Please note that Tony Smith will be visiting universities in the USA in the period 6-17 April 2002. Please be more patient than usual in waiting for responses to your e-mail messages. Do not hesitate to contact Marie-Jeanne Feucht (feucht@cpe.fr) if you have any administrative questions about the ECTN project.

Important announcement concerning the ECTN Plenary Meeting in Perugia, IT, 10-12 May 2002.

We have decided to ask all participants to provide 3 inorganic chemistry questions as their ‘registration fee’ for the meeting. These questions will be subsequently edited by the inorganic group for the Evaluation of Core Chemistry project, and be placed in the inorganic question bank. A form for these questions, and background information, will shortly be available on the plenary meeting website (www.chm.unipg.it/chimgen/mb/cong/ECTN/index.html). If you are attending the meeting, please complete three of these forms and bring them with you to the meeting. If you are not an inorganic chemist, please ask a colleague to help you. If you wish to provide more than three questions you are of course welcome to do so. In this way we hope to build up the question bank associated with our evaluation project.

Association

We are very pleased to receive the application of the Italian Chemical Society for membership of the ECTN Association. It remains an aim of the Association to have all national chemical societies as members. This will give the Association an even more extensive network throughout Europe and an authoritative voice for chemistry. Members are invited to contact their national societies to inform them of ECTN and ECTN Association activities and invite them to join us in our work.

Status Report

Please find the March 1st, 2002, Status report for all the tests available downloadable as a Word document (EChemTestStatusReport1.doc / 29 Kb).

On-line Test

We are now in touch with Question Mark to fix the technical procedure to send and publish our tests on-line.

CD Demo Main file

I completely reformat the Main file for the CDRom, incorporating the webpages information as much as possible and Multimedia links such as the Working Group Leader's e-mails, and also enlarging the screensize to 800x600 instead of the "old" 640x480 - you will soon discover some screenshot samples on-line.

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.

ECTN Application ...

The ECTN Application for the October 2002 - September 2003 funding period has been acknowledged by the Commission. It has the project number 10066-CP-3-2002-1-FR-ERASMUS-TN. We will be informed of the result of this application in September 2002.

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

The Tuning pilot-project ‘Tuning educational structures in Europe’ is nearing the end of the contract period ? the final meeting will take place in Brussels on 31st May 2002. At this meeting the project outcomes will be presented to the major actors concerned ? the European Commission, politicians, university senior management, employers, teachers, students, …. At this meeting, the Chemistry Eurobachelor paper will be presented by Terry Mitchell, Dortmund, DE as one of the chemistry synergy group contributions to the project outcomes. This paper will also be presented at the ECTN plenary meeting in Perugia, so this will be your chance to comment on the paper.

The Tuning project continues to grow in importance and renown. The project was presented to the Higher Education Committee of the European Parliament in February 2002, and was very well received. A follow-up project is likely.
At the meeting in Rome, the chemistry synergy group discussed the four principal lines of the Tuning project:

• Line 1 : General and Academic Skills
Kristiina Wähälä, Helsinki, FI presented an analysis of a questionnaire sent to graduates and employers concerning generic and subject- specific skills, and recent results of a questionnaire sent to academics asking for a ranking of these skills were discussed.

• Line 2: Core Curricula
The Chemistry Eurobachelor paper written by Terry Mitchell (Dortmund, DE) and Richard Whewell (Strathclyde, UK) was discussed. ECTN members will have a chance to read and discuss this paper at the ECTN plenary meeting in Perugia.

• Line 3: ECTS as an Accumulation System
One of the items discussed under this heading was a draft ECTS Charter prepared by the ECTS National Councillors. The chemistry group was opposed to a number of points in this charter, and their objections will be transmitted to the Tuning project coordinators and the coordinator of the ECTS National Councillors.

• Line 4: Methods of Teaching and Learning, Assessment and Performance
In a plenary session at the Rome meeting, attended by the 5 core disciplines and the synergy groups of chemistry and physics, the Educational Sciences group presented a paper on ‘Teaching methods, knowledge, technology and assessment: an interlinked field?’. This paper and a paper prepared by the geology group on quality assessment was discussed by the chemistry group. It is too early to report on these discussions publicly. A full report will be made available after the final meeting. It will then be our responsibility to disseminate this report as widely as possible.

Counter status

Number of Hits on March 30, 2002 : ectn.net (1867) ; EChemTest.net (1107) ; eask.be (994)

Ectn.net

The site has been up-dated by inclusion of the members of the new working groups ? Remediation and Biological Chemistry. A link to the website of the Perugia annual plenary meeting has also been provided on the ECTN home page.

EChemTest.net

Minor updates only, but some new contributions (translated pages) are on the way ...

eask.be

Screenshots of ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) are now available from the eask website.

