June 1993 ConfChem Discussion Archive

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Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1993 19:00:19 EDT
From: "Frank M. Lanzafame"
Subject: Computer-generated graphical problem sets for students

The software accompanying Paper 6 is in place and available by
anonymous FTP. Those interested in this area and in getting a chance
to examine the program before the Conference may pick up a copy IF your
system has anonymous FTP capability.
FTP: info.umd.edu
Path: info/Teaching/ChemConference/Paper6

For MS DOS users, PGEN10ZP.EXE is a BINARY self-extracting ZIPPED file
containing a copy of Paper6, a compiled EXE version of the program as
well as the QuickBasic ascii source code. Be sure to use the BINARY
command before getting the file. Without setting the BINARY file
transfer capability, the copy you receive will not function. You must
also set binary file transfer protocols in transferring to your pc.

For non-MS DOS users, there are also ASCII versions of the source code,
but since the program runs under MS DOS or QuickBasic, it will probably
be of limited use.

-----------------------------------------------------------
| Frank M. Lanzafame Department of Chemistry |
| Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. |
| Rochester, NY 14623 (716) 292-2000 Ext. 5130 |
| Internet: flanzafame@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu |
-----------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 20:31:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Schedule of Papers

APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHEMISTRY
An On-Line Computer Conference
June 14 TO August 20, 1993

Sponsored by the
American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education's
Committee on Computers in Chemical Education

TECHNICAL PROGRAM

1. The Use of Computers in a Junior-Level Analytical Chemistry - Physical
Chemistry Laboratory Course
Donald Rosenthal, Department of Chemistry, Clarkson University, Potsdam NY
13699 (ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET)
June 14 - Short questions
June 21 through June 22 - Discussion

2. For LANS Sake: Suggestions for the Use of Networked Computers in
Chemical Education
B. James Hood, Dept. of Chemistry & Physics, Middle Tennessee State
University; bjhood@knuth.mtsu.edu (INTERNET) or PrfJimHood (America
Online)
June 15 - Short questions
June 23 through June 24 - Discussion

3. Visualizing Chemical Reactions
John P. Ranck, Elizabethtown College, Department of Chemistry,
Elizabethtown, PA 17022-2298; Internet: ranck@vax.etown.edu
June 16 - Short questions
June 25 through June 28 - Discussion

4. Cultural Differences Reflected by an Integrated Media Chemistry Course
- An American/Israeli Perspective
*Nava Ben-Zvi, **William S. Harwood, *Ahuva Leopold, **Lisa L. Ragsdale,
*Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel 91904, **University of Maryland,
College Park, Maryland 20742 (201226@UMDD.UMD.EDU)
June 17 - Short questions
June 29 through June 30 - Discussion

5. It's How You Play the Game: Design of an Electronic Assistant for
Organic Qualitative Analysis
Joyce C. Brockwell, Northwestern University, Department of Chemistry 2145
Sheridan Road, Evanston IL 60208-3113 (jcb@nwu.edu)
June 18 - Short questions
July 1 through July 2 - Discussion

6. Individual Computer-Generated Graphical Problem Sets
Frank M. Lanzafame, Monroe Community College, Chemistry Dept., 1000 East
Henrietta Rd., Rochester, NY 14623Voice: Internet:
FLANZAFAME@ECKERT.ACADCOMP.MONROECC.EDU
July 5 - Short questions
July 12 through July 13 - Discussion

7. Integrating Computers into the High School Chemistry Classroom
William J.Sondgerath, Chemistry Teacher at Harrison High School West
Lafayette, Indiana, (BSONDGER@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU)
July 6 - Short questions
July 14 through July 15 - Discussion

8. Using the Airwaves: A Satellite M. S. for Industrial Chemists
Keith J.Schray, N.D. Heindel, J. E. Brown, and M. A. Kercsmar, Department
of chemistry and office of distance education Lehigh University.,
Bethlehem, Pa, 18015 (kjs0@Lehigh.EDU)
July 7 - Short questions
July 16 through July 19 - Discussion

9. Staff Development is the Biggest Cost in Computing
David W. Brooks, Center for Curriculum and Instruction, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0355. (dbrooks@unlinfo.unl.edu)
July 8 - Short questions
July 20 through July 21 - Discussion

10. Personal Computers in Teaching Physical Chemistry
A.A.Kubasov, V.S.Lyutsarev, K.V.Ermakov, Chemical Faculty of Moscow
State University, Moscow, Russian Republic. (LASER@mch.chem.msu.su)
July 9 - Short questions
July 22 through July 23 - Discussion

11. Applications of Networked Computers and Electronic Mail in a Chemistry
Course for Nonscience Students
Carl H. Snyder, Chemistry Department, University of Miami, Coral Gables,
FL 33124 (CSNYDER@umiami.ir.miami.edu), and James Shelley, Academic and
Research Systems, Information Resources,University of Miami, Coral Gables,
FL 33124 (JSHELLEY@umiami.ir.miami.edu)
July 26 - Short questions
Aug. 2 through Aug. 3 - Discussion

12. The Computer Co-Op: Teaching Organic Chemistry on a Conference in an
Interdisciplinary Macintosh Lab
Carolyn Sweeney Judd, M.A. (cjudd@tenet.edu), Faculty, Chemistry, and
Robert G. Ford, Ph.D., Faculty, English, Central College, Houston
Community College System, 1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
July 27 - Short questions
Aug. 4 through Aug. 5 - Discussion

13. Finite Difference Solution of the Diffusion Equation in a Spreadsheet
Douglas A. Coe, Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology, Butte,
MT 59701 (DACOE@MTVMS2.MTECH.EDU)
July 28 - Short questions
Aug. 6 through Aug. 9 - Discussion

14. CHEMULATE! A Simulator of UV/Vis Kinetics Experiments for the Macintosh
Richard S. Moog, Franklin and Marshall College (R_Moog@acad.fandm.edu)
July 29 - Short questions
Aug. 10 through Aug. 11 - Discussion

