Chemical Education Today
Old Proverbs and New Lessons Everyone knows the adage, “It takes a village to raise a child.” The saying has certainly achieved cliche status. Whether it is an actual, ancient proverb with roots in Africa or a romanticized invention of such a proverb, searching for its origins on the Internet clarified two observations: That collective responsibility can be powerful and constructive, and that it is easier to find citations about proverbs on the Web than it is to locate the relevant books at home. The latter was not so much a lesson about reorganizing a personal library but a reminder about modern ways of seeking information. And that led to questions about the Journal as a source of knowledge. What are the significant roles of the Journal? How can its preeminence in serving those roles be maintained or expanded? This Journal maintains a repository;varied anthologies of content, activities, experiments, methods, and pedagogies. What makes these anthologies irreplaceable is that they trace a history of the field of chemical education, providing a timeline and record. They contain the diverse thoughts and knowledge of a vibrant community, categorizing the variety and scope of the Journal's repository. And finally, these anthologies seek to be comprehensive. The responsibility of the Editor is to continue the collection, carefully maintaining those components deemed “timeless” and selecting from the wealth of new possibilities. With that purpose in mind, this issue introduces two new columns: One describes instrumentation in teaching and learning, and the second discusses chemical education across cultural and national borders. We intend both new columns to complement articles in these areas. In addition, we anticipate a column and a matching increase in article submissions on technology in chemical education;not just reports on hardware, software, multimedia, and the Internet, but also descriptions of the practices and applications transforming our discipline. We also expect to expand our offerings for high school teachers and better serve the two-year college constituencies. Look for future announcements of those initiatives. Sometimes, maintaining excellence requires leaving some traditions behind. The Journal currently contains many features, some of which will be retired or consolidated in this volume. Contemporary techniques of finding information have diminished the need for a taxonomy based on feature names: Search tools have advanced, and whole-text searching is now available. We will, however, continue to publish the high-quality content that traditionally appeared in those features; the difference is that we will streamline the categorization. Content printed elsewhere, especially where a Web version is more useful, will no longer be included. For example, we will continue to highlight programming at ACS national meetings, but we expect to phase out reprinting the entire CHED technical program. In the past decade, as educators at all levels have been asked to be more accountable, assessment and evaluation have now come to mean more than testing students. Academia seeks justification of both the status quo and any changes made with respect to student learning or the effectiveness of activities, curricula, and pedagogies. Funding agencies commonly require
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assessment plans within proposals, and educational institutions use assessment results for reviews at all levels. Because our readership expects to see results or information in this area, we encourage all authors to include relevant evaluative data or at least a discussion of the issues. As a practical matter, I am referring to the middle ground between simply asking students whether they “like something” and the other extreme of a fullblown research study. Chemical education research (CER) articles have appeared in a feature column in JCE for more than a decade. As the CER field matures, we expect that feature to grow, reporting on methods or tools that are ready for use by the general readership. The continuing expansion of specialized journals that publish scientific research enables this Journal to focus on chemistry content related to teaching and learning (i.e., chemical education); we will require that all articles demonstrate that focus. Another important observation that came from the old proverb has to do with collective responsibility. To expand the Journal 's representation of its constituencies, and to provide input and direction, this Editor is creating an Editorial Board. The inaugural membership of this board includes a group of Associate Editors who will assist the Editor in soliciting content, assigning reviewers, and making decisions about the acceptance of papers after review. Two feature editors have accepted new roles as Associate Editors: Erica Jacobsen will serve in the high school and precollege areas, and Diane Bunce will helm the area of Chemical Education Research. David Yaron becomes the Associate Editor for technology in teaching and learning. Dave also serves as a liaison to projects such as ChemEdDL, which is the NSF NSDL-sponsored depository for chemical education archival materials. In addition, Arthur Halpern will serve as an Associate Editor with more general duties; a search continues for additional individuals in this last category. Accompanying these changes, invited guest editorials will begin to appear here soon. Other opportunities involving collective responsibility are also worth mentioning. Our authors' desire for a shorter submission-to-publication cycle will soon be facilitated by the electronic submission system, Paragon Plus. Convenient Webbased tools for manuscript submission will get materials into the editorial office very quickly. In turn, reviewers will be invited by email and can immediately access the manuscript and submit their evaluation, also using convenient tools. However, this will require a change in the Journal's culture, as reviewers will be asked to respond in a shorter time. Their improved diligence will result in increased efficiency, a change that will benefit the entire community. The Journal depends on the collective group of individuals as readers and subscribers, as contributors of papers, and as reviewers. We encourage your cooperation and participation, and your willingness to solicit others to do the same. After all, JCE's 87-year history teaches us that “it takes a community to sustain and develop a journal”. Norbert J. Pienta Editor in Chief
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r 2009 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Vol. 87 No. 1 January 2010 10.1021/ed8000304 Published on Web 12/18/2009
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Journal of Chemical Education
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