I am pleased to
welcome you with the first 2005 edition of the
ECTN NewsLetter. As you will see, contained in this issue several
working group reports <read>,
and conference announcements <read>
(Austria, Mexico, Canada).
I am also pleased to
announce the official release of the new ECTN association website http://www.ectn-assoc.org <read>.
As important news, the
Summer School organized by the Newly Appointed University Chemistry
Teaching Staff working group to be held in Malta next June 2005 <read>,
and a call for a new SAW (Science Across the World) project within the
Comenius 2.2 frame <read>.
And of course your
regular information updates about ECTN <read>
and EChemTest <read>.
Eurobachelor
Applications received before 1st April will be subject to a reduced fee
of € 1,000.
Extended deadline for
Summer School 2005 organized by the Newly Appointed University
Chemistry Teacher Staff.working group of ECTN.
To all
EChemTest surfers: Please update your
link to the EChemTest, and use now the following access
http://echemtest.unipg.it - Free
registration required.
Thank you.
Looking back on 2004, I
think it can be regarded as one of the most successful years for the
ECTN and the ECTNA.
The Eurobachelor project has
advanced to the stage
where we are inviting institutions to apply for the Chemistry Eurobachelor Label, and we have been successful in
obtaining funding to initiate this Label.
The EChemTest,
after several years of development, has made
significant progress this year, and we have an excellent
product. There is now has a definite date (May 2005) for
launching to the public. We still have much work to do to
finalise the details of the certification, but the hard work and
dedication of Pascal and all the group leaders will ensure the
success of this project.The ECTN has now received a
contract from the European Commission confirming that we have
funding for the next two years (for the first time we do not have to
make a re-application in March 2005). Not only is the funding for
two years, but we have received a significant increase in the
funding per year. We will be able to carry out all the activities
envisaged in the application, including, in summer 2005, a summer
school for newly appointed university teaching staff, and in the
summer of 2006, a school for Chemistry and Cultural Heritage and
Rare Chemistry.The ECTN is gaining a very
good reputation for its activities and its profile is continually
increasing. In 2004 we were admitted as the 6th partner
in AllChemE and so will have an important European role to play
alongside colleagues from the chemical industry (CEFIC), from the
chemical engineering field (EFCE), from the National Chemical
Societies (EUCheMS, ex-FECS), and from the chemistry research
community (COST Chemistry and CERC3).The application, by the
ECTNA, to the Socrates Accompanying Measures programme for a project
to hold a forum for all scientific and technological thematic
networks has also been successful. This forum, TechnoTN 2005, will
take place on 20 – 21 May 2005 in Brussels.The ECTN is involved in two
Leonardo projects, one on safety (Chemical Laboratory Safety
Training System, CHLASTS) and one on chemistry studies that include
industrial placements (Forum for Advancing Chemical Education,
FACE), and we are involved in projects that have been submitted to
Leonardo (INTERFACE – which seeks to develop and extend the FACE
project) and TEMPUS (to modernise the chemistry curriculum in Egypt
in line with the Bologna process).We are also, of course, a
partner in the Tuning – Phase III project which begins in January
2005.We had an excellent plenary
meeting in Toulouse, and now we are looking forward to our next
meeting, May 4-7, 2005, in Thessaloniki. A provisional programme and
details concerning registration and accommodation is available on
the website.
All this means that 2005
looks likely to be an even greater year for the network, and I look
forward to working with you to help ensure a successful outcome to
all these projects. From September 2005 we will be celebrating the
10th anniversary of the network, a remarkable achievement
given that we have had to apply for renewed funding every year. We
should plan a special event to celebrate this special anniversary.
Report of the Administrative Council
Meeting held in
Lyon, FR on 4 - 5 February 2005.
Techno TN 2005 Forum: The TechnoTN
Forum will be held in Brussels on 20-21 May 2005.
The themes for discussion will be
(subject to confirmation): Employability of First-Cycle
Graduates; Creating an Attractive Learning Environment;
Learning for Innovating. More details of the Forum can be
found on the TechnoTN website at
www.upv.es/technoTN2004.
The project will provide partial funding
for up to 5 members of the ECTN and extra participants can
be funded by the ECTN. Anyone from an ECTN member
institution who wishes to participate in the forum is
invited to contact Tony Smith as soon as possible. Members
are also invited to propose speakers for the Forum (there
will be 2 - 4 speakers for each topic).
The Chemistry Eurobachelor Label: Up to 15
applications for the Eurobachelor label are expected to be
received before the end of March 2005. This is encouraging -
but more applications are welcome. Please contact Terry
Mitchell for more information.