15. Menu Driven Programming for Students and Teachers
Reed Howald, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State
University Bozeman, MT 59717 (uchrh%planet.dnet@terra.oscs.montana.edu)
July 30 - Short questions
Aug. 12 through Aug. 13 - Discussion

General discussion:
August 16 through 20

Evaluation:
Aug. 20 Deadline for return of Evaluation Form to to2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU
-----------------------------

You may obtain any or all of these papers either by e-mail or by
anonymous FTP. To have papers sent to you by e-mail, send an e-mail
message to listserv@umdd.umd.edu or to listserv@umdd.bitnet, in which
the message body contains one or more of the following lines:

GET PAPER1 TEXT
GET PAPER2 TEXT
GET PAPER3 TEXT

and so on, for each paper you want, with each item listed on a separate
line. Request only the papers you are interested in reading. Depending
on the network load, the material will be mailed to you within a few
minutes or hours.

For Internet users, the papers can be obtained by Telnet or by anonymous
FTP from:

Host: info.umd.edu
Path: info/Teaching/ChemConference

Papers with associated figures or files are placed in separate sub-
directories (e.g. Paper1). Files with a ".txt", ".hqx", or ".UUE"
extension are ASCII text files that must be transferred in ASCII
(text) mode. Files with a ".GIF" extension are graphics files
(figures) that must be transferred in binary mode and viewed with a
GIF viewer. For example, Paper1Figure1.GIF is Figure 1 of Paper 1.
Files with other extensions (".ZIP", etc) are generally binary files
that must be transferred in binary mode. MAKE SURE YOU SET THE MODE
before you begin the transfer. (Binary files downloaded in text mode
will not be usable). Refer to the author's paper for information on
how to use the associated files.

Papers 1-3, 5-9, and 12-15 are avaiable now. The other papers will
be made available as soon as they are received from the authors.

Short questions on Paper1 begines June 14. If you wish to contact the
author of a paper before that time, please send the message to the
author's personal e-mail address listed above, not to the CHEMCONF
list address.

Prof. Thomas C. O'Haver, CHEMCONF organizer
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Internet: to2@umail.umd.edu

=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 06:29:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Customized software

ON-LINE TEXT AND GIF FILE VIEWER CUSTOMIZED
FOR CHEMCONF PARTICIPANTS

We now have special software that will allow some CHEMCONF
participants to quickly and simply log onto the conference FTP
site and to brouse through the papers and GIF figures WHILE
ON-LINE, thus avoiding the complex multi-step process usually
required to download, convert, and view the papers and
figures. The software is pre-configured to log on to
the CHEMCONF subdirectory on info.umd.edu, and it is set
to recognize the figures (binary ".gif" files) and to display
them automatically. Currently this software is available only
for networked Macintosh systems with MacTCP. See info.umd.edu
info/Teaching/ChemConference/Software/Macintosh/Fetch2.1.ReadMe
for more information.

Tom O'Haver
CHEMCONF organizer
to2@umail.umd.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 06:44:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Welcome to CHEMCONF '93!

To: ALL CHEMCONF '93 PARTICIPANTS
From: Thomas O'Haver
Conference Organizer and Manager
301-405-1831
TO2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU
and
Donald Rosenthal
Chair, ACS Division of Chemical Education's
Committee on Computers in Chemical Education
315-265-9242
ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET

Re: WELCOME TO CHEMCONF '93

Date: Monday, June 14, 1993

On behalf of the ACS Division of Chemical Education's Committee on
Computers in Chemical Education, we welcome you to CHEMCONF '93 and
declare this conference officially open. There are currently 452
participants from 31 nations signed up for this conference. We
hope you will all enjoy and actively participate in this historic
experiment.

The topic for today (Monday, June 14) is short questions on paper 1,
"The Use of Computers in a Junior-Level Analytical Chemistry - Physical
Chemistry Laboratory Course" by Donald Rosenthal. The schedule for
the remainder of Session 1 is as follows.

Session 1 (Papers 1 to 5)
June 14 - Short questions on Paper 1 (Rosenthal)
June 15 - Short questions on Paper 2 (Hood)
June 16 - Short questions on Paper 3 (Ranck)
June 17 - Short questions on Paper 4 (Ben-Zvi)
June 18 - Short questions on Paper 5 (Brockwell)
June 21 through June 22 - Discussion of paper 1 (Rosenthal)
June 23 through June 24 - Discussion of paper 2 (Hood)
June 25 through June 28 - Discussion of paper 3 (Ranck)
June 29 through June 30 - Discussion of paper 4 (Ben-Zvi)
July 1 through July 2 - Discussion of paper 5 (Brockwell)

For Internet users, the conference files and software are
available by telnet or by anonymous FTP from:

Host: info.umd.edu
Path: info/Teaching/ChemConference

The text materials can also be obtained by e-mail. Send an e-mail
message to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU or LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET in which
the message body contains one or more of the following lines:

GET SUMR93 TITLES
GET SUMR93 SCHEDULE
GET SUMR93 ABSTRACT
GET CHEMCONF WELCOME
GET PAPER1 TEXT
GET PAPER2 TEXT
etc.
--------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 06:53:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Please save this message

Re: EVALUATION OF THE COMPUTER CONFERENCE

Date: June 14, 1993

A conference evaluation form is appended. Please read it before the
meeting. We view the Conference evaluation process to be as
important as the Conference itself. We would appreciate knowing the
extent to which you participated, what you liked and didn't like, and
what suggestions you may have for future meetings. Please fill out the
form and return it AFTER the conference.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EVALUATION FORM FOR CHEMCONF '93

