Association

At the meeting of the Administrative Council held in Helsinki on 16 February 2002, it was announced that 55 membership forms for founding membership had been received and another 20 were promised. This is a very encouraging response and will provide an excellent base on which to launch the Association. I very much look forward to working with these founding members to make a sucess of this new venture.

As soon as the remaining promised forms have been received, the application to create the Association will be sent to the Belgian Ministry of Justice. It is unlikely that approval to form the Association will be officially received before the ECTN plenary meeting in Perugia, but members will be kept informed of the progress of the application.

On 28 February 2002, the number of membership forms received was 66, and a number of others are promised within the next few days. The application is expected to be sent to Belgian Ministry on March 9th 2002.

Please look at the list of members (click here to download it : ECTN_Assoc_MEMBERSHIP_confirmed.xls - 24 Kb) ; if your institution is not on the list and you think it should be, please let me know immediately.

Administrative Council / Management Committee Meeting
Helsinki (FI), February 16, 2002

Brief news concerning the ECTN Management Committee meeting (minutes will be circulated later):

It was reported that Industrial partners are now eligible to receive funding from the ECTN project contract in the same way as higher education institutions. We therefore should seek to involve more industrial partners in our work. Suggestions are welcome. Each of the ECTN working groups gave a brief report of their activities.

Of particular note are the newly established groups of Remediation and Biological Chemistry, which have established a strong membership. The Remediation group will be meeting in Athens on 5th April, 2002 under the leadership of Milt Karayannis, Ioannina, GR.
The Biological Chemistry group will meet in Perugia on 9th May 2002, and again later in the year. The group leader is Arne van der Gen, Leiden, NL.

There was some discussion concerning the organisation and funding of the plenary meeting. Antonio Lagana, Perugia, IT is the local organiser. He has created a web site for the meeting (still under development) which provides a registration form (hotel booking form), a provisional programme, and information about the area of Perugia. The address is given in section 4 below. Please make regular visits to this site to keep up to date with the arrangements.

The meeting includes the general assembly of the ECTN Association. Funding for the meeting will be the same as last year. The ECTN project will fund up to 4 days accommodation and subsistence for all eligible partners. Participants are expected to fund their own travel. Those participants, who are members of a working group, and who find it impossible to find their own funds for travel, should contact Tony Smith. A possible source of funding is from the Socrates Institutional contract of your institution. Part of our meeting involves discussion and organisation of student exchanges.

It was suggested that a 'registration fee' for the meeting should be charged, and that the 'fee' should be 5 questions in inorganic or analytical chemistry, suitable for input into the test libraries of the computer based tests in these areas of chemistry. A suitable document will be prepared and put onto both the meeting and EChemTest websites in the near future.

How do you feel with this proposal ? have some experience in Inorganic Chemistry ? ready to take your pencil ? Feel free ... ;-)
For any further details regarding the field of the Inorganic chemistry concerned by the tests, the Core content that should be tested, ... please contact David Cardin who will help you and coordinate the process.

ECTN contact people are reminded that they should disseminate information about this meeting, and all other ECTN information, to all those in their institutions who may be interested.

Status Report
The Status report as a downloadadble document will take place here in the next issue. Few information till then :

• The original English version of the Demo Inorganic, Organic and Physical Chemistry tests at Level 3 are now ready for release (CD and Internet format). Pre-university levels and Analytical Chemistry will soon be ready.
• Most of the tests will be available in 21 languages on the next CD
• The training tests will be updated
• Draft version of the English Organic Chemistry and Physical Chemistry Libraries for certification purposes are now released in Perception format.

Analytical Chemistry Working Group
We'd like to welcome three new members who joined Miltiades Karayannis, our new Group Leader.

• Prof. Alan Townshend - University of Hull (U.K.)
• Prof. C. Efstathiou - University of Athens (Greece)
• Prof. Dr. E.H. Hansen - Technical University of Denmark at Lyngby (Denmark)

Inorganic Chemistry Working Group
We still need volunteers to join the Inorganic Chemistry Group for this project.
Please contact David Cardin (d.j.cardin@reading.ac.uk) if you are interested.

Tests : How much does it cost ?

