Last month I described this Journal's longstanding goal of being a living textbook of chemistry, and the various ways in which we--its editorial staff, its reviewers, its authors, and its readers--have tried to achieve that goal. This month I look to the future--to see what a living textbook might become, to identify ways that JCE might better serve its constituency, and to consider how you, its constituency, might help enhance its utility and prestige.
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JCE stands ready to serve as a nexus among the many volunteers who will be needed to take advantage of the opportunities that modern information technology affords.
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New, faster, and more convenient tools are facilitating communication of all kinds, which implies that a living textbook can become much more than the traditional one-way conduit for information and archive of past knowledge. Please don't call me immediately on your cell phone--that's not what I had in mind. But please do contribute your ideas and efforts to as many as possible of the Journal's activities. For example, add your opinions to any or all of the discussion forums on JCE Online that will become available later this year. Among others, there will be forums on General Chemistry Curriculum Reform, JCE HS CLIC (our special Web section for high school teachers), and JCE Software. Each will have a host who is experienced in dealing with that forum's topic. For example, the JCE HS CLIC forum will be hosted by JCE's Secondary School Section Editor, Emory Howell, and by Nancy Gettys and Erica Jacobsen, editors of the JCE Classroom Activity series. Hosts will moderate and organize the discussion, evaluating, editing, and categorizing the opinions submitted. This will add value, eliminate redundancy, and provide a better overview of the discussion for anyone who enters a forum after it has begun.
Communication technology also enables collaboration at a distance by members of large groups. Some of this is already occurring via JCE Software, which has always encouraged authors to make use of and build upon the work that has already been published. CD-ROM packages such as ChemPages Laboratory and General Chemistry Multimedia Problems have built upon JCE Software's sizable collection of high-quality digitized video and have also helped expand the scope of that video collection, but much more is possible. For example, our new online column, JCE WebWare, includes a variety of short programs that have pedagogical value but are not part of a large development effort. This opens the way for many individuals to contribute snippets of software that reflect individual interests and expertise and illustrate key concepts, but do not represent untoward levels of effort. There is also the opportunity for those who are more inclined to edit and categorize to add value by upgrading those snippets to a more uniform format and providing easier ways for JCE readers to find software that will serve their needs.
The New York Times reported recently a decision by MIT to create public Web sites for almost all of its courses over the next decade (1). These sites might include lecture notes, problem sets, syllabuses, exams, quiz and test question banks, tutorials, simulations, data sets for students to analyze, spectral data banks, video lectures, and other electronic materials. Many chemistry departments or individual faculty members have Web sites that contain similar information, and many are willing to share it. However, what is available has not been evaluated or indexed, and finding exactly what you want in cyberspace is never an easy task. Here is another opportunity for JCE as a living textbook of chemistry to broaden its mission and its utility. Taking advantage of it will require many volunteers to contribute materials, and many more to evaluate, categorize, and devise ways of finding what is useful.
The NSF's National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) project aims to "provide the premier portal to a rich array of current and future high-quality educational content and services, and also serve as a forum where resource users can become resource providers" (2). NSF is concerned about obtaining and maintaining high-quality materials, reusability and archiving of materials, and sustainability of projects designed to achieve these aims. This sounds like an outline of the Journal's continuing development as a living textbook of chemistry.
That continuing development will require the best efforts of everyone associated with
JCE now and in the future. As I said last month, each of us should be working energetically and enthusiastically to enhance this living textbook. What can you do? If you or your department has materials that you want to share, contact us and let us know what they are and how you would be willing to share them. JCE can disseminate your contributions to a larger audience and help keep them available and current. Continue to help us review and improve traditional submissions and extend your efforts to new electronic materials. If you can volunteer to host a discussion forum, create new materials, edit existing ones, or categorize and index our current collection, please tell us what you are willing to do. Collectively we can accomplish a great deal, and JCE stands ready to serve as a nexus among the many volunteers who will be needed to take advantage of the opportunities that modern information technology affords. Please join with us and become a part of that effort.
Literature Cited
- The New York Times, April 4, 2001 (accessed April 2001).
- Program Solicitation NSF 01-55 (accessed April 2001).
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