Cookbooking
The original idea for virtual labs came from Brian, one of our founders, during his time as a graduate student teaching assistant at UC Berkeley. He observed that students were following lab instructions like recipes—simply “cookbooking” their way through classes. They were learning about science, but they weren’t learning how to do science.
Brian’s breakthrough realization was that this wasn’t a failure of students or instructors—it was the consequence of traditional lab environments constrained by safety, time, and resources. He saw the potential for virtual labs to break these barriers and give students the freedom to make decisions, explore, and learn from mistakes in a risk-free setting.
Technology with a purpose
After years of development and refinement, Brian teamed up with co-founders Brent and Jay to launch Beyond Labz, with a mission to expand access to science education across middle schools, high schools, universities and online learning. Together, we built Beyond Labz to be a platform that levels the playing field, making science accessible, engaging, and affordable for all.
Our labs are built on advanced algorithms and real experimental data, designed to mimic the outcomes of physical experiments with precision. But what sets us apart is the flexibility and openness of our platform.
Customizable and Scalable: Instructors can tailor activities or create their own experiments, making Beyond Labz adaptable for any educational level or curriculum.
Open-Ended Exploration: Students are not limited to pre-set experiments—they are free to explore, make mistakes, and discover science at their own pace.
Guided Learning: For students who need structure, our platform offers guided activities to walk them through even the most complex procedures.
Academic Integrity: All actions in the virtual labs are captured, via xAPI, and when required our “Lab Cam” functionality enables instructors and lab assistants to review actual step-by-step student lab work.
Key Features and Benefits
Detailed Lab Procedures: Our pre-designed lab activities provide students with clear, guided instructions for completing experiments. These procedures are aligned with standard curricula and are designed to help students learn by doing.
Auto-Graded Efficiency: With 80% auto-graded functionality, instructors can focus on teaching while our system handles the bulk of the grading. This significantly reduces administrative overhead and ensures fast, accurate grading.
Seamless LMS Integration: Our lab procedures integrate directly with any LTI 1.0/1.1/1.3 compliant LMS. Whether you use Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, or another platform, you can easily incorporate our labs into your courses.
Complete Student Experience: Students can complete lab procedures without leaving the LMS environment. All submissions and grading are managed in one place, providing both students and instructors with an efficient, streamlined workflow.
Looking Ahead
As we continue to expand and innovate, we remain dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in education technology, to make science education more accessible, interactive and engaging for students everywhere. Join us as we aim to empower the next generation of scientists.