1. NAME ________________________________ DATE _________________________

2. ADDRESS AT WORK _____________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________

3. TITLE AT WORK ______________________ (e.g. Professor, Teacher, etc.)

4. ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS ________________

5. DO YOU HAVE ACCESS TO INTERNET? _________

6. COURSES YOU TEACH ___________________________________________________

7. COMPUTER EXPERTISE ______ (1 to 5) 1 Beginner, 3 Average, 5 Expert

8. FACILITY USING ELECTRONIC MAIL ______ (On scale from 1 to 5)

9. Hardware used for e-mail ____________________________________________

------------------------------------------------------------------------

STATISTICS

SESSION 1

----------- PAPER NUMBER -----------
- 1 - - 2 - - 3 - - 4 - - 5 -

10. READ All,Most or None _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

11. TIME SPENT READING
PAPER (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

12. Number of times you
accessed discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

13. Number of times you
asked questions or
participated in
discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

14. Amount of time you
devoted to the discussion
(in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

15. Total Time Devoted (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
----------------------------------------------------------------------

SESSION 2

----------- PAPER NUMBER -----------
- 6 - - 7 - - 8 - - 9 - - 10-

10. READ All,Most or None _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

11. TIME SPENT READING
PAPER (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

12. Number of times you
accessed discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

13. Number of times you
asked questions or
participated in
discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

14. Amount of time you
devoted to the discussion
(in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

15. Total Time Devoted (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
----------------------------------------------------------------------

SESSION 3

----------- PAPER NUMBER -----------
- 11- - 12- - 13- - 14- - 15-

10. READ All,Most or None _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

11. TIME SPENT READING
PAPER (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

12. Number of times you
accessed discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

13. Number of times you
asked questions or
participated in
discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

14. Amount of time you
devoted to the discussion
(in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

15. Total Time Devoted (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
----------------------------------------------------------------------

EVALUATION

Evaluation - Scale 1 to 5 - 1 is Poor, 3 is Average and 5 is excellent

16. Overall evaluation of papers ____

17. Overall evaluation of discussion _____

18. Overall evaluation of trial meeting ____

19. I consider Paper #____ best. Evaluation (1 to 5) ____

20. I considered the discussion of Paper #____ best.
Evaluation (1 to 5) ____

21. Explain your answers to Questions 19 and 20 ________________________

________________________________________________________________________

22. What did you like most about the computer conference? ______________

________________________________________________________________________

23. What did you like least about the computer conference? _____________

________________________________________________________________________

24. What changes could be made to improve the computer conference?
(Papers, Short Question Sessions, Discussion Sessions, etc.)

______________________________________________________________________

25. Compare this Conference with the usual conference.

________________________________________________________________________

26. Other suggestions and recommendations

______________________________________________________________________

(Continue if you need more space)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Please return this form to Thomas O'Haver (TO2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU) between
August 16 and August 20

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
We hope this will be the first of many conferences.

Topics for future computer conferences are not restricted to
chemical education. A Conference on Chemometrics is planned for October
1994. Please contact Tom O'Haver after August 20 if you are interested
in organizing a conference. CHEMCONF and LISTSERV will be available for
future use.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 09:18:00 EDT
From: ROSEN1
Subject: SHORT QUESTION PERIOD

COMPUTER CONFERENCE

APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHEMISTRY

JUNE 14 TO AUGUST 20, 1993

It is Monday, June 14 - This day is to be devoted to the sending
of SHORT QUESTIONS ONLY regarding PAPER 1 (The Use of Computers in a
Junior-level Analytical Chemistry - Physical Chemistry Laboratory
Course by Donald Rosenthal). SHORT QUESTIONS may be directed to the
author and/or participants via CHEMCONF. Another message will be sent
to you at the end of the SHORT QUESTION period for this paper
(Tuesday 8 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time).

There is to be no DISCUSSION of PAPER 1 at this time. DISCUSSION
of PAPER 1 will begin on Monday, June 21.

Additional information about the SHORT QUESTIONS period and the
DISCUSSION period can be found in the INSTRUCTIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS.
Excerpts are appended below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS
(Updated 5/13/93)

1. SHORT QUESTIONS

The first week of each session is reserved for the reading of the
papers in that session and for sending SHORT QUESTIONS to the authors
or other participants. A specific day is designated for SHORT
QUESTIONS on each paper. For example, it is expected that Paper 1
will be read on or before June 14. In reading the paper you may have
a short question for the author asking for more information or
clarification of points raised in the paper. A SHORT QUESTION may be
sent to the author of Paper 1 on June 14 via CHEMCONF. This will
alert other participants as well as the author to the question. SHORT
QUESTIONS may be sent to the other participants on the designated
day. DISCUSSION of the paper WILL NOT START until at least a week
after the designated time for SHORT QUESTIONS. This gives authors
(and participants) at least a week to prepare answers to SHORT
QUESTIONS

To send comments or questions privately to the author of the
paper only, send your message to the author's email address given in
the paper. Reports of typographical errors, spelling and grammatical
errors should be sent directly to the author, not to CHEMCONF. Only
the authors can see these messages. You can send these messages at
any time.

2. DISCUSSION
A specific two days during the second and
third weeks of each session is devoted to the discussion of each
paper. Answers to SHORT QUESTIONS are to be sent at the beginning of
the session. To send comments or questions about a particular
conference paper to the entire conference, WAIT UNTIL THE DAYS
DESIGNATED FOR DISCUSSION OF THAT PAPER, then mail your message to
CHEMCONFmdd.umd.edu or CHEMCONFmdd.bitnet Please put the PAPER NUMBER
IN THE SUBJECT LINE of the message (e.g. "Paper 1"), so that
participants can more easily sort out conference discussions from
other e-mail. Please remember that messages sent to CHEMCONF will be
distributed to all CHEMCONF participants, adding to their e-mail
burden. As a courtesy to other participants, please keep your messages
concise, limit your discussion to the topic of the paper in question,
and avoid irrelevant, redundant, and personal comments that are not of
general interest. Comments about conference procedure should be
directed to Tom O'Haver (to2@umail.umd.edu) or Don Rosenthal
(rosen@CLVM.BITNET).