• The new demo CD will be provided to all who request a copy. A sum of 30 Euro (€) will charged for the CD to cover the costs of production and postage. This money will be put into the Association account.
• The demonstration version of the tests on the internet will be freely available to the public.
• The charge for certification associated with the test has not yet been agreed.

ECTN Application renewal

The renewal application for the ECTN Thematic network project was submitted before the deadline (1st March 2002). Work on this application delayed the completion of this newsletter. This application is for the next funding period (1st October 2002 - 30th September 2003). As agreed at the management committee meeting in Helsinki, the application includes the proposal to create three new working groups. the following gives the proposed working group titles and a brief text indicating the proposed work to be carried out. Participants at the plenary meeting are reminded that the composition (and remit) of these working groups will be discussed at the meeting.

International Placements

Many universities provide industrial placements as a compulsory or optional part of first degree studies in chemistry. The placements vary in length from a few weeks to a full year. These placements are becoming increasingly important and sought after by students. There is much anecdotal evidence that a period of work experience during a degree programme produces ‘better’ graduates. Such graduates tend to be sought after by graduate employers. Many European countries nonetheless have no or very little experience in providing such experience. This group will gather the expertise to put systems in place to guide those institutions wishing to establish chemistry programmes involving an industrial placement. The group will also seek to provide statistical data concerning the effects of an industrial placement on student performance and career. Ray Wallace (Nottingham Trent University, UK) will speak about this topic at the ECTN plenary meeting in May.

The Chemistry / Chemical and Process Engineering Interface

There is a great diversity between the different EU Member States and the Associated Countries in the distinctions made in the education of chemists and chemical or process engineers. In some countries the syllabuses in chemistry and chemical/process engineering are common at least for the early years of higher education, while in other countries there are almost no common courses.It is important to identify teaching programmes that seek to bridge this gap between chemistry and chemical or process engineering. This group will select the area of green chemistry and see how it has been or can be extended into green technology. This will provide material for the future training and education of the next generation in developing sustainable process by exploiting the advances made in green chemistry and process intensification and innovation. This will provide a basis for the dissemination of good practice and thus enable more programmes to include this bridge between chemistry and engineering and thus ensure a supply of appropriately trained students in this vital area.

The Evaluation of Core Chemistry

In a previous project, computer-based tests in 16 languages were created to enable individuals to evaluate their level of competence in chemistry. This present working group will make use of the expertise gained during this previous project to move in a new direction. The aim is to provide tools for autonomous or self-directed learning by providing extensive feedback to at least two of the existing tests (of which there are 6). This aim cannot be achieved within a one-year funding period, but a start will be made by creating at least the English version of the learning tool. The tests will at the same time be up-dated to reflect the recent work carried out by the ECTN on Core Chemistry for the Future and the Tuning pilot-project.

Other working groups

Other working groups will continue to operate during this funding period but will not be allocated funds to hold a group meeting except for the day before the 2003 plenary meeting. The groups concerned are : Image of Chemistry, Food Chemistry, Remediation,  Biological Chemistry, Multimedia in Chemistry Education, Core Chemistry for the Future, Postgraduate Education.

Number of Hits : ectn.net (1767) ; EChemTest.net (981) ; eask.be (954)

Counter status on Feb 28, 2002

EChemTest.net

Good news, "EChemTest" is already recognized by the Excite web serch engine.

ECTN Plenary Session URL

Thanks to Antonio Lagana who is the organizer of the ECTN-ECEN-TASSEP plenary session (Perugia, IT - May 2002) - Please find the dedicated website at : http://www.chm.unipg.it/chimgen/mb/cong/ECTN/index.html

The final website version will be released on March 4^th 2002. Session Programmes will be updated during the coming weeks. Please do not complete the registration form before this date.

Science Teachers Education Development in Europe (STEDE) Thematic Network
Plenary Meeting, Vienna, AT (23-24 March 2002)

Richard Whewell will give a presentation of ECTN activities at this plenary meeting. Links between ECTN and STEDE, especially in the area of computer-based learning and assessment, will be of benefit to both networks.

