JCE Software, 4C1: Editorial

Scientific Communication in the Future

John W. Moore
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1396

Note:
This issue is out of print.

I have just returned from an ACS National Meeting, where I participated in a symposium titled "Use of Hypermedia in Chemical Information and Education". It was jointly sponsored by the Division of Chemical Information and the Division of Chemical Education, and served to underscore the similarities of the problems faced by both groups. The programs in this issue are both essentially databases, and they illustrate nicely several ideas that occurred to me as a result of participating in the symposium.
Chemical educators are constantly looking for ways to make chemical information (in the broadest possible sense) available to and accessible by students. Chemical information specialists are constantly looking for ways to make chemical information available to professional chemists. Chemical educators have selected a limited subset of the total possible information and are concentrating their efforts on developing effective ways to present that limited subset. These often involve computers and other technology. Educators further assume little motivation or expertise on the part of their audience, and their software aims to be both interesting and informative. Chemical information specialists are concerned with huge databases such as Chemical Abstracts, and are expending significant efforts to employ technology to keep up with the mountains of data that chemical research is amassing. It is assumed that those who will use such databases are highly motivated and reasonably well trained in searching techniques. I believe that the two classes of users are not as different as we might think.
The juxtaposition of chemical information and chemical education speakers in the symposium indicated that each group has a lot to learn from the other. Chemical educators could well consider whether information technology might significantly change the content of the chemistry curriculum. One way this can happen is by making some aspects of what we now teach so easy to do that we no longer have to teach them. As a trivial example, how many of us teach students how to take logarithms of numbers now that every student has a calculator? Another way is by providing new resources that formerly were not available. One of the booths at the ACS Chemical Exposition, for example, had software for an MS-DOS computer (albeit a fast one with a big hard disk) that would allow display and manipulation of a 4500-atom macromolecule. At another symposium a paper described the use of a Cache system on a Mac by undergraduates to display 3-D molecular structures. Showing students graphically and interactively how macromolecules can act as catalysts by tracing specific enzyme-substrate interactions provides a whole new way of approaching this subject. Until now only those directly involved in such research had access to powerful computer-graphics tools, but soon everyone will. It will be necessary for us to rethink what we do in light of such important new capabilities.
Chemical information specialists might well consider whether the nature of the user interface for information retrieval should be given more attention, and whether a database user's freedom to interact with and make use of the information provided ought not to be considerably augmented. At the ACS symposium the chemical education papers were all presented live, using a computer and projection equipment; the information papers used primarily slides. This was partly because the interactive nature and sophisticated user interfaces of the chemical education software almost required a live presentation; the relatively more prosaic user interfaces of the information systems did not. As the quantity of chemical information grows, it will become more and more important to make access to that information easier, even if this requires more effort on the part of programmers who construct database access software. It is also important that a variety of ways be devised to access and select data, and the more choices one has the less familiar one will be with any of them. Again this argues for more effective user interfaces. One of the talks at the symposium demonstrated that by providing hypertext links among abstracts the time required to find all abstracts relevant to a particular problem could be significantly reduced, and such reductions in time spent searching can only become more important as the quantity of information grows. Therefore it seems essential that those who create, maintain, and prepare search software for chemical databases pay more attention to the kinds of user interfaces that are currently appearing in the best instructional software.
The three databases in this issue illustrate some of what I think will be effective. Demo-Deck contains a great deal of information about chemical demonstrations, and that information is relatively easy to access. Nevertheless, its author has allowed for users to add their own information to the published database and even to construct their own keyword scheme, if they so desire. Moreover, it is possible for users to create a second database with the exact directions for carrying out the lecture demonstrations, safety information, etc., and to link this to Demo-Deck so that all its retrieval features can be applied to finding procedures as well as references that describe the demos. The open-endedness of this database and its adaptability to each user's needs make it a good model of what is possible using microcomputers. Paul Schatz's HyperCard stack containing annual indexes to the Journal of Chemical Education similarly provides easy computer-based access to the Journal's varied contents. In addition it can be adapted to each user's preference. Frost Diagrams is a different kind of database in that its data are essentially graphic, even though the graphs are based upon E^o values. By storing the data in graphic form and then providing for convenient comparisons among those graphs the authors have added considerable value to the underlying data.
Communication of chemical information--the chemical literature of the future--will almost certainly involve dynamic graphics and allow users to adapt the data to their own purposes and classification systems, just as the programs in this issue do. If indeed the literature employs graphics and animations as routinely as it now employs text, figures, and tables, what a wealth of educational materials will suddenly become available! It is our intention through JCE Software to provide a forum for exchange of such communications and to aid in the development of means for creating them.

First Published: August 1992
Citation: Moore, J. W. Scientific Communication in the Future J. Chem. Educ. Software 4C1
Keywords:

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Last Updated: April 26, 2001
Created: March 6, 1997 Created by: J. L. Holmes
Comments to: jceonline@chem.wisc.edu

© 1997 Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.