EChemTest: An ad hoc
committee reporting to the Administrative Council has been
formed. The members of this committee, called the
EChemTest
Committee, are Pascal Mimero and the test group leaders.
Election Procedures: Election regulations and guidance for
candidates were approved by the Administrative Council.
These documents will be circulated to all Association
members in the near future.
New Members:
The following institutions were admitted
as members of the Association:
University of Vilnius, Lithuania
Austrian Chemical Society
GlaxoSmithKline
Higher Education Academy Physical
Sciences Centre, Hull, UK
We welcome these institutions to our
Association and look forward to working with them in the
future.
The next meeting of
the Administrative Council will take place on 3 May, 2005, in
Thessaloniki, GR. Any Association members who have items they wish
to be discussed at this meeting should contact Tony Smith or any
member of the Administrative Council.
Brief report of the ECTN
Management Committee Meeting held in Lyon, FR on 4 -5 February
2005
The new working groups will hold meetings as follows:
2nd and 3rd Cycle Studies: In the coming year
the group will deal with the second-cycle, and next year the
third cycle will be considered. Participants are asked to
provide their vision of the Master in Chemistry. A meeting will
be held before the Thessaloniki meeting and at the Thessaloniki
meeting. Anna Kolasa, Krakow, PL is the group leader.
2nd and 3rd Cycle EChemTest - this group will
develop a test in an area of transition Metals in Organic Chemistry, and will
cooperate with both the EChemTest group and the 2nd and 3rd
Cycle Studies group.
The
Bologna Process for the Practice-Oriented HE Sector in Chemistry - this group will hold a meetings
at Thessaloniki - interested participants should contact Ray
Wallace, Nottingham Trent University, UK for further
information. A second meeting will be held in July 2005.
The Rare Knowledge in Chemistry group will hold
a meeting at Thessaloniki. This group will also collaborate with
the Chemistry and Cultural Heritage and the Newly-Appointed
University Teachers groups.
Please note the information provided elsewhere in this
newsletter concerning the ECTN Summer School to be held in Malta
for Newly Appointed University Teachers.
A proposal for a new working
group, entitled Developing Independent Learners in Chemistry was
accepted. The leader of this group is expected to be Bill Byers,
University of Ulster, UK. This will be presented at the
Thessaloniki meeting where members will be invited to
participate in this group.
The next
ECTN plenary meeting
will be held in Thessaloniki, GR on 4-8 May, 2005. The meeting
will start on the morning of 4 May and finish on the evening of
7 May. You will find the provisional programme on the
meeting web site. Please register for this meeting on the web
site as soon as possible.
Provisional plenary speakers (subject
to confirmation) for the Thessaloniki meeting are:
Harry Kelly, GlaxoSmithKline, who
will talk about GSK's industrial placement programme which has
won awards in the UK and France, as well as the traiining GSK
provides for new recruits. Ana Barros, Aveiro, PT, who is the coordinator of a successful
Erasmus Mundus project.
Jose Mariano Gago, PT who is the
chairman of the High Level Group on Human Resources for Science
and Technology in Europe, appointed by the European Commission.
A representative of the EURACE
project that is looking at European Accreditation of Engineering
Studies, and thus is working on similar ground to that of our Eurobachelor label committee.
There will be time allocated for
discussions in small groups on the topics presented by these
speakers.
Please also note that the
deadline for the next application for a three-year ECTN project
is 1st November 2005 (pre-proposal). thus time will be allocated
at the Thessaloniki meeting to discuss proposals for the new
project.
The Thessaloniki meeting will be
a very important meeting for both the ECTN project and the ECTN
Association - please make sure that at least one person from
your institution participates at the meeting.
The next ECTN plenary meeting will
be held in Thessaloniki GR on 4-8 May, 2005. The meeting will start
on the morning of 4 May and finish on the evening of 7 May.
Reserve these dates in your diary now.
As previously announced the
English version of the certification tests of EChemTest will be officially
launched in Thessaloniki GR during the Annual Conference of the ECTN.
Discussed during the EChemTest
Committee of the ECTN Association, and approved by the Administrative Council
held in Lyon FR on February 4-5, 2005, the following topics:
Each EChemTest working group leaders
have now proposed a Deputy to assist and help them in leading the working
group.
Different technical and legal stuff were
discussed and/or approved during the committee meeting or AC meeting.
A first contact group for the "New Organic
Chemistry Level 4" working group will be organized under the leadership of
Prof. Hans-Günther Schmalz (Köln, DE) and presented in Thessaloniki GR.
