Chemical Education Today
Editorial
A Living Textbook for the Future problem sets, syllabuses, exams, quiz and test question banks, Last month I described this Journal ’s longstanding goal tutorials, simulations, data sets for students to analyze, specof being a living textbook of chemistry, and the various ways tral data banks, video lectures, and other electronic materiin which we—its editorial staff, its reviewers, its authors, and als. Many chemistry departments or individual faculty memits readers—have tried to achieve that goal. This month I look bers have Web sites that contain similar information, and to the future—to see what a living textbook might become, many are willing to share it. However, what is available has to identify ways that JCE might better serve its constituency, not been evaluated or indexed, and finding exactly what you and to consider how you, its constituency, might help enhance want in cyberspace is never an its utility and prestige. easy task. Here is another opNew, faster, and more conJCE stands ready to serve as a nexus among portunity for JCE as a living venient tools are facilitating communication of all kinds, the many volunteers who will be needed to take textbook of chemistry to broaden its mission and its utilwhich implies that a living textity. Taking advantage of it will book can become much more advantage of the opportunities that modern require many volunteers to than the traditional one-way contribute materials, and many conduit for information and information technology affords. more to evaluate, categorize, archive of past knowledge. and devise ways of finding what is useful. Please don’t call me immediately on your cell phone—that’s The NSF’s National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, not what I had in mind. But please do contribute your ideas and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) project and efforts to as many as possible of the Journal’s activities. aims to “provide the premier portal to a rich array of current For example, add your opinions to any or all of the discusand future high-quality educational content and services, and sion forums on JCE Online that will become available later also serve as a forum where resource users can become rethis year. Among others, there will be forums on General source providers” (2). NSF is concerned about obtaining and Chemistry Curriculum Reform, JCE HS CLIC (our special maintaining high-quality materials, reusability and archiving Web section for high school teachers), and JCE Software. Each of materials, and sustainability of projects designed to achieve will have a host who is experienced in dealing with that these aims. This sounds like an outline of the Journal’s conforum’s topic. For example, the JCE HS CLIC forum will be tinuing development as a living textbook of chemistry. hosted by JCE’s Secondary School Section Editor, Emory That continuing development will require the best efHowell, and by Nancy Gettys and Erica Jacobsen, editors of forts of everyone associated with JCE now and in the future. the JCE Classroom Activity series. Hosts will moderate and As I said last month, each of us should be working energetiorganize the discussion, evaluating, editing, and categorizcally and enthusiastically to enhance this living textbook. ing the opinions submitted. This will add value, eliminate What can you do? If you or your department has materials redundancy, and provide a better overview of the discussion that you want to share, contact us and let us know what they for anyone who enters a forum after it has begun. are and how you would be willing to share them. JCE can Communication technology also enables collaboration disseminate your contributions to a larger audience and help at a distance by members of large groups. Some of this is alkeep them available and current. Continue to help us review ready occurring via JCE Software, which has always encourand improve traditional submissions and extend your efforts aged authors to make use of and build upon the work that to new electronic materials. If you can volunteer to host a has already been published. CD-ROM packages such as discussion forum, create new materials, edit existing ones, ChemPages Laboratory and General Chemistry Multimedia or categorize and index our current collection, please tell us Problems have built upon JCE Software’s sizable collection what you are willing to do. Collectively we can accomplish a of high-quality digitized video and have also helped expand great deal, and JCE stands ready to serve as a nexus among the scope of that video collection, but much more is possible. the many volunteers who will be needed to take advantage For example, our new online column, JCE WebWare, of the opportunities that modern information technology afincludes a variety of short programs that have pedagogical fords. Please join with us and become a part of that effort. 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 Literature Cited snippets to a more uniform format and providing easier ways for JCE readers to find software that will serve their needs. 1. The New York Times, April 4, 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/ 2001/04/04/technology/04MIT.html (accessed April 2001). The New York Times reported recently a decision by MIT to create public Web sites for almost all of its courses over 2. Program Solicitation NSF 01-55. http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/ the next decade (1). These sites might include lecture notes, getpub?nsf0155 (accessed April 2001).
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 78 No. 6 June 2001 • Journal of Chemical Education
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