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

ECTN symposium entitled "European Approaches to Chemistry Reform at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels"

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

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

Summer Symposium at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (22­24 July, 2002)

ECTN activities will be presented at a symposium entitled ‘The European Higher Education Space: a Necessary Convergence’, organised by the Complutense University of Madrid.

Co-operation with Japan

The European Commission has announced a new international cooperation initiative ­ projects involving joint study programmes and exchange of postgraduate (Masters level) students with Japan are invited. Discipline areas concerned include engineering and/or life sciences. The deadline for applications is 31st May 2002. See the following website for details: http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/canada/guidel_jap.pdf

FECS / Chemistry and the Environment Workshop

Rome, IT (10-12 January 2002)

I'm pleased to present two different contributions, and two different views, received early March from Milt Karayannis (University of Ioannina, GR) and Uri Zoller (University of Haifa, IL).

1. Milt Karayannis reporting as the representative of ECTN in the Workshop “Environmental Chemistry Education in Europe: Setting the Agenda”.
Click here to download the Karayannis report :  FECS_ECEE_MKReport.pdf  (7 Kb) or  FECS_ECEE_MKReport.doc (22 Kb)

2. Uri Zoller reporting as the Chairman of CEEC and 1st workshop organiser
Click here to download the Zoller's report :  FECS_ECEE_UZReport.pdf  (14 Kb) or  FECS_ECEE_UZReport.doc (28 Kb)

Academic Position and Followship

E-mail received on March 15, 2002

Object: Marie Curie Development Host Fellowship
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 18:48:36 +0200
From: "Manthos Papadopoulos" <mpapad@eie.gr>
To: <pascal.mimero@wanadoo.fr>

Dear Colleague,

I would appreciate it if you could circulate  the enclosed announcement in your department. Thanking you in advance.

Yours sincerely

M.G. Papadopoulos
--------------------

March 15, 2002

ANNOUNCEMENT : Marie Curie Development Host Fellowship

Applicants are invited to join our Computational Chemistry Group  working on the non-linear optical (NLO) properties of molecules and condensed phases. The project focuses on the calculation of the  NLO properties  of liquid solutions, glasses and polymers, using molecular simulation methods. Candidates should have a strong background in molecular simulation methods of disordered phases. Experience with NLO properties is desirable but not necessary. The post offers the chance to work in a highly collaborative environment within an expanding Institute. The Group has adequate facilities for high quality computations. Duration of the fellowship: 24 months. The total allowance is 3550 euro/month. This includes subsistence costs , mobility allowance and travel costs.  Applicants should send a curriculum vitae and one letter of recommendation to:

Dr. M. G. Papadopoulos
Institute of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
National Hellenic Research Foundation
48 Vas. Constantinou Ave.
Athens 116 35 - Greece
Tel: +301-7273892
e-mail: mpapad@eie.gr

Flight Schedules

You wanna get your preferred company flight schedules on your own computer desktop, or better, on your handheld palm organizer ?
Check the Flight carrier's websites ...

• Alitalia (www.alitalia.it)

click on 1. "Select your country", 2. under the TimeTable Flights click on "Download"
file format : Mac or PC Desktop / 1st download the full software package, then only the update
update frequency : every 2 months
 
• Lufthansa (www.lufthansa.com)

click on 1. "Flight search", 2. "Products and services", 3. "Download" and then 4. "Flight Schedule Download"
database available : Worldwide, Europe, Germany
file format available : Laptop (Acrobat pdf), Palm OS
update frequency : every 6 months
 
• Delta Airlines (www.delta.com)

click on 1. "Flight Schedule", 2. "Electronic TimeTable", then 3. follow the on-screen display instructions
file format : Mac and PC desktop, Palm OS (Mac and Win)
update frequency : every 40 days
 
• United Airlines (www.ual.com  or  www.united.com)

click on 1. "Planning Travel", 2. "Electronic Table", then 3. follow the on-screen display instructions
file format : Mac and PC desktop (Acrobat pdf), Palm OS (Mac and Win)
update frequency : weekly

Some more coming in a future issue ...

• Updates on the 17th BCCE Symposium, Bellingham WA, USA, 28-31 August 2002
• Updates on the ECTN Plenary Meeting, Perugia, Italy, 10-12 May 2002
• Updates on the EUCO-CC4 Meeting, Assisi, Italy, 1-6 September 2002

• Presentation of the new set of Assessment CDRoms (Prof. Tony Rest, U. of Bristol, UK)
• Presentation of the ACEN activities (Prof. Masato Ito, Soka U., Japan and Prof. Oleap Fernando, Open University, Sri Lanka)
• Activity report at Scripps Research (Dr. Peter ten Holte, NL)