2 new development sites are scheduled in
the coming weeks: Madrid ES and Vienna AT ; in addition to Helsinki FI,
Cologne DE, Reading UK, Lyon FR and Athens GR. The server licence is
hosted in Perugia IT.
Use of the tests ?
Demo test: free use after
registration, proposed as a training tool before running a certification
test. Check in the table below the available demos online.
Certification test: approval of two
categories of candidates (further details will be made available in
Thessaloniki) ...
- Regular ECTN Association members
are entitled to use at no charges, the certification tests within the
academic frame and via the official contact person of the member's
institution. Each candidate must have registered individually before taking
a session.
- Other candidates (non ECTN Association members), must register first in a testing centre and pay
the fee for each examination test requested, eventual additional handling
cost could be raised by Testing centres.
Eligible testing centres, are by
default the members of the ECTN Association, or approved foreign centres,
both having the appropriate facilities allowing to run a computerized
examination in good conditions (computer room correctly maintained to
guarantee a secured system and a full service in operation, mandatory
monitoring before starting the test to check the candidate identity). A
general agreement policy for testing centres will be issued and made
available in Thessaloniki.
Certificate ? as a proof of the
level of knowledge reached by the candidate in a specific domain and level
in Chemistry, or in chemistry understanding in a foreign language, an
EChemTest - European Chemistry Certificate will be issued by the ECTN
Association after a succesfull examination, for any of the tests available
on the EChemTest testing platform, and any registered candidates.
Level of test ? it was approved to
label the level of tests as follow: Levels 1 & 2 for Pre-university
chemistry studies; Level 3 for university chemistry Eurobachelor studies ;
and Level 4 for the future university chemistry Euromaster studies.
Dissemination: The CD-Rom introducing EChemTest published with the book of the Dresden Conference
proceedings supported by the German Chemical Society, will be made available
before the next Bologna Conference to be held in Bergen NO in May 2005.
To all EChemTest surfers:
please update your link and use now the following
access: http://echemtest.unipg.it
.
Ask for your individual Login and password. Thank you.
EChemTest
Developement
EChemTest translations and released versions online - February 19,
2005:
As you can see in the table below, we are improving the number of
demos online:
Received from:
Terry Mitchell,
Dortmund DE (E.U.) -
January 7, 2005
Chemistry is one of the basic scientific disciplines, along with
physics and biology. It is thus a subject which is understood in the
same way in all European countries, and indeed throughout the world.
Until recently there would have been general agreement as to the way
that chemical education at universities should be organised. Physics
and mathematics are subjects which the chemist needs to study in the
first year of chemistry education, since some aspects of these form
a vital basis for understanding chemistry. Normally the physics and
mathematics departments provide the necessary teaching, but it is
sometimes found advantageous that ...
Received from:
Antonio Lagana,
Perugia IT (E.U.) -
January, 2005
The Multimedia group has
continued in this year to define a strategy for enhancing Europe
based e-learning activities. In this respect the group has continued
in developing a continuous basic level background activity and in
refining an application to EU funds to carry on a more
technologically advanced project
...
Received from:
Ingo Eilks, Bremen
DE (E.U.) -
February 14, 2005
Starting from ECTN-Newsletter 1/2005 the Links with
Schools-Group within the ECTN will regularly provide examples of how
to cooperate between HE institutions and schools. The first two
examples are about partnerships between the universities of Turin
(Italy) resp. Bremen (Germany) and schools in their region.
Received from:
Evangelia Varella,
Thessaloniki GR (E.U.) -
February 14, 2005
Experimental sciences cannot be elucidated without comprehending
their past, and the past is difficult to discern without employing
experimental sciences; hence our team is studying history of
chemistry, and is attempting applications in education, as well as
in the diagnosis and protection of cultural heritage.
Received from:
Paul Yates, Keele
UK (E.U.) -
February 14, 2005
The major activity of the Working
Group continues to be the organisation of the Summer School for this
group of staff. This will take place from 22nd to 27th June at the
Victoria Hotel, Sliema, Malta. Five members of ECTN have volunteered
to contribute, but others will be welcome! Please contact Paul Yates
if you are interested. Publicity for the Summer School has been
developed. The
Summer School
Web pages
are now available, so please
have a look at these to see exactly what is planned. These also give
details of the application process and who is eligible to
apply. Please do encourage your newly appointed colleagues to apply.
The
deadline for applications has been extended to 15th April.
