News from Journal House

Chemistry Comes Alive! Volume 6

Chemistry Comes Alive! Volume 6: Laboratory Techniques has been released by JCE Software and shipped to those who have placed orders. For more information about this as well as the other CCA! volumes available, see this announcement or site. The abstract of CCA! 6 appeared in the November 2002 issue of JCE.

Chemistry Comes Alive!, Volume 6: Laboratory Techniques (CCA! 6), Special Issue 30, is a CD-ROM for both Mac OS and Windows. CCA! 6 contains more than 600 QuickTime movies and more than 3600 still images that illustrate laboratory procedures and techniques that students typically need to learn in general chemistry, analytical chemistry, and organic chemistry courses. (Volumes 1–5 of the Chemistry Comes Alive! series are also available from JCE Software.)

To purchase this CD-ROM or to obtain information about its use by a library or Wide Area Network (WAN), including WWW, contact JCE Software.

Selected images from CCA! 6. Cutaway view of coffee-cup calorimeter (left); adding the last drops of liquid to a volumetric flask (middle); reading a buret (right).

Thanks to Our Reviewers!

At the beginning of this new year and new volume, JCE is happy to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of our reviewers. There are 1238 reviewers who evaluated one or more manuscripts in 2002. The most active among them have been singled out below.

• James K. Hardy
• Jonathan Mitschele
• Robert D. Braun
• Kelley J. Donaghy
• Ishenkumba Kahwa
• Worth E. Vaughan
• John F. Zimmerman
• Kenneth H. Brown
• Michael Guarnieri
• Jack C. Norman
• Edward V. Blackburn
• Joel M. Kauffman
• Susan J. Klein
• Sarah F. McDuffie
• John Woolcock
• Ronald A. Bailey
• Kent J. Crippen
• Robert M. Hanson
• Rita K. Hessley
• Owen Priest
• Patricia Redden
• Robert de Levie
• Thomas H. Eberlein
• Brian D. Gilbert
• Ruth Hathaway
• William B. Jensen
• Larry McGahey
• Arthur L. Meyer
• Douglas R. Mulford
• Manit Rappon
• John M. Risley
• David W. Brook
• John E. Harriman
• Joe L. March
• William S. Richardson, III
• Michael R. Ross
• Jack P. Simons
• Jack K. Steehler
• Roland P. Stout
• LeRoy G. Wade, Jr.

All of our reviewers contribute a great deal toward bringing you the best of the world of chemical education. Reviewers both learn and teach a lot in this capacity. Contact us if you would like to become a reviewer or to update your reviewer questionnaire.

JCE Receives Digital Library Grant from NSF

JCE is proud to announce that it has been funded by the National Science Foundation to create a JCE Digital Library as a part of the National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library project. A digital library has been described as

A managed environment of multimedia materials in digital form, designed for the benefit of its user population, structured to facilitate access to its contents, and equipped with aids to navigate the global network ... with users and holdings totally distributed, but managed as a coherent whole.

Mel Collier, International Symposium on Research, Development, and Practice in Digital Libraries 1997

As a part of the project, we will make four major new collections that will add to the considerable digital material already available at JCE Online, the JCE Web site. Each collection will be categorized using keywords, organized by curricular level, and correlated with textbooks, which will allow quick and easy access to teachers from high school chemistry through graduate-level courses. The four new collections are described below.

• DigiDemos will consist of digitized text, graphics, sound, and video of chemical demonstrations, and will be collected under the direction of Ed Vitz, editor of the Tested Demonstrations column. This collection will enable teachers to learn about the most effective demonstration techniques, the latest important safety and waste disposal information, and exemplary pedagogy involving demonstrations.
• Computer Algebra Systems will consist of documents for Mathcad, Mathematica, Maple, or MATLAB that are designed to help students learn mathematically intensive aspects of chemistry and will be collected under the direction of Theresa J. Zielinski, editor of the Mathcad in the Chemistry Curriculum column in JCE Online.
• JCE WebWare will consist of Web-deliverable animations, simulations, calculations, and other pedagogically useful items that can be incorporated into classroom presentations, can promote discussion and interaction among students, and can provide new insights through graphic and other non-traditional means. The collection will be directed by William F. Coleman, editor of JCE WebWare in JCE Online.
• Resources for Student Assessment will consist of Web-deliverable chemistry questions that can provide access anytime/anywhere, feedback and tutoring based on student responses, and a variety of new question formats including images, color, sound, and video. It will be collected under the direction of John Moore, editor of JCE.

Your Role in Collecting Materials

You are encouraged to send us your contributions to any of the collections listed above. We are looking for innovative Web-based teaching materials, documents in Mathematica, Maple, or MATLAB to complement or extend our Mathcad collection, new demonstrations and descriptions of innovative uses of existing demonstrations, and Web-based homework questions that extend the scope of testing. If you know of others who have such materials, please encourage them to contact us. Send an email message to JCEDigiLib@chem.wisc.edu with your contributions and suggestions.

As the most prestigious and broadly read journal in its field, JCE provides assurance that the materials collected will have the same high intellectual merit as those it has published for 80 years.

JCE Index Updated

JCE Online has announced that the JCE Index, an extremely popular feature, has been significantly improved—you will find new features, more robust navigation, and better response time. The index contains information about articles published in JCE from its inception in 1924 until the present.

New options for searching include the ability to Search on Year and Search on Issue Number in addition to searching on Title, Author, and Keyword. These features have also been added:

• Search on more than one field
• Search on a range of values
• A Search Again link

Your search results will be displayed more attractively and contain direct links to the online abstracts and PDF full-text files. There is also an Advanced Search option that provides several additional features:

• OR-type searches
• Page number searches
• More flexible display of search results

A more complete description of the improvements to JCE Index may be found in this issue, or just go directly to JCE Index itself and take it for a spin!

Award Deadlines

24th Annual SACP Analytical Chemistry Starter Grant Award

The Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh (SACP) will award one grant of $20,000 to an assistant professor in the field of analytical chemistry. The purpose of the grant is to encourage high-quality, innovative research by a new analytical chemistry professor and to promote the training and development of graduate students in this field. Assistant professors who have accepted a U. S. college or university appointment since December 31, 1999, are eligible. Application forms and further information is available from James Manner, Chair, Starter Grant Committee, SACP, 300 Penn Center Blvd., Ste. 322, Pittsburgh, PA 15235-5503; phone: 1-800/825-3221, ext. 204; fax: 412/825-3224, or online. Completed applications must be received by February 15, 2003. The award winner will be announced by May 1, 2003.

Awards Announced

NSF Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars

Nicholas J. Turro, Columbia University, is one of six recipients of the 2002 NSF Director's Awards for Distinguished Teaching Scholars; he is the only chemist among this year's award winners. His proposal was "An Integrated IT Approach for Teaching Undergraduates Spectroscopy and Photochemistry." The award consists of approximately $300,000 over four years to be used to continue and expand their work beyond the awardee's home institution.

Tennessee Science Educator of the Year

The Tennessee Science Teachers Association (TSTA) has selected Al Hazari of the University of Tennessee as the 2002 TSTA Science Educator of the Year for Higher Education. He will be honored at a breakfast at the TSTA conference in Nashville on November 23, 2002 and will receive a check for $100 and a plaque at the awards ceremony.

AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has announced that Bassam Shakhashiri, University of Wisconsin—Madison, is the recipient of the 2003 AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology. The award was established in 1987 to recognize scientists and engineers who make outstanding contributions to the popularization of science. It consists of a monetary prize of $5,000, a commemorative plaque, and expenses to attend the AAAS Annual Meeting in Denver.