17th BCCE - Bellingham (WA), USA (July 28 - August 1, 2002)

Sylvia Ware from the ACS, is kindly organizing the ECTN symposium entitled "European Approaches to Chemistry Reform at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels" 5 ECTN contributions (soon to be available on the EChemTest website, accessible thru the "Dissemination" page) will focus on the following items :

• Maintaining the Quality of the Undergraduate Degree (Richard Whewell)
• Undergraduate Curriculum Reform (Terry Mitchell)
• The Use of Multimedia in Teaching Chemistry: From Metachem to Webchem (Antonio Lagana)
• The European Chemistry Test (Pascal Mimero)
• Graduate Education (Tony Ashmore)

Everything should be on display in the near future on the BCCE Website : http://chem.wwu.edu/acs/bcce/index.html

17th ICCE - Beijing, China (August 6 - 10, 2002)

The ECTN will contribute to this conference if funding can be obtained.
Deadline for Subscription : March 31, 2002 - http://www.ccs.ac.cn/17icce.htm

EUCO-CC4 - Assisi, Italy (September 1 - 6, 2002)

ECTN will contribute to this event - more details will come later.
Deadlines : April 15, 2002 for invited papers / June 15, 2002 for registration and abstracts submission
For more information, please contact
    Antonio Lagana
    EUCO-CC4
    Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Perugia
    Via Elce di Sotto, 8
    06123 PERUGIA, ITALY
    e-mail : lag@unipg.it
    fax : (39) 075 585 5606

FIZ Chemie

Contribution received from Dr. Anthony R. Flambard (Head, Marketing & Sales / FIZ CHEMIE Berlin - Germany) on behalf of René Deplanque.

I had the great pleasure to meet Rene Deplanque representing "FIZ Chemie" during the ChemInt 2000 conference (Washington DC, September 2000), I also was invited to present the ECTN activities and the tests during a FIZ Chemie General Meeting held in Berlin in November 2000.  A first brief insert appeared in the NewsLetter at this time.

Today I'm pleased to welcome a contribution of FIZ Chemie. It will gives you a good overview of the main activities. The text given below is the introduction of the abstract. The content of this document might be of great interest for our working groups oriented to Multimedia, Teaching, Curriculum and Core Chemistry.

FIZ CHEMIE Berlin (The Chemistry Information Centre) is a German Government-sponsored information agency whose task is to provide high-quality information services concerning chemistry and chemical engineering and related fields such as biochemistry, biotechnology and the materials sciences to governments, academia, industry and the public in general. (...)

Download the abstract : FIZChemie_CompanyProfile.doc (68 Kb)

More information available on the web :
    http://www.chemistry.de
    http://www.fiz-chemie.de/en/aktuelles/2001-11-27c.html
    http://www.vs-c.de

NATO-ASI Conference

Announcement received from Nino Russo (Erasmus coordinator / Department of Chemistry, University of Calabria - Italy)

Conference NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI)
on "Metal-Ligand interactions in molecular-, nano-, micro-, and macro-systems in complex environments"
to be held in Cetraro (CS), Italy / September 1-12, 2002

Download the information flyer : NATO_ASI_CetraroConf.doc (44 Kb)

Post-doctoral position

Annoucement received from the Computational Chemistry Dissemination List / maintained by Andrei Tchougreeff

Post-doc position for two years at Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Dipartimento di Chimica, Università della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, Italy

The Department of Chemistry at University of Calabria, Italy, is looking for two quantum chemists to join the Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry team.

The post-doc will be involved in projects concerning the theoretical basis of catalysis ( homogeneous, heterogeneous and enzymatic) and quantum mechanical and molecular dynamic simulation of structure and properties of molecules of biological interest.

They  will use our 16 apha-compaq processor, Silicon Origin 2000 and Beowulf cluster to perform ab-initio, dft and MD calculations.
Applicants will have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics or chemistry of related fields and should have a strong background in computational chemistry, especially in quantum chemistry. Familiarity with UNIX is mandatory.

Please send your application to:

Dr. Nino Russo
Dipartimento di Chimica
Università della Calabria
I-87030 Arcavacata di Rende, Italy
e-mail : russo@unical.it
Fax: +39-0984-492044

Report from Miltiades Karayannis - contribution in the FECS / Chemistry and the Environment Workshop held in Rome, IT (10-12 January 2002)

Report of Tuning Project Meeting, Rome, 15-16 March, 2002

17th ICCE Beijing information

Updates on the ECTN Plenary Meeting, Perugia, Italy, 10-12 May 2002.