web service for the SPICE simulator (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis). SPICE is considered to be the de-facto standard for computer animations of electronic circuits. By offering the SPICE simulator as a web service, other software developers can focus on the implementation of improved graphical user interfaces. The paper is organized as follows. First, we explain previous work in this area. Then, the different aspects for introducing SPICE into a web context are described. In the next section, we discuss the learning platform in which the SPICE web service is integrated. Finally, we end with some conclusions and future work. A. Braeken, L. Sterckx, A. Touhafi, and Y. Verbelen are with the Erasmushogeschool Brussel, Department Industrial Engineering and Science, Nijverheidskaai 170, 1070 Anderlecht, Belgium (phone: 0032 2 5590253; fax: 0032 2 5207123; e-mail: {An.braeken,, Abdellah.touhafi, Lucas.sterckx, Yannick.verbelen}@ehb.be). II. PREVIOUS WORK The original SPICE simulator was designed by L. Nagel and D.O. Peterson, during the late sixties. The program evolved to the standard for analog and mixed-mode circuit simulation. As an early open source program, SPICE was widely distributed and used in almost all large universities of Northern America. Due to its open source license, wide ranges of versions were adapted, each with their own specific application or updates. Nowadays, many off-line simulation programs for academia and industry, and also commercial products are developed based on SPICE. Compiled SPICE code can be used as a command line or as text-based simulation program. In order to make it more attractive, many commercial and open source software packages were developed to offer a GUI (graphical user interface). Such interfaces offer a more effective interaction between code and visualization. Two examples of commercial SPICE software with extensive GUIs are LTSpice and Circuitlogix. In order to use the SPICE simulator in an e-learning situation, the Internet needs to fulfill the role of GUI for the simulator. Therefore, communication should take place between the computer of the student (client) and the server hosting the website. In the past, two implementations of such interfaces were developed ([7] and [8]). In both implementations, the SPICE code runs on the network server. The user sends requests for simulation to the server, which in turn responds with the results or graphs in the form of a web page. The compiled form of SPICE is addressed by means of network tools such as CGI [8] and Perl script [7]. Thanks to this client-server interaction, users do not need to install extra software or plug-ins, and platform independency is obtained. However, both websites ([7], [8]) were proposed almost 10 years ago. Especially in the Internet area, this is a very long period in which many new technologies were developed and existing ones improved. The implementation methods from [7] and [8] are also closed and offer no broader communication outside the website on which they were developed. Moreover, the input files of both websites are too extended and do not offer the fast interaction that can be obtained with the off-line software. III. SPICE IN WEB CONTEXT First we explain how a SOA (service oriented architecture) can solve the problem of reusability. Then, we describe how web services can be used to implement a SOA. Next some details are given on the implementation of SPICE as a web service. Finally, test results of the SPICE web service are discussed. A. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Following the principles of a client-server model, there exists one closed series of sequential processes to visualize a E-Learning Platform with SPICE web service A. Braeken, L. Sterckx, A. Touhafi, Y. Verbelen U World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Vol:6, No:5, 2012 898 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 6(5) 2012 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/2847 International Science Index, Humanities and Social Sciences Vol:6, No:5, 2012 waset.org/Publication/2847