APPENDIX 5: HELPFUL HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

a. One of the problems of an e-mail based conference is sorting out
all the overlapping threads of conversation. When you are responding
to or asking about a specific passage in a paper or message, a very
helpful technique is to quote a small passage from that paper or
message in your response and to place a
">" character at the beginning of each quoted line, e.g.:
> We used the....so-and-so...in order to....
We tried that too, but we found that....
The ">" character in this example is an e-mail convention indicating
that that line is quoted from another message. There is no need to
re-type the quoted passage if you have saved it on the file system of
your computer; just Copy and Paste the desired passage into your message,
then type ">" characters in front of each line. Another helpful
technique to refer to a previous message is to specify the time and date,
e.g. 2-11-93 8:53 EST. Depending on the way that participants store
messages, this may make it easier to find a particular message.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 09:14:22 -0700
From: Stephen Lower
Subject: P1Ques: standardized computers

The requirement that all students have a computer whose type
is mandated by the University raises a few questions:

1) Do you feel that this policy (which undoubtedly played an important
role in establishing Clarkson as a pioneer in getting microcomputers
into the hands of students) still makes a significant difference in
terms of how you make use of computers in your Chemistry courses?

2) I presume that the 1-Mb PS/2 is a minimum standard, intended to
keep costs as low as possible. How do you deal with the eventual
need to incorporate software into your curriculum that requires
a more powerful system (with Windows capability, for example)?
Do a significant number of students buy computers that extend
beyond this minimum requirement?
----------
Steve Lower - Vancouver, Canada
Dept of Chemistry - Simon Fraser University - Burnaby BC V5A 1S6
lower@sfu.ca 604-291-3353 FAX: 604-291-3765
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 13:04:00 EDT
From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694"
Subject: Paper 1: Questions

1. Are all of the course experiments given in the paper or are those just
the ones that make use of computers?

2. Does the course do anything with digital (or analog) methods for signal
enhancement?

3. Does the course do anything with vacuum techniques? ( I know that doesn't
have much to do with computers; I'm just curious.)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 14:59:30 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: P1Ques: standardized computers

The problem with trying to standardize on any one computer/operating system
is that until the software world provides truly "open" software,
standardization limits one to the lowest common denominator. It the real
world of the 90's, any system that doesn't support a GUI (graphical user
interface) is counter productive. That leaves us with Windows, Mac OS, UNIX
with some variant of X-windows, or X running on a Mac or PC. For chemical
or any other technical computing, having students buy a text based DOS
machine distorts the potentials for the real world use of computers.
Non-standard/ non-interchangable graphics superimposed on DOS simply
complicates the situation.

I am trying to network a mixture of DOS/Windows PCs, Macs and Unix boxes so
that the spectroscopic information obtained in our major instrumentation
labs is available on faculty desc-tops, and in the student computer labs.
This is non-trivial and we've really just started it. The only hope for the
pure DOS-ites is to take text files into a spreadsheet or plotting program,
but without WYSIWYG, the resulting reports look a mess. Those comfortable
in a Mac, Windows or UNIX environment do so much better.

Does low cost with everyone on a minimalist computer achieve better goals
that having fewer computers shared, but able to do what is expected in the
real world.

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

re: V A 1 Fig. 8; Which set of data was used for the figure - or is
it just a representative figure ?

re: V A 1 Fig. 8: Was the raw data reentered by keyboard for the plot
or was it manipulated from that originally collected?

re V B; In the first line specifying p-cyanoacetophenone I am not
familiar with the 2 E-3 M designation or the 1443-80-7.
Could you explain?
Thanks,

|==================================================================|
| | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ |
| | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | |
| / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ |
| / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) |
| (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ |
|==================================================================|
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 16:45:00 EST
From: "Arthur M. Halpern"
Subject: paper 1

RE: Paper 1

Concerning the use of computers in the physical chemistry laboratory,
do any of the experiments described involve the use of on-line data
acquisition by the computer from an instrument? Also, do you deal with ADC
methods/techniques in that part of the lab course?

Arthur M. Halpern
Department of Chemistry
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, Indiana
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 16:47:44 -0600
From: "Douglas A. Coe"
Subject: Short Questions for Paper #1

1. Do you have a short course for "classical" quantitative analysis. If
not, why not? How much "classical" quantitative analysis do students
get in the first year?

2. In what courses, other than those you mentioned, do you teach
the statistical treatment of data?

3. How does Clarkson manage to insure that each entering student is
able to purchase a microcomputer?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 21:45:17 -0600
From: Gerald Morine
Subject: Re: Paper 1

I have a few short questions related to Paper 1, which I incidentally
thought was an excellent piece of work.

1. The author wrote that previously students were given instruction in
BASIC and FORTRAN, and wrote data analysis programs, for example, on the
kinetics experiment. Do you still require or even encourage students to
learn these languages? Why or why not?

2. Other "Short Questioners" have asked about electronic signal enhancement
and A/D conversion. I would like to broach the same subject in different
terms. Specifically, are all the computer-data acquisition experiments
hard-wired or commercial connections, or do students do any practical
electronics in the course of running these experiments?

3. What are the safety precautions that are followed to make taking
viscosities of concentrated sulfuric acid solutions, in the Nylon
experiment, safe?

Jerry Morine, Department of Chemistry, Bemidji State University,
Bemidji, MN ghmo@vax1.bemidji.msus.edu

=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 08:46:28 -0400
From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster

1. Why recomend Thinnet rather than 10baseT based on future speed -- your
suggestion of FDDI (100 MHz) on Thinnet coax when the IEEE is closer to
accepting a twisted pair (10baseT) 100 MHz Ethernet standard than they are
to FDDI on copper.

