ECTN Plenary Meeting

As announced in last months newsletter, we have decided to ask all ECTN Plenary Meeting 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, is 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.

A presentation of the activities of the Science Teachers Education development in Europe (STEDE) thematic network by Mick Nott (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) will be made at the plenary meeting. A presentation by Ray Wallace (Nottingham Trent University, UK) on industrial placements in chemistry programmes will also be made, with a view to starting a new working group on this topic in the next funding year.

Please think about future activities of the network. The next funding period (October 2002 ­ September 2003) is the last of a three year cycle. We therefore need to begin planning for a new thematic network project. Bring your ideas to Perugia.

I look forward to seeing you there.

ECTN Remediation Group

The Remediation group, under the leadership of Milt Karayannis (Ioannina, GR) held a successful meeting in Athens on April 6th 2002. A report will be presented at the Perugia meeting.

Association

All the papers for the ECTN Association were sent off to the Belgian Ministry of Justice at the beginning of this month. There are 71 founding members. We must now wait for the official reply before we can proceed further.

IT Collaborators

Except for the Working Group Leaders, who is technically working on the QM software plateforme now ? Just few words about 3 of our colleagues in charge of the technical updates and development of the Chemistry Tests material :

• Welcome to a new collaborator Valentina Piermarini (U. of Perugia - IT), working with Antonio Lagana on the Italian translation of the Physical Chemistry Libraries.
• Welcome back to Jorma Koskimies (U. of Helsinki - FI), working with Kristiina Wähälä on the General Chemistry Tests ; he was already involved at the first stage of the creation of the tests 5 years ago, and had to left the project for a while.
• And of course Janna Velder (U. of Köln - DE), working in the Hans Günter Schmalz's Group, on the Organic Chemistry Tests ; she is still on-line since the beginning of the project.

Status Report (by April 20th, 2002)

Demo Tests / report :
I'm pleased to announce that Marta Salisova will provide the Slovakian translation of the Inorganic, Organic and Physical Chemistry Tests (respectively done by : Prof. Sivak, Dr. Sebesta and Prof. Benko).
Janine Mareche will take care of the proofreading of the French translations available for the Demo.
 

Libraries of Question / report :
Antonio Lagana : the Italian translation of the Physical Chemistry Test is completed at about 2/3 of the full set of questions, proofreading of the material will be on schedule soon after.
Kristiina Wähälä : the original English version of General Chemistry Tests 1&2 is under progress but still not completed.
Gustavo Avitabile : the Italian translation of the General Chemistry Tests 1&2 is partially done ; would have to be completed and reviewed with the revised English version - help and collaboration is requested for the accomplishment of this task.
Maria Clara Magalhaes : the proofreading work of the General Chemistry Tests 1&2 in Portuguese could be on schedule as soon as the English version will have the "Go" ahead.
Hans Günther Schmalz : is ready to consider the proofreading of the German translation of the Organic Chemistry Tests, and furthermore to transfer the full set of questions into Perception (web format).

Perugia meeting, Translators, Group Leaders : CD Demo (important notice)

I'm on the way to prepare as much material as I can (main files and information), in order to carry it with me in Perugia.

I would greatly appreciate to have meeting during the working session, with all the translators involved in .... translations and proofreadings. Having everybody around would be a much faster process to complete most of the general work to be done either for the Internet presentation and the CDRom.

Group Leaders are also warmly invited to join the session during the day for a Flash-briefing. Also providing up-to-date information on the progression of work for the demo and the libraries, and all the material available or ready at the time of the meeting. No worries : I can deal with any kind of Mac/Win floppy, zip 100 or CD media ! don't forget them ... thanks in advance for your commitment.

Also, anybody wishing to train himself on the QM (Windows or Perception Internet) software is also welcome, especially new members involved in IT tasks or creation of questions. As requested, please let Piermarini Valentina know your wishes, in order to best organize this day. Thanks for us.

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.

No Report this month

EChemTest.net

Minor updates only, but some new contributions (translated pages) are on the way ...
The "parallel" NewsLetter pages will soon be modified to display in a more attractive way the country dissemination.

Search engines ...

We received on April 22, an email (see copy below), talking about our EChemTest and ECTN websites, and suggesting to sign-up for various services.
- Good point : Apparently, we were located by some Internet seeker !
- Bad news : The service proposal has a financial aspect, does it fit our needs or wishes ?

I can't take any decision by myself regarding such an economical point. Although, ECTN will provide tests via one of our websites, and I think it would be worthwhile to raise this "strategic" point during our next meeting in Perugia. As an association, having a "financial" target while selling our tests, we need to consider our "public" impact. Think about it !

Object: I have visited WWW.ECHEMTEST.NET and noticed that ...
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 00:18:50 +0800
From: "Vanessa Lintner" <reply@seekercenter.net>
Answer: "Vanessa Lintner" <vanessa@seekercenter.net>
To: mailto.mimero@echemtest.net

Hello,
I have visited www.echemtest.net and noticed that your website is not listed on some search engines. I am sure that through our service the number of people who visit your website will definitely increase. SeekerCenter is a unique technology that instantly submits your website to over 500,000 search engines and directories -- a really low-cost and effective way to advertise your site. For more details please go to SeekerCenter.net.

Give your website maximum exposure today!
Looking forward to hearing from you.

   Best Regards,
   Vanessa Lintner
   Sales & Marketing
   www.SeekerCenter.net
The screenshot available within the email looks familiar isn'it : 

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

ECTN symposium entitled "European Approaches to Chemistry Reform at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels"
*** Submitted abstracts are available on the EChemTest website at the Abstracts page !

