Chemical Education Today
New Journal Policy Lab Summaries for Publication in JCE
Lab Documentation for Publication on JCE: Online
The following information should be provided within the limit of one Journal page (about 1000 words):
The following information should be provided and will be sent to reviewers for evaluation:
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a rationale for adopting the experiment and an indication of where it fits into the curriculum (course, level, etc.) a clear, brief statement of the procedures, techniques, facts, and concepts students will learn an explanation of how and why the experiment helps students learn a summary of results from any evaluation studies of the efficacy of the experiment in achieving its goals a list of equipment, chemicals, and/or instruments used in the experiment that are not expected to be available in a typical chemistry department any other information that would help a potential adopter of the experiment to decide whether or not to put in the effort needed to adapt it for use at another institution
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the Lab Summary (identical to that published in JCE) written directions, experimental procedures, handouts, report forms, etc. used by students instructor notes, including background information, lab preparation and equipment needs, troubleshooting, and tips for success amplification of any items in the Lab Summary where additional information would help an adopter author-produced software, spreadsheet templates, and other technology-based material needed for students to carry out the experiment any other supplementary information or information needed to implement the experiment
Advertising in This Issue The companies listed below show their interest in chemical education by their presence as advertisers. This advertising brings you information about new books, new and established laboratory equipment, and apparatus and instruments for both teaching and research. Get acquainted with the advertisers in your Journal. Send for their catalogs and literature or use the postage-paid Readers’ Inquiry Card found on the insert card in this issue. When contacting advertisers, be sure to mention that you saw their advertisement in the Journal of Chemical Education.
Index to Advertisers in This Issue Inquiry No. 11
Advertiser
Page No.
Bio-Rad, Inc.
OBC
12
JCE: Software
A305
10
Laser Science, Inc.
A296
6–9
Molecular Arts Corp.
A295
1-5
Omega Engineering
IFC
Advertising Representative McNeill Group, Inc. 301 Oxford Valley Road, Suite 803B Yardley, PA 19067 Phone: 215/321-9662 or 800/275-5084
A310
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 73 No. 12 December 1996
Chemical Education Today
New Journal Policy Regarding Laboratory Experiments in the print Journal. In addition the summary and all other supporting material will be pub… the Journal will handle lished via JCE: Online as Lab Documentation. This includes everything listed in the box on submission, review, and the facing page. All Lab Documentation will be publication of laboratory placed on the Web as computer files that can experiments in a different be edited by those who adopt a lab, provided they have the same software that the author way. used to create the documentation. In practice we expect that most written material will be in either Microsoft Word or Word Perfect format. Once a manuscript has been accepted, the author will be asked readers who decide to use a lab should be able to to supply computer-readable versions of all materials. adapt it to their circumstances quickly and easily Those without Web access can request printed coppeer review of submitted labs should be based to a ies of all materials related to a particular experiment. large degree on the written and technology-based We will provide these via U.S. Postal Service at cost.
The Journal receives a large number of submissions of laboratory experiments, and we view the broad range of experiments readers can find each month as one of our most important features. Beginning in 1997 the Journal will handle submission, review, and publication of laboratory experiments in a different way. The new policies are based on four fundamental ideas: • •
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materials used by students in the laboratory the Journal should print only the information a reader needs in order to decide whether to try to use the experiment more detailed information, including student materials, should be available to adopters of an experiment in a format that is modifiable and easily adapted for use by students and support staff
Why Change? We believe that this new system has several advantages for Journal readers. It will be easier to scan • through all experiments in a given issue and decide whether an experiment is likely to be suitable. If a reader wants more detailed information, it will be available 24 hours a day via JCE: Online. Computer-readable files for all published experiments will be available for downloading from the Internet, and these files can be easily Lab Summaries in JCE changed to suit local tastes and needs. By printing fewer To achieve these goals, all papers reporting new expages of lab experiments, the Journal will save printing periments for teaching laboratories must be written as costs, postponing the necessity of increasing subscripLab Summaries. These should be no longer than one tion rates. Journal page and will be limited to the informaThere are also advantages for tion that prospective adopters must have in order authors. The process of preparing a to evaluate how well a lab would suit their programs. Lab Summaries will include the kinds of Why change?… this new manuscript will be simpler, because most of the material to be submitinformation listed in the box at the top of the pre- system has several ted will already have been written vious page. and used with students, teaching Peer review of laboratory experiments will be advantages for Journal based on more than just the Lab Summary. Sub- readers.…There are also assistants or other instructors, or lab technicians. An author’s major missions of laboratory experiments to the Journal tasks will be to write the Lab Summust also include the written materials to be used advantages for authors. mary and collect and organize the by students, instructor notes, and other suppleother materials. It will not be necmentary information that is essential to someone essary to rewrite the experimental procedure or any who will be adapting the lab to a new program. A sumother part of the lab into the format of a research remary of what should be submitted is in the box headed port. It will, of course, be necessary to provide computerLab Documentation on the facing page. A decision to readable versions of everything, once a manuscript has publish will be based on reviewers’ evaluation of all the been accepted for publication. materials submitted. Those who plan to submit a lab should first search Summary the Annotated List of Laboratory Experiments to make We hope that this new policy regarding laboratory certain that a very similar experiment has not already experiments will make the Journal even more useful and appeared in the Journal. This keyworded, computerattractive to readers. The division between print and elecsearchable database was compiled by Stanley Bunce, tronic media will be: James Zubrick, and members of the Division of Chemi• what appears in print should provide enough incal Education Committee on Project ChemLab. It is curformation for a reader to decide whether or not it rently available for IBM PC from Project SERAPHIM would be worthwhile to download the Lab Docufor downloading at http://ice.chem.wisc.edu/SERAPHIM/ mentation from JCE:Online PC_Files/PC2001.zip. The Journal’s annual and decen• what is placed on JCE:Online will be much more nial indexes and the computerized index available at extensive and directly usable with students because JCE: Online (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/journal) should also be searched before a submission is made. its computer-readable format will be easy to adapt Lab Documentation on JCE: Online For those labs recommended for publication as a result of peer review, the Lab Summary will be published
to local circumstances
As usual, we are interested in feedback from readers and authors about this or any other policy. Let us hear from you.
Vol. 73 No. 12 December 1996 • Journal of Chemical Education
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