( I myself am responsible for a couple of
thinnet and a couple of 10base10 ethernet LANs and a half dozen Appletalk
LANs and we are phasing out the thinnet -- much less reliable than 10baseT
and much harder to troubleshoot. In a star configuration, thinnet exceeds
the conduit capacity of most already constructed buildings, whereas the
twisted pairs for 10baseT already exist inmost offices and labs as part of
the telephone cabling.)

2. 2. Why do you not mention Appletalk (Localtalk) via ethernet i.e.
Ethertalk. You don't distinguish the Mac networks with peer to peer (System
7) networking from cohabitation with client server using The Apple server
software, or as we do MacJanet ( 6 or 7 MacJanet nets on campus
and more going in).

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

I hope this hasn't gone out twice -- 1st attempt returned by postmaster,
but it may have been to everyone since there was an error in originator
address apparently.

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

To: B. James Hood
Middle Tennessee State University
bjhood@knuth.mtsu.edu

PAPER 2
Short Questions

1. What sort of local area network are you using in chemistry at
Middle Tennessee State Unbiversity? How many and what kind of
microcomputers do you have on the network?

2. What do you and what do the students use the network for? What
software is available on the network?

Donald Rosenthal
Box 5810
Department of Chemistry
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699-5810
ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 16:24:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Paper 2

Can you explain why it was that separate proprietary LAN
protocols needed to be developed in the first place, rather
than basing everything on non-proprietary TCP/IP? After
all, you need TCP/IP anyway to deal with the Internet, so
why not use that for LAN services as well? That way you
wouldn't have to mix protocols on one network (e.g. Novell +
TCP/IP, or AppleTalk + TCP/IP).

Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 06:50:14 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: PAPER 3

Yes! Better visualization will surely lead to increased understanding.
Can you give an estimate of the time needed to produce your movies?

Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman
Houston, TX 77004
1-512-630-1103
cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 11:00:00 EDT
Subject: PAPER 3 - SHORT QUESTION

1. How do you use the animation files - do you use them as demonstrations
in lectures or do students have access to them outside of class?

2. How do students react to these animations? What sort of student
evaluations have these materials received?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 12:35:31 -0400
From: Gary Hammer
Subject: paper 3

How do you get the animated player to work. After some unzip problems,
solved by Tom Haver, who suggested unz50p1.exe as the unzipper, I was
able to unzip the .zip files. Now aniplay.exe---shown in paper 3 as
aaplayhi.exe---gave me an error messasge which indicated it didn't like
my video display and then dumped me to a blank screen which I assume is
the player screen, eventually. The second time through I did not get
the error message, but instead went to same blank screen. The function
keys 1-9 served to change a number on the bottom of the screen from
0 - 48. There was never any chance to change any parameters or the
configuration. Any suggestions.

Gary Hammer
ghammer@powhatan.cc.cnu.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 01:38:30 EDT
From: CHARLIE ABRAMS
Subject: Paper 3 Short Questions

1. Do you have a graph of the potential energy vs. frame number? Even
better would be an energy surface with O-C and C-Br distances as the
X and Y axis respectively.

2. Can you provide more information on exactly what parameters were used
for the calculation? (ie. what level of sophistication, etc.)

3. How much faith do you have in these calculations? Is it safe to
assume that the *qualitative* behavior is independent of the level
of sophistication?

4. Can you generate shaded *surfaces* with HyperChem? Was this avoided
because of computational expense, or memory expense, or both? (By
surface I mean CPK type image).

5. I've had trouble getting the display to behave properly on one
monitor. The program did not give me the 640x480 driver option when I
used a DEC "PC7XV" monitor (with a DEC 433dxLP computer), and would
only display 'oversized bits'. Are other drivers available?

Thanks!

Charles B. Abrams
McGill University
(514) 398-6224
cx7q@musica.mcgill.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 06:53:49 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: help

I am confused! Yesterday I received confirmation that my question had been
received by you, but I never re-received the question as I would have
expected. Was the question sent out to all conference members except the
member who wrote the question?
Thank you, Carolyn S. Judd
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 06:56:24 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Paper 4

I love The World of Chemistry videos! My students love them also. Could
you give more detail about the student projects involving their own video
productions. Was there an exact assignment? How long were the videos.
Did the institution furnish the equipment? How did the class presentation
go? Were there more student questions following a student presentation
than the presentations from The World of Chemistry?
Thank you.

Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman
Houston, TX 77004
1-713-665-7463
cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 08:29:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Paper 4 - Short Question

PAPER 4 - Short Question

1. Six references are listed at the end of your paper. The videotapes
are cited. What about the other references? Were any of these
used in the courses you discussed? Was the laboratory manual
used? What sort of experiments are in the laboratory manual?

Donald Rosenthal
Box 5810
Department of Chemistry
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699-5810
ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 10:25:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Paper 4 - Short Question
In-Reply-To: <9306171235.AA15636@umd5.umd.edu>

1. Specifically what societal, economic, and political
differences between Israeli and American chemistry students
have a bearing on the video-based course experiment?

2. Do you find important differences between the television
viewing habits of Israeli and American students?

3. Are there differences between the extent to which Israeli
and American students are exposed to video production
technology at the secondary level?

Tom O'Haver

=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 10:20:19 -0400
From: Mary Swift
Subject: Paper05 Brockwell

Questions:

1. What mechanism will be employed to prevent the students
from using the computer program to guide their analysis
of the unknowns? That is access the program for the
questions to be answered and then go and do the appro-
priate experiments to obtain these answers?

2. For the pre-med students (75% of the class), what is the
major objective - development to critical thinking skills
or development of manual dexterity? If it is critical
thinking, how many wet labs are absolutely necessary to
permit the students to get an aceptable level of manual
dexterity?

3. How many of the pre-med students obtain admission to
medical school?

4. While one must acknowledge the goals of the student
would it not be better to emphasize that there are many
careers, including medicine, that require the use of
problem solving skills?

