News from Journal House

DivCHED and the American Chemical Society Join Forces To Co-Publish the Journal of Chemical Education

Expect to hear a great deal more about the changes described in the following press release from the Publication Division of the ACS. ACS and JCE are developing the infrastructure to support our partnership and we will be providing information about this process on a regular basis.

—Norbert J. Pienta, Editor, JCE

The American Chemical Society’s Division of Chemical Education, Inc. (DivCHED) and the Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) have entered into a co-publishing agreement for the Journal of Chemical Education (JCE) beginning in January 2010.

Independently published by the Division of Chemical Education from 1924 through 2009, the Journal of Chemical Education is the premier journal for chemical education, providing educators with a resource for current, novel research advances coupled with emerging ideas in teaching methods and course organization. The Journal publishes full peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and feature columns covering secondary education through the graduate level of research.

The mission of JCE closely aligns with and reinforces the mission of the ACS Publications Division to be the world’s most trusted source of the comprehensive knowledge needed to cultivate the chemists of tomorrow. Citation analysis in recent years also demonstrates the reciprocal and frequent references in the published works between the journals of the American Chemical Society and JCE, providing further evidence of the close alignment of content between the two resources.

The research community at large and specifically that of chemical educators achieve significant benefits from this new co-publishing agreement, with the addition of articles in JCE dating from 1924 through current day being integrated on the award-winning ACS Web Editions platform. This makes the Journal content discoverable via search, presented alongside the results from other ACS Publications, including the ACS Symposium Series online. With more than 3000 subscribing academic, research, government, and corporate institutions around the world, and over 19 million searches already conducted on the ACS Publications site through mid-year, addition to the platform translates to significant exposure for the content of JCE.

Following the recent launch of the new ACS Web Editions platform, the 2008 Award for the Best eProduct/Website or Platform from the Association of American Publishers was awarded to the ACS for its combined integrated online offerings. The addition of JCE further strengthens ACS Publications’ position as the leading publisher in the chemical and related sciences, serving scientific communities worldwide through a commitment to quality, reliability, and innovation.

Additionally, authors contributing to the Journal of Chemical Education will also be able to take advantage of the ACS Paragon Plus Environment for real-time, Web-based manuscript submission and peer review.

In establishing this partnership with the Division of Chemical Education, ACS Publications is pleased to co-publish the Journal of Chemical Education, and looks forward to serving the thousands of personal and institutional subscribers around the world to both the electronic and print editions of JCE.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 154,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals, and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, DC, and Columbus, OH.

New JCE Editorial Staff

Beginning with this issue, the Journal of Chemical Education has added an editorial office at the University of Iowa–Iowa City, with three new members there joining the JCE staff. Most of the current editorial and production staff remains at the University of Wisconsin–Madison editorial office.

Norbert Pienta, chemistry professor at the University of Iowa, comes on board as the Journal’s new editor-in-chief. Pienta is passionate about improving the efficacy of chemical education at all academic levels. His commitment to improving chemical education is evidenced by his tenure as Director of the Center for Teaching at the University of Iowa and his published research.

Jonathan (Rob) Hill will serve as the Journal’s development editor. He will work with the editor-in-chief and the feature editors to develop content of interest to the chemical education community. Rob brings to the position six years of experience in educational publishing.

Also joining the team is Lindsay Elliott, who will manage the Journal’s electronic submission process. She has worked for the University of Iowa for four years in administrative positions and is looking forward to learning more about journal publishing and educational research.

Staff remaining on board at the Madison office are: Bernadette Caldwell; Arrietta Clauss; Kevin Cunningham; Linda Fanis; Ed Fedosky; Jon Holmes; Liana Lamont; David Pieper; Mary Saecker; Alice Teter; Betsy True; and Randy Wildman. In addition, Erica Jacobsen and Laura Slocum will continue to manage the Secondary School Chemistry Section of the Journal.