Two contributions of the ECTN will be submitted by April 30 :

• "Making European chemistry degrees transparent -some work by the European Chemistry Thematic Network"

presented by Anthony Smith
• "The ECTN present the on-line European Test in Chemistry"

presented by Pascal Mimero

One ECTN contribution has been submitted by Richard Whewell.
Deadlines : June 15, 2002 for registration and abstracts submission
For more information, please contact : Prof. 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

You probably corrected by yourself, but the original title was published with a geographical mistake "... Madrid, Italy", instead of "... Madrid, Spain". Thanks to Jean-Pierre Gorrichon who pointed it out. Correction was made few days after the publication of the NewsLetter.

Working with a Nobel Prize Laureat at Scripps…

Peter ten Holte, our "ECTN" Dutch contributor, provided a couple of translations for the tests, the webpages and other material. He was working in The Netherlands with another ECTN member, Prof. Binne Zwannenberg. Once graduated, Peter moved to the USA for a one year post-Doc stage at Scripps. And few weeks ago ... when he told me he will be back in Europe, I said : "by the way ... would it be possible for you to consider writing a brief description on your research activities overseas for the NewsLetter?", and he kindly said "why not !" so, ... here we are ! Thank you very much Peter.

"Click" on the following link to unveil the "Click" Chemistry :

Working with a Nobel Prize Laureat at Scripps…  (.doc /23 Kb)

*** New European Cooperation project with Australia ***

Guidelines for applications for a pilot cooperation project between Europe and Australia in postgraduate education have been published. Deadline for applications is 17 June 2002. See the ‘What’s new’ section on http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/index_en.html .

The ECTN would be pleased to consider supporting an application from any member on this pilot project.

Post-Doctoral position (France)

E-mail received from Anthony Smith on April 4, 2002 for publication in the April NewsLetter
A postdoctoral position is available immediately for about 12  months in the Materials Chemistry Research Group at the Institut de Recherches sur la Catalyse (IRC), Villeurbanne France.

The candidate will be involved in a  CEE project (SOLSULET)  on the Sol-gel of high Tc superconductors YBCO and buffer layers (Ce, Gd oxides, and multimetallic oxides). The research project will focus on the development of new homo or heterometallic precursors and/or routes  for low temperatures deposition in relation with the other partners of the consortium .

The candidate should have a PhD in materials/organic/organometallic chemistry. Experience in organic/organometallic synthesis is required since synthetic chemistry of a large number of elements (lanthanides, alkaline earth metals, transition metals) and with various ligands is involved.

Send CV  with list of publications and name of referees to : Pr Liliane G. Hubert-Pfalzgraf
  IRC, 2 avenue A. Einstein, F-69626 Villeurbanne Cédex (France)
  E-mail : hubert@catalyse.univ-lyon1.fr
  Fax (+33) 472.445.399   ;  Tel (+33) 472.445.322
 

Ph.D. thesis fellowship (France)

E-mail received from Anthony Smith on April 25, 2002 for publication in the April NewsLetter

The Laboratory of Surface Organometallic Catalysis (CNRS/CPE) is looking for a PhD candidate. The PhD thesis will be dedicated to the use of ionic liquids in some catalytic reactions in the area of superacidity and fine chemicals. The thesis will be sponsored by the company Total Fina Elf. The candidate should have a strong motivation for organic and organometallic chemistry as well as for catalysis.

The laboratory is well experienced and equipped for a multidisciplinary approach to catalysis. It has all the equipment necessary for synthesis, characterisation and catalytic tests. The candidate will be supervised by extremely experienced and competent scientists from both CNRS and industry.

The candidates should contact Jean-Marie Basset by e-mail: basset@cpe.fr

Flight Schedules in electronic format (more ... !)

To update and complete the March information with the "company flight schedules on your own computer desktop, or better, on your handheld palm organizer ? Check the Flight carrier's websites ... "

• StarAlliance / Lufthansa (www.)

Recent changes occured early April. Now available the full semester's schedules of all the StarAlliance companies worldwide. Same pathway to access the file : click on 1. "Flight search", 2. "Products and services", 3. "Download" and then 4. "Flight Schedule Download", and follow the On Screen Display.
database available : StarAlliance (WorldWide) ; Lufthansa Schedules are still available at Lufthansa.com
file format available : Laptop (Acrobat pdf), Palm OS
update frequency : every 6 months

*** I checked it for you : It works well, and is very easy to use it on a Palm ... looking for connection between Tokyo and Beijing is now accessible in your hand !
 

• Cathay Pacific (www.cathaypacific.com)

click on 1. "Plan your trip", 2. "Download Timetable", 3. *PC Version" then follow the instructions
file format : PC desktop only, Palm OS and WinCE using the "AvantGo" software (on-line registration required)
update frequency : weekly
Schedule available : 3 months ahead

• Finnair (www.finnair.com)

click on "Flights", then choose between 2 options :
- Worldwide Timetable.txt (1 Mb)
- Worldwide Timetable.pdf (4.5 Mb)

Some more coming in a future issue ...

• Minutes of the ECTN Plenary Meeting, Perugia, Italy, 10-12 May 2002
• Update on the EChemTest Status report

• Recevied for publication : a presentation of the new set of Assessment CDRoms (Prof. Tony Rest, U. of Bristol, UK) - will be published on the next edition (May 2002)