Received from:
Lida Schoen, NL
(E.U.) -
January 11, 2004
De:
Lida Schoen
Date:
11 janvier 2005 13:19:24 GMT+01:00
Ŕ:
"SAW coordinators:"
Objet: Comenius 2.2 INSET course Science Across the
World: Using the Internet for Inter-school Communication in
Amsterdam
Dear all,
Great news. A new Comenius 2.2 (also Grundtvig 3 possible) INSET
course has been approved by Brussels! You will find all details and
an application form on
http://www.amsu.edu/courses/communication/.
In short:
Science Across the World: Using the Internet for
Inter-school Communication, July 3-10, 2005, location
in centre of Amsterdam, combining science and communication, so also
very interesting for language teachers.
Please also forward this possibility to as many
colleagues/friends as you can think of. The experience with these
summer courses is, that they are completely booked quite early, so
don't hesitate to subscribe ...
Science
Across the World
Received from:
Lida Schoen,
NL (E.U.) -
January 13, 2004
De:
Lida Schoen
Date:
13 janvier 2005 20:40:57 GMT+01:00
Objet: Newsletter
Dear Pascal,
Attached is an article about Science Across the World
Date:
15 novembre 2004 22:08:19 GMT+01:00
Objet: SAW
Dear Pascal,
Marianne Cutler, SAW [Science Across the World] director,
just published a very nice article about SAW "Exploring
science locally and sharing insights globally"
in the School Science Review, leading educational magazine in the
UK, published in the Association of Science Education. SAW belongs
to ASE, actually it is their flagship!
Article made
available for download in ECTN Association Newsletter February 2005,
6(1) - with the kind authorization of
,
Dutch co-ordinator for
Science across the World, Titular member of the Committee on
Chemistry Education.
Received from:
Pascal Mimero, Lyon
FR (E.U.) -
Webmaster
I am pleased
to announce that the new integrated ECTN Association website is now
released online, few area /pages are still "under work" and will be
activated in the coming weeks.
All former URL are now re-directed to :
http://www.ectn-assoc.org -
Please update your favorite's list.
The former websites
accessible with the addresses:
are still online but
will not anymore be updated - an automatic routing will be setup.
The old websites will be withdrawn in 6 months time from now.
Although the same 3 addresses above are maintained and are now
linking the corresponding sub-directories (Network, Eurobachelor,
EChemTest) of the new ECTN Association website.
will be directly linked
to the Annual Conference of ECTN page (Plenary meeting / Network and
General Assembly / Association). Welcome page from which you will
access all the information related to the registration,
accommodation and schedule managed by the organizers of the
conference.
Great thanks in
advance to report any problem you might experienced while browsing
this new website, it will help us to improve the service and
information availability online.
On behalf of the ECTN
Association, I wish you a pleasant surf.
Rare
Chemistry Working group
Received from:
Juan Rodriguez Renuncio, Madrid
ES (E.U.) -
February 21, 2005
The first meeting of the working group is scheduled
in
Glasgow on March 19th.
Registered Group Members are:
Coordinators:
Richard Whewell (University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow UK)
Juan A. Rodriguez Renuncio (University
Complutense, Madrid ES)
Members
Miltiades
Karayannis (University of Ioannina GR)
Blanka Kralova
(Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague CZ)
Actually, in early April 2005 they organised the 8th European
Chemistry Teacher’s Conference in the city of Eisenstadt, Eastern
Austria. This event is taking place biannual, started in 1991 and is
attracting more than 1000 visitors now, mainly from Austria,
Germany, Switzerland, and eastern Europe, i.e. the new member
states. I have been there several times, they use English
translators already, because more and more teachers are coming. The
main language is German, the 2nd. English.
Best
regards
G.
Pestal
Vienna
Reminder
Conferences List
Date
Place
IMA 2005 -
Innovative Methods of Analysis
Online:
2005, October 1-6
Iraklion Crete GR
AC&CA 2005 -
Analytical Chemistry & Chemical Analysis
"Links with School - 3", Ingo
Eilks (Dortmund, DE)
"Chemistry and Cultural
Heritage", Evangelia Varella (Thessaloniki, GR)
"Industrial Placement",
Ray Wallace (Nottingham, UK)
"ECTN Plenary / General
Assembly Report"
... and you permanent bimonthly
reports on "Eurobachelor" and "EChemTest"
INFORMATION:
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General
information
Summary
of Tuning Chemistry subject area findings
New
SAW Project within the Comenius 2.2 Frame 
ChemEd 2005 - Biennial Chemical Education Conference 2005, Vancouver
BC, Canada
...
April 2005