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Chemical
Education International, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1-3, Published in August
31, 2000
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER ON CHEMICAL EDUCATION:
A Prospectus
Y.
Takeuchia* and J. J. Lagowskib**
*
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Kanagawa University,
2946 Tsuchiya, Hiratsuka-shi, Japan 259-293,
Tel. +81 463 59 4111 ext. 2842, Fax +81 463 58 9684,
e-mail: [email protected]
**
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Texas
at Austin, Austin, TX 78712,
Telephone and FAX 512/471-3288
e-mail: [email protected]
The
work of the Committee on Teaching Chemistry (CTC) of IUPAC transcends
the subdisciplines of chemistry and international borders. Thus,
CTC has always been interested in, and supportive of, a variety
of devices--conferences, reports, newsletters, etc.--for the dissemination
of its efforts and the efforts of others interested in chemical
education. Unfortunately, the identity and location of the teaching
chemists CTC hopes to reach fluctuates with time and conventional,
paper-oriented dissemination practices often have been inadequate
for the task. A very good example is the International Newsletter
on Chemical Education (INCE), which, historically, was the
vehicle for the communication of important information to the international
cohort of chemical educators. Over the years, the conventional costs
associated with print versions of the newsletter were controlled
by a variety of methods; for example, editorial costs were borne
by volunteers, some distribution costs were absorbed by shipping
bulk quantities to national representatives who bore the responsibilities
of distributing copies within their own countries; and attempts
were made to seek lower printing costs in third world countries
by special arrangements. But, eventually, the elements of cost could
not be brought to acceptable levels within the CTC budget and the
newsletter was terminated.
We
propose here to reincarnate the INCE in an electronic format designed
to make it accessible to the majority of the world-wide community
of teaching chemists.
We
recognize that a cohort of teaching chemists exist in areas of the
world that currently are not served by the Internet, which, incidentally,
also coincides with the areas that we had difficulties serving with
the previous print version of INCE. CTC has constantly struggled
with the problem of access to the print versions of INCE by the
more isolated chemical educators of the world and we intend to continue
to seek solutions to that problem with the proposed electronic version
of the INCE. However, this is a proposal to modernize the creation,
production, and distribution of a CTC organ for what we believe
to be the majority of the teaching chemists of the world. Solving
that problem does not necessarily solve the access problem of isolated
teaching chemists. We do not intend to abandon them. Our guess is,
however, that access to the Internet will continue to expand. Our
objective here is to reinstitute the production of a viable CTC
newsletter.
Following
is our proposed description of the new, electronic version of INCE.
This view of the electronic version of the ICNE incorporates a core
of features that were successful in the past, with additions that
reflect a new, forward-looking journal; these suggestions are still
in a formative stage.
PUBLICATION
FREQUENCY
Our
current plans are to produce INCE on a quarterly basis by involving
CTC members in the process of gathering useful information for the
INCE. Access to the electronic version of INCE will be through the
existing CTC homepage.
READERSHIP
As
with the printed version of INCE, we intend to aim the contents
of the newsletter to teaching chemists at all levels and to school
teachers of chemistry. In addition, we intend to include features
that would be of interest to young people who were never served
directly by the contents of the previous print version of INCE.
Thus, our plan is to enhance the content of INCE in accord with
the general thrust of IUPAC toward interesting more young people
in chemistry as a part of its initiatives at improving the public
understanding of our discipline.
CONTENTS
Initially,
the new, electronic version of INCE will incorporate most of the
more successful features that were present in the print version.
For the sake of discussion, we offer the following descriptions.
Notice
Board. This new feature, essentially, is intended to be a calendar
of events--worldwide--of potential interest to chemical educators.
Current information on recurring events such as the International
Conference on Chemical Education (ICCE) will be available through
the Notice Board. Where possible, access to such information will
be made through links to the web pages of the organizers of these
events, which should decrease the editorial effort expended on the
Notice Board.
Reports.
Each year CTC has access to numerous reports on curricular issues;
symposia of interest to chemical educators worldwide, e.g., the
chemical education symposium of the 8th Asian Chemical Congress
and the Biennial Conference of the Division of Chemical Education
of the American Chemical Society; the Chemistry Olympiad; etc. We
anticipate that the reports generated by such activities could be
obtained through links to the appropriate homepages (if such exist).
Facts
and Figures. This is a feature designed to give the worldwide
chemical education community information on national chemical education
activities. CTC members are often privy to such details in their
home countries and we would encourage their publication in the new
ICNE.
Opinions
and Essays. This is a feature designed to encourage the discussion
and description of trends in chemical education as key people perceive
them. We intend to solicit contributions from, e.g., editors of
chemical education-oriented journals, the leadership of chemical
education units in national societies; individuals developing important
chemical education-oriented activities such as microchemistry, etc.
In
addition, we will seek essays from Nobel Laureates and other "high
profile" chemists aimed at a public understanding of chemistry
or at young people. By such essays we hope to promote the field(s)
of chemistry to citizens.
PRACTICALITIES
We
intend to use, as before, the voluntary efforts of the creative
members of CTC. For example, the Secretary of CTC should be in a
position to contribute to--have access to--information for several
of the features planned such as the Notice Board and some of the
Reports items. CTC members should have easy entree to national level
information that should be disseminated and selected CTC members
with good "connections" should have access to persons
within, and external to, IUPAC who could produce interesting opinions
and essays.
We
propose that, at a steady state, "templates" would be
available into which the information for the features could be fed
and displayed electronically with minimal editorial effort. The
quarterly versions of ICNE could, eventually, be archived on CD-roms
that could be distributed at low cost.
We
intend to seek "front money" for the formative stages
of the electronic journal sufficient for a two to three year development
period during which time the "steady state" costs could
be established. We anticipate that, at the "steady state,"
the costs could possibly be borne by soliciting yearly (or quarterly)
sponsorship by, for example, interested book publishers.
Last
updated
29.07.04
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