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Dear All,

I am glad to meet you all on-line. Did you enjoy your holidays ? I hope so ...

Three months to go to reach the 21st century, and so many things to do before ! Internet, translations, dissemination, CDRom, pre-testing, new projects, ...

Summary

1. Demo CD-Rom
2. Demo Internet
3. Pre-testing
4. Umbrella
5. Dissemination 2000 : Reports
6. Dissemination 1999 : Information
7. ECTN 2
8. Finance
9. What's coming next !
10. Miscelleaneous

1. Demo CD-Rom

European Chemistry Test 2000 / current version : 3.5.1 eu

Things are moving ... a brand new version, n° 4.0 will be released by the end of the year 2000.

The main upgrade would be the integration of the full Hungarian translation (text received Mid-August) ; also a Slovenian version will be provided during the coming months - we might have a contact in Moscow for an eventual Russian translation in addition to the work made by Jana Velder.

• The Member list by surname will integrate the new ECTN2 participants, and the Member list by country was completely rebuilt from scratch.
• New features would be added (direct Internet Access for the ECTN website and Email access for the Group Leaders) as well as the simplification of the last 2 pages of the Main Menu
• A new installation procedure running a Setup procedure protected by a password, allowing the installation of only one language at a time, instead of the full package : less hard disk space required, faster procedure and ... more professionnal.
• The optimization of the installed version is also under consideration but not finalized - some more details will come soon.

• adaptation of the some wording
• a new Help file online
• I will take in charge the main Guide.pdf file

>>>> Also, I created a brand new graphic to replace the one (poor quality) included in the Uni2 test / Question 23 ; it will be integrated in the next release.

Also please keep in mind that if you request major changes in the content for a question or for a file, it will need to be translated in all the corresponding languages. This means that it takes a much longer time ... If something is mandatory, please keep me informed as soon as you can, in order to schedule the correction and coordinate the translations update.

Updates should have to be considered for the whole package, we simply can't release a CDRom incorporating different versions !Thank you for considering this technical / organizational point.

2. Demo Internet on the Internet !

and now what about the Internet ?? Please find below the main development orientation and statement :

• Everything that does not deal with a test will be treated as standard HTML format (Main, Help, Map, Members)
• Only the tests would be considered with Perception (Uni1, Uni2, Anal, Inor, Orga, Phys and Disc).
• The Periodic Table will be treated as a downloadable image (.jpg)
• At the moment the Calculator would not be available, I need to find a "free" Java calculator, in order to avoid any Windows specificity and to widely open the test to other Plateforms
• Full functionnality of Perception will require the use of Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher
• As previously stated the western languages (latin keyboard) are scheduled on the first release (da, de, en, fi, fr, it, nl, no, pt, se) ; then the non Latin keyboard (cz, el, hu, pl, ru, ro, si)
• Correlated with the Parallel Dissemination Programme called ATHENA, the first test transferred will be "Uni2", allowing us to widely disseminate it, then, the other tests ...
• The MAJOR point will be the HELP file : it will be necessary to make it again from scratch !!

3. Pre-testing

Still on the active file !!! Request to the Working group leaders : would it be possible to have the state of the art of the pre-testing in order to update the archives ?

4. European "Umbrella" Association

In addition to the previous contributors, Laura Bobocea from the University of Bucharest provided the Romanianversion of the Chemistry webpage.
Thanks to Laura for her collaboration.

This Chemistry page (http://www.cpe.fr/ceetok/) updated on September 15, is now available in 7 languages for the Chemistry page : English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Romanian and French. Also some other topics were added.

>>>>> Technical focus : Thanks to Gustavo for his complete report. It seems that the website could be displayed using either Netscape and Internet Explorer both on Macintosh and Windows, BUT, as Greek and Romanian used the (future?) Unicode  font standard (UTF), it requires Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher ; I need to check the last release of the Netscape version (4.72 FR or 6.0 US).

5. Dissemination Programme 2000 - Reports

NTIC / Internet Fair - Lyon (FR) ; March 15, 2000
Nouvelles Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication

P. Mimero was invited to this meeting to give a half an hour talk accompanied by a live demo on the CDRom, and presenting the Evaluation of the Core Chemistry of the ECTN. Most of the industrial representatives were interested in this approach, and during the panel discussion, some points were raised such as the availability of the test, the cost, the conditions to pass the test, the recognition by official bodies like the "Union des Industries Chimiques", the "Société Française de Chimie", the "Syndicat Professionnel de la Chimie", ... Some Startups providing on-line tests and adapted tests for the Industry were also interested in being involved in further development of the ECT, if any ... ?

P.Mimero

P. Mimero presented a poster on the Evaluation of the Core Chemistry as well as the demo. A couple of informal and interesting contacts occured mainly with the Mexican and Canadian representatives. It also was an opportunity to check what's happening abroad in the field of the Evaluation or the Self-assessement software dedicated to the Chemistry areas. Many small or medium projects are blowing up, but none of them had the same logical and content-like approach, none of them had the chance to work with a real coordination and most of the projects remain limited to a Department, a University or a State - the main point is that most of them are available via the Internet - but still remains pretty nice and easy tools for student. New fields of interest were raised : bioorganic, biopolymers, ...
Americans just discovered that something happened in the far eastern countries ... called United States of Europe ! and guess what ... the ECT Evaluation Test could fit their needs !