Scientific Communication in the Future
John W. Moore University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1396

Note:	This issue is out of print.

I have just returned from an ACS National Meeting, where I participated in a symposium titled "Use of Hypermedia in Chemical Information and Education". It was jointly sponsored by the Division of Chemical Information and the Division of Chemical Education, and served to underscore the similarities of the problems faced by both groups. The programs in this issue are both essentially databases, and they illustrate nicely several ideas that occurred to me as a result of participating in the symposium. Chemical educators are constantly looking for ways to make chemical information (in the broadest possible sense) available to and accessible by students. Chemical information specialists are constantly looking for ways to make chemical information available to professional chemists. Chemical educators have selected a limited subset of the total possible information and are concentrating their efforts on developing effective ways to present that limited subset. These often involve computers and other technology. Educators further assume little motivation or expertise on the part of their audience, and their software aims to be both interesting and informative. Chemical information specialists are concerned with huge databases such as Chemical Abstracts, and are expending significant efforts to employ technology to keep up with the mountains of data that chemical research is amassing. It is assumed that those who will use such databases are highly motivated and reasonably well trained in searching techniques. I believe that the two classes of users are not as different as we might think. The juxtaposition of chemical information and chemical education speakers in the symposium indicated that each group has a lot to learn from the other. Chemical educators could well consider whether information technology might significantly change the content of the chemistry curriculum. One way this can happen is by making some aspects of what we now teach so easy to do that we no longer have to teach them. As a trivial example, how many of us teach students how to take logarithms of numbers now that every student has a calculator? Another way is by providing new resources that formerly were not available. One of the booths at the ACS Chemical Exposition, for example, had software for an MS-DOS computer (albeit a fast one with a big hard disk) that would allow display and manipulation of a 4500-atom macromolecule. At another symposium a paper described the use of a Cache system on a Mac by undergraduates to display 3-D molecular structures. Showing students graphically and interactively how macromolecules can act as catalysts by tracing specific enzyme-substrate interactions provides a whole new way of approaching this subject. Until now only those directly involved in such research had access to powerful computer-graphics tools, but soon everyone will. It will be necessary for us to rethink what we do in light of such important new capabilities. Chemical information specialists might well consider whether the nature of the user interface for information retrieval should be given more attention, and whether a database user's freedom to interact with and make use of the information provided ought not to be considerably augmented. At the ACS symposium the chemical education papers were all presented live, using a computer and projection equipment; the information papers used primarily slides. This was partly because the interactive nature and sophisticated user interfaces of the chemical education software almost required a live presentation; the relatively more prosaic user interfaces of the information systems did not. As the quantity of chemical information grows, it will become more and more important to make access to that information easier, even if this requires more effort on the part of programmers who construct database access software. It is also important that a variety of ways be devised to access and select data, and the more choices one has the less familiar one will be with any of them. Again this argues for more effective user interfaces. One of the talks at the symposium demonstrated that by providing hypertext links among abstracts the time required to find all abstracts relevant to a particular problem could be significantly reduced, and such reductions in time spent searching can only become more important as the quantity of information grows. Therefore it seems essential that those who create, maintain, and prepare search software for chemical databases pay more attention to the kinds of user interfaces that are currently appearing in the best instructional software. The three databases in this issue illustrate some of what I think will be effective. Demo-Deck contains a great deal of information about chemical demonstrations, and that information is relatively easy to access. Nevertheless, its author has allowed for users to add their own information to the published database and even to construct their own keyword scheme, if they so desire. Moreover, it is possible for users to create a second database with the exact directions for carrying out the lecture demonstrations, safety information, etc., and to link this to Demo-Deck so that all its retrieval features can be applied to finding procedures as well as references that describe the demos. The open-endedness of this database and its adaptability to each user's needs make it a good model of what is possible using microcomputers. Paul Schatz's HyperCard stack containing annual indexes to the Journal of Chemical Education similarly provides easy computer-based access to the Journal's varied contents. In addition it can be adapted to each user's preference. Frost Diagrams is a different kind of database in that its data are essentially graphic, even though the graphs are based upon E^o values. By storing the data in graphic form and then providing for convenient comparisons among those graphs the authors have added considerable value to the underlying data. Communication of chemical information--the chemical literature of the future--will almost certainly involve dynamic graphics and allow users to adapt the data to their own purposes and classification systems, just as the programs in this issue do. If indeed the literature employs graphics and animations as routinely as it now employs text, figures, and tables, what a wealth of educational materials will suddenly become available! It is our intention through JCE Software to provide a forum for exchange of such communications and to aid in the development of means for creating them.


News \| Issues \| CD-ROM / Video \| Find It! \| Technical Support \| For Authors
JCE Online \| Journal \| Software \| Internet \| Happenings \| About JCE \| Contact JCE

Last Updated: April 26, 2001 Created: March 6, 1997	Created by: J. L. Holmes Comments to: jceonline@chem.wisc.edu

© 1997 Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.