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The ECTNA administrative council (AC) is in the process of implementing the investment plan decided in Helsinki (May 2007) aimed at producing services (from now on let us call them products) for the associated Institutions. The investment plan, as already mentioned in the previous Newsletter, is aimed at developing sustainable products for the Network and its affiliates like the ECHEMTEST Testing Centres (TC). As already stated in the past, the ECTNA AC believes that the Eurolabels (for which ECTNA has also claimed the trademark) are the most important products offered to the members of the Association. Important are also some tools that ECTNA offers to the higher education institutions to improve related teaching and learning activities. The other important product in which ECTNA is investing is the electronic tests of ECHEMTEST especially at the first and second level (before and at entrance to the University).

For this the ECTNA AC has established the already mentioned national TCs which are actively pursuing the dissemination of good practice of electronic tests on chemical knowledge in various European countries. Elsewhere in the newsletter are listed the activities being carried out by these centres and the names of the most active of them. Here I want to emphasize the fact that, for the first time, at the AC meeting in Torino we have received from the TCs two proposals offering to invest local money if co-funding is provided by ECTNA. This has given a concrete operating ground to the Helsinki decision of the ECTNA AC. At the Helsinki meeting last May, the ECTNA AC in fact decided to contribute with up to 10,000 euro a year (for the next three years) to investment proposals put forward by the TCs.

The first and well focused project presented is the one of the Vienna testing centre at the Technical University (TU) of Vienna, Austria. The project consists of undertaking the translation of the General Chemistry level 1 and 2 libraries from English to German with the purpose of making them available for official pre-university and University-entrance tests at the Vienna TU and to make them available to all German speaking countries. This follows the decision taken by the Dean of the Faculty and the Dean of Academic Affairs of the Technical University of Vienna of making the undertaking of the ECHEMTEST test level 2 compulsory for admission at the Vienna TU. As is well known, the ECHEMTEST level 2 library is made up of 444 questions most of which are complemented by graphic material. The total effort estimated for translation is of about 150 hours and the financial support requested is 1,560 euro out of a total cost 3,120.

A second, and perhaps for some aspects a more ambitious proposal, was presented by the Perugia TC at the University of Perugia (Italy). The Perugia testing centre plans to export the ECHEMTEST tests outside the University context by signing an agreement with the Roma La Sapienza Computer centre (CASPUR). Within the agreement CASPUR provides the diffusion of the already translated ECHEMTEST level 1 and 2 questions in some schools of Rome and surroundings. This implies:
- Installation and management of a local server in Rome
- Establishment of a proper laboratory in some (to start with only one) schools in Rome
- Check and validation of the Italian version of the product
- Preparation of a bibliography in Italian language
- Translation of the ECHEMTEST Instruction manual in Italian
However, since the proposal was not well defined in terms of costs and actions to be undertaken, its detailed analysis was postponed to the next AC meeting.

In the meantime, a call for new projects was issued that reads as follows:

CALL FOR CO-FUNDING ECHEMTEST PROJECTS ON CHEMGEN LEVEL 1 AND 2

ECTNA has set aside for the year 2009 the sum of 10000 euro for co-funding projects of the ECHEMTEST testing centres of the member Universities aimed at fostering the development of level 1 and 2 test-sessions as a service to be supplied to member universities, schools and private institutions. To this end ECTNA Testing Centres are invited to submit proposals to the ECTNA Administrative Council for co-funding financial support to up one half of the total cost of the project. The proposal should list all the expenses to be met and how the rest of the costs will be funded.

Prof. Antonio Lagana'
President of ECTN Association
University of Perugia, IT

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