P.Mimero

During this conference a 2 hour seminar was devoted to the ECTN.
Short presentations were made by A.K. Smith (General Introduction to ECTN), T. Mitchell (Core Chemistry: Teaching Methods and Assessment), R.J. Whewell (Computerised Learning Test in Chemistry), J.M. Gagan (Providing Feedback to Students from Objective Tests), M. Karayannis (Chemistry and the Environment Working Group), and K. Wahala (The Image of Chemistry Working Group). In addition, P. Mimero presented a poster on the Evaluation of Core Chemistry project.
The audience for the seminar was rather lower than we had hoped, but the four days of the meeting allowed many informal discussions to be held enabling the work of the ECTN to be disseminated to a wide audience of chemists specialising in chemical education.

A.K.Smith

A.K. Smith was invited to this meeting to present a paper entitled ‘International Student and Teacher Exchange: the European Experience’. During the presentation, mention was made of the activities of the ECTN and the Evaluation of Core Chemistry project. It is clear that the Americans are becoming more and more aware of the need for their students to gain experience outside of the USA during their studies.

A.K.Smith

P.Mimero presented a Poster on the Evaluation of the Core Chemistry as well as the Demo. The Level 2 and 3 were on focus as they could be used to evaluate the knowledge before and after one session. Also very interesting contact for the dissemination of our product with some new countries and universities.
During this conference a panel discussion was introduced by A. Lagana concerning the METACHEM project ; he also mentionned the ECTN activities as well as the Evaluation of Core Chemsitry. A more extended information on this project will be published next month by A. Lagana in this NewsLetter.

P. Mimero

Summary

6. Dissemination Programme 1999 (Information)

9° MIEC - Brussels (BE) ; May 1999
5° ECRICE - Ioannina (GR) ; September 1999
ChemInt'99 - Washington, DC (USA) ; September 1999
EDUCATEC 1999 - Paris (FR) ; November 1999

Summary

7. ECTN 2

The delay is said to be due to some of the "Associate" countries being late in paying their contribution to participate in the Socrates programme. ECTN2 members will be informaed of the outcome of our application as soon as it is available.

In the meantime, following the decision taken at the Plenary Meeting in Krakow, an e-mail discussion group has been initiated involving those members interested in establishing a Food Chemistry working group under ECTN2. A copy of the message sent to these people is given below:

ECTN2 - Food Chemistry Working Group

Following my message of 07 June 2000 to all ECTN members asking for suggestions to participate in a new ECTN2 working group on Food Chemistry, I have received numerous replies, and this latest message is sent to all the people suggested for membership of this group. You will have the e-mail addresses of the people at the head of this message - below is a list of the names and affiliations:
 

• Roger Fenwick, Institute of Food Research, Norwich, UK (Chairman, Food Chemistry Division of FECS).
• Dick Fitzgerald, Life Science Department, University of Limerick, IE
• G. Sindona, Department of Chemistry, University of Calabria, IT
• Maria Csubak, Agricultural Faculty, Debrecen University, HU
• Pilar Bermejo Barrera, Department of Chemistry, University of Santiago de Compostela, ES
• Milka Krysteva, Department of Biotechnology, University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, Sofia, BG
• Marina Heinonen, Dept of Applied Chemistry and Microbiology, University of Helsinki, FI
• Michael Kontominas, Section of Industrial and Food chemistry, University of Ioannina, GR
• Margareta Nyman, Department of Food Chemistry, University of Lund, SE
• Halina Garmiene, Lithuanian Food Institute, LT
• Jana Copikova, Faculty of Food Technology and Sciences, Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague, CZ
• Ivonne Delgadillo, Head of Food Chemistry, Dept of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, PT
• Hubert Richard, Food Process Engineering Dept, ENSIA, Massy, FR (representing the Food Studies Thematic Network, Coordinator Elisabeth Dumoulin)

THE WAY FORWARD:

I suggest that you use e-mail communication between all of you (make a group e-mail address) to firstly select a discussion leader. I believe this will greatly aid and help focus your discussions.The selected person should then lead discussions on defining the aims and objectives of the group to which all of you should make contributions.Although I will not take part in the discussions I should like to receive copies of your messages so that I can monitor progress.  The leader should send me the conclusions of the discussions by the end of September 2000. The ECTN will hold a Management Committee meeting in October 2000 during which the creation, membership, and aims and objectives of the group can be discussed.Following this, if all goes well, you will be invited to hold a working group meeting as a step towards realising your aims and objectives.  All of the above is dependent on the success of the application to the European Commission for funding for ECTN2. I should receive this information within the next few weeks.  Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information. With best wishes for your future discussions, Tony Smith

8. Finance

9. What's coming next month !

- the METACHEM project description by A. Lagana
- the INNO 2000 / Helsinki reports by K. Wähälä

- the result of the ECTN2 application ?

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