Mary L. Swift
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 09:30:01 -0600
From: "Douglas A. Coe"
Subject: Short questions for Paper 5

Short questions for Paper 5:

1. How many institutions require a qualitative organic course in one or
more of their majors? (a question to all particpants)

2. How many participants have written homegrown programs to ease the
grading of homework or laboratories in large classes? I did this
in a physical chemistry course where enrollment has varied from 50
to 150 students and where, typically, 200 problems are assigned. The
program has been tremendously useful in this course, but required a
year of intensive effort to write. I'm not sure I would do it again.
(again a question to all participants)

Doug Coe
Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 13:26:56 EDT
From: Alan Stolzenberg
Subject: Questions on paper 5

Questions on "It's How You Play the Game: Design of an Electronic . . ."

1. Some schools that do qual organic analysis use mixtures of compounds. Do
you have any thoughts about how the program could be changed to make pro-
vision for this?

2. I wonder whether the interactive approach with the computer program will
encourage students to perform tests that their current results and their
logic should tell them are unnecessary? In other words, will the pro-
gram encourage them to not to think about their approach and instead
conform to a strategy that is implicitly spelled out by the series of
questions that they confront?

3. What type of computer system do you envision running the program on? How
will you prevent a student from hacking and taking over the system? The
danger is not only of students finding out the answers but also changing
other students' scores. Whether or not this is easy, if students think
that it is possible you might start getting complaints that the session
and results went differently than your records show.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 15:13:44 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Short questions for Paper 5

>Short questions for Paper 5:
>
>1. How many institutions require a qualitative organic course in one or
> more of their majors? (a question to all particpants)

Not as separate courses, but integral to our integrated year II labs, (org,
inorg, phys, analyt integrated in a pair of one semester courses)

>
>2. How many participants have written homegrown programs to ease the
> grading of homework or laboratories in large classes? I did this
> in a physical chemistry course where enrollment has varied from 50
> to 150 students and where, typically, 200 problems are assigned. The
> program has been tremendously useful in this course, but required a
> year of intensive effort to write. I'm not sure I would do it again.
> (again a question to all participants)
>
> Doug Coe
> Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca

=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 07:56:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Paper 1 - Answers to Short Questions

PAPER 1 - ANSWERS TO SHORT QUESTIONS

Lines with > contain questions
Answers are on lines containing *
From: Donald Rosenthal
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699-5810
ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET

Date: June 21, 1993
=====================================================================

> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 09:14:22 -0700
> From: Stephen Lower
> Subject: P1Ques: standardized computers

> The requirement that all students have a computer whose type
> is mandated by the University raises a few questions:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION A
> 1) Do you feel that this policy (which undoubtedly played an important
> role in establishing Clarkson as a pioneer in getting microcomputers
> into the hands of students) still makes a significant difference in
> terms of how you make use of computers in your Chemistry courses?
* Each student at Clarkson has an IBM PS/2 in his (or her) room and is
* supplied with MS DOS, Word Perfect and a spreadsheet (Lotus-1,2,3
* or Quattro Pro). As a freshman the student has taken an introductory
* computer course which familiarizes him (or her) with the software.
* Word processing has been used in a one year freshman english course
* (Great Ideas) and throughout the curriculum. Under these
* circumstances I had no missgivings about requiring every student to
* use word processing or a spreadsheet to prepare experimental
* reports. I did not have to worry about students having to stand in
* line or sign up for a time slot in a terminal room somewhere on
* campus. Students have access to personal computers (PS/2 or Zenith
* 248) in the chemistry laboratories, the Science Center terminal rooms,
* near the library and elsewhere on campus. In the junior level
* Instrumental Laboratory course which I described I opted to make all
* additional software students needed in preparing laboratory reports
* available. All this software could be used on the student's personal
* computer. (However, see Question B.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION B
> 2) I presume that the 1-Mb PS/2 is a minimum standard, intended to
> keep costs as low as possible. How do you deal with the eventual
> need to incorporate software into your curriculum that requires
> a more powerful system (with Windows capability, for example)?
> Do a significant number of students buy computers that extend
> beyond this minimum requirement?
* The PS/2 is adequate for word processing, spreadsheet and many other
* applications. Each year (or every few years) the University
* reassesses its computer needs and the personal computer has been
* updated. Next year the PS/2 will have a 25 megaherz SX 386
* microprocessor, 2 megs of memory and an 80 meg hard disk. MS DOS 5
* will be the operating system. The monitor is monochromatic.
* Some students have added additional memory or a modem to the
* PS/2. With a modem and terminal emulation software students can dial
* up and access the University-wide network. Very very few students
* buy additional computers.
* Each student receives an instructional access code which provides
* access to electronic mail, file transfer and printing services as well
* as access to an IBM RS/6000 POWERServer 550 with 256 Megabytes
* of memory and a total of more than 65 Gigabytes of disk storage.
* In the Science Center where the Department of Chemistry is located
* there are two terminal rooms containing a total of thirty IBM RS/6000
* color workstations. There are two Science Center terminal rooms
* containing a total of forty-eight IBM and compatible PCs which are
* network-connected. In addition, there are about a half dozen
* network-connected PCs in each of the dormitories, and RS/6000 and PCs
* in half a dozen terminal rooms elsewhere on campus.
* The Network contains a software distribution system which contains
* software developed by faculty for courses, by the Educational
* Resources Center staff, software obtained free and software for which
* Clarkson has a site license. This software can be down loaded to
* disk and used on the student PCs. This software is classified into
* the following categories - Communications Software, Computation
* Software, Data Base and Data Base Tools, Editors and Editing Tools,
* Graphics/Plotting Programs and Tools, Miscellaneous Utilities, PC TeX,
* Programming Languages, Software for Courses, and Freshman Software
* Distribution. The programs mentioned in Section IV-A-5 of my paper
* were available in the Software for Courses category.
* The student PS/2s take much of the burden off the Network and
* mainframe computers. Access to the network and mainframes presents
* no problems for the 2600 undergraduate, 270 graduate students and 200
* faculty members at Clarkson. Professor Lower mentions that the
* Clarkson PS/2s are not adequate to accommodate all software. If
* software is needed which will not run on the student PS/2, it may be
* available via the Network and/or may be run on an IBM RS/6000.
* I decided for my laboratory course that I would not REQUIRE the use
* of any software that would not run on the student stand-alone PS/2
* computer. The organic chemistry course at Clarkson
* uses software which will not run on the Clarkson PS/2. There is
* molecular modelling software developed at Clarkson under the
* supervision of Dr. Richard Partch which will run on the PS/2. Dr.
* Yuzhuo Li has used PC Model and HyperChem for Windows with his
* students. PC Model was used on the IBM RS/6000. He is planning to
* have undergraduate organic students use SPARTAN on the RS/6000 next
* year.
* There is a considerable amount of software to which students have
* access on the Network. This includes languages like FORTRAN,
* Pascal, C, C++, ADA, MODULA-2, COBOL, PL/I, LISP and PROLOG. Also,
* many applications packages are available, e.g. Archie, Framemaker,
* Gaussian 90, Gnuplot, Gopher, GraPHIGS/GKS, Grolier's Encyclopedia,
* IMSL, InfoExplorer, ITPACK, LAPACK, Maple, MATLAB, MOTECC, NCAR graphics,
* Nexpert, Nomad2, ORACLE, SAS, SLATEC, Tekplot.
====================================================================

> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 13:04:00 EDT
> From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION C
> 1. Are all of the course experiments given in the paper or are those
> just the ones that make use of computers?
* These are all the experiments each student performed in 1991.
* From year to year experiments may change. Many of these experiments
* have been used for a number of years.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION D
> 2. Does the course do anything with digital (or analog) methods for
> signal enhancement?
* No
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION E
> 3. Does the course do anything with vacuum techniques? ( I know that
> doesn't have much to do with computers; I'm just curious.)
* The Vapor Pressure of Water experiment (Section VI-A-12, See Section
* VII Reference 7, p. 223 to 226) uses a vacuum pump and manometer.
* Vacuum distillations are performed in the organic chemistry
* laboratory course.
* Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum
* techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform?
=====================================================================

> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 14:59:30 -0400
> From: Jack Martin Miller
> Subject: Re: P1Ques: standardized computers

---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION F
> Does low cost with everyone on a minimalist computer achieve better
> goals than having fewer computers shared, but able to do what is
> expected in the real world?
* I believe that every student having his own computer AND access to
* a network which provides more sophisticated hardware and software,
* local electronic mail plus access to BITNET and INTERNET provides
* access to the real world. I believe this is a good solution to
* the problem of maximizing the return obtained with limited financial
* resources. I realize
* there are people at Clarkson and elsewhere who do not agree with me.
* Most schools have not required that each student acquire a computer.
* (See my answers to Questions A and B)
======================================================================

> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 14:06:00 CDT
> From: Ray Sommers
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION G
> re: V A 1 Fig. 8; Which set of data was used for the figure - or is
> it just a representative figure ?
* All data and figures were not taken from the same report.
* Figures 1 to 5 were taken from a student's 1989 report.
* The data in Figure 6 were taken from an earlier laboratory report.
* At one time chromatograms were obtained on the Aerograph as well
* as the Sigma 2000.
* The isothermal data for Figure 8 and Figure 8 were taken from a 1991
* report. The retention times (in seconds) were 55.8 for heptane,
* 80.4 for octane, 124.2 for nonane, 202.2 for decane and 342.6 for
* undecane, 61.2 for 4-methyl-2-pentanone and 73.2 for cyclopentanone.
* The plot (and least squares fit) was made in part to test the
* linearity of a ln(retention time) vs number of carbons plot.
* The Kovats indices obtained from the plot will be somewhat different
* from what is calculated using data for heptane and octane as is
* usually done.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION H
> re: V A 1 Fig. 8: Was the raw data reentered by keyboard for the plot
> or was it manipulated from that originally collected?
* The data was obtained from the Sigma 2000 (in a form like Figure 4).
* This student elected to convert minutes to seconds.
* The data was manually entered into the least squares program and
* then used in the plot program.
* Incidentally, someone has indicated that the legends for Figures
* 1 to 4 presented in Section IX of my paper do not correspond to
* the legends in the Figures. Originally, I had planned to present
* the data before the curves. Then I decided it would be better to
* present the elution curves first. I never made this change in
* Section IX. I'm sorry about that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION I
> re V B; In the first line specifying p-cyanoacetophenone I am not
> familiar with the 2 E-3 M designation or the 1443-80-7.
> Could you explain?
* 2 E-3 M is 0.002 Molar
* 1443-80-7 is the Chemical Abstracts Registry Number for this compound
=====================================================================

> From: "Arthur M. Halpern"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION J
> Concerning the use of computers in the physical chemistry laboratory,
> do any of the experiments described involve the use of on-line data
> acquisition by the computer from an instrument?
* The Gas Chromatography Experiment (IV-B-1) and Infrared Gas Spectrum
* Experiment (VI-A-7), and ultraviolet and infrared spectra obtained
* in the Controlled Potential Electrolysis Experiment (IV-B-5) involve
* the use of instruments controlled by computers (Data Stations).
* The liquid scintillation counter and gamma ray spectrometer contain
* programmable microprocessors.
* Most of our spectroscopy equipment is computer controlled.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION K
> Also, do you deal with ADC methods/techniques in that part of
> the lab course?
* No
=====================================================================

> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 16:47:44 -0600
> From: "Douglas A. Coe"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION L
> 1. Do you have a short course for "classical" quantitative
> analysis? If not, why not? How much "classical" quantitative
> analysis do students get in the first year?
* Clarkson does not offer a separate course in "classical"
* quantitative analysis. Volumetric and gravimetric techniques
* are taught in the freshmen laboratory course and at the beginning
* of the sophomore spectroscopy course. Acid-base titrations using
* an indicator and pH meter are performed. Oxidation-reduction
* titrations are performed. A gravimetric chloride determination
* is usually performed. I believe that many schools in recent
* years have opted to include gravimetric and volumetric analysis
* in freshman laboratory.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION M
> 2. In what courses, other than those you mentioned, do you teach
> the statistical treatment of data?
* Some statistics and numerical methods are taught in the freshman
* general chemistry laboratory course and in the computer course.
* These methods are used in the sophomore spectroscopy course.
* Just how much is taught depends upon the instructor.
* We have sometimes taught an elective senior level - graduate
* course entitled "The Analysis Of Experimental Data". Some
* students elect to take statistical methods and numerical methods
* courses in the math department.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION N
> 3. How does Clarkson manage to insure that each entering student
> is able to purchase a microcomputer?
* All students pay a $ 300 deposit when they first receive the
* computer. The remainder of the money for the computer comes
* from tuition. Once they graduate the computer is theirs to keep.
* If the student elects not to keep the computer $ 200 is returned.
=====================================================================

> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 21:45:17 -0600
> From: Gerald Morine
QUESTION O
> 1. The author wrote that previously students were given instruction in
> BASIC and FORTRAN, and wrote data analysis programs, for example, on the
> kinetics experiment. Do you still require or even encourage students to
> learn these languages? Why or why not?
* I taught BASIC and FORTRAN to students at a time when the Department
* of Chemistry had a PDP8 and there was not a lot of applications
* software readily available. FORTRAN was taught using an IBM mainframe.
* When students had personal computers they took an introductory course
* in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science in which they
* learned PASCAL. A few years later the course consisted largely of
* applications software and some FORTRAN. During the 1992-1993 our
* students were taught Word Perfect and Lotus-1,2,3.
* Also, students familiarized themselves with the features of the
* Clarkson Computing Network. Opinion within the Department is divided
* regarding the content of the introductory computing course. Our
* theoretical chemists would like students to learn FORTRAN, other
* members of the Department would like them to become familiar with
* specific applications software. Next year for the first time
* students will have the option of taking one of three introductory
* computer courses - a course taught by the Department of Mathematics
* and Computer Science, the School of Engineering or the School of
* Management. These three courses are quite different in their content.
* I believe every chemistry major should be able to program in a
* general purpose high level programming language like PASCAL, FORTRAN
* or BASIC. (The high school AP course features PASCAL.) Students
* should be able to routinely use word processing and a spreadsheet.
* I believe these are essential tools for practicing chemists.
* Students need to write programs and/or use spreadsheets to perform
* calculations.

* WHAT DOES EVERY UNDERGRADUATE CHEMISTRY MAJOR NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
* COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING? The ACS Division of Computers in Chemistry
* and the ACS Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers
* in Chemical Education are co-sponsoring symposium sessions at the
* 1994 fall ACS meeting in Washington to address this and related
* questions. Dr. Angelo Rossi (IBM T J Watson Research Center, P.O.
* Box 218, Yorktown Heights NY 10598, Phone: 213-456-4401, e-mail:
* ROSSI@WATSON.IBM.COM) and Dr. Kenneth W. Loach (Department of
* Chemistry, SUNY College, Plattsburgh NY 12901, Phone: 518-564-4116,
* e-mail: LOACHKW@SNYPLAVA.BITNET) are organizing the sessions.

* WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION? *****************
* Should every undergraduate chemistry major know how to program in
* a higher level language? - What about C? - What about molecular
* modelling? - word processing - spreadsheets - numerical methods -
* statistical methods - other applications software, INTERNET,
* computer architecture, interfacing and computer electronics,
* the use of computer interfaced equipment and associated software?

* WHAT SHOULD EVERY GRADUATE STUDENT KNOW? **************************

---------------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTION P
> 2. Other "Short Questioners" have asked about electronic signal
> enhancement and A/D conversion. I would like to broach the same
> subject in different terms. Specifically, are all the computer-data
> acquisition experiments hard-wired or commercial connections, or do
> students do any practical electronics in the course of running these
> experiments?
* All computer data acquisition experiments currently being performed
* involve the use of commercially interfaced instruments.
* The Second Order Kinetics experiment (Section VI-A-10) uses
* a Wheatstone bridge, conductance cell, decade capacitance
* box, electronic oscillator and oscilloscope. Students have to
* connect the components, use the equipment and draw a circuit diagram
* for the final report. For the Controlled Potential Electrolysis
* experiment (Section V-B) the apparatus has to be assembled - the
* potentiostat has to be connected to the electrolysis cell, and the
* standard resistor and digital millivolt meter and knive switch must
* be connected to the circuit.
* This is a required course for all chemistry majors. All topics
* can not be included. I have chosen not to emphasize electronics
* or interfacing in the laboratory course. These topics are not
* emphasized in the required first semester junior yeat lecture
* course. We have sometimes offered elective courses covering these
* topics. There are courses in electrical engineering and physics
* covering these topics which some of our students elect.

* DO MANY OF YOU INCLUDE MUCH ELECTRONICS OR INTERFACING IN REQUIRED
* UNDERGRADUATE COURSES? ********************************************
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION Q
> 3. What are the safety precautions that are followed to make taking
> viscosities of concentrated sulfuric acid solutions, in the Nylon
> experiment, safe?
* Each student is required to wear safety glasses and a laboratory
* apron and is not permitted to pipet by mouth. We emphasize safety.
* There are Safety Regulations which students are required to read
* and then to sign a statement indicating they have read the regulations
* and agree to abide by them.
* We have a Departmental Safety Committee. A monthly Inspection
* Committee is appointed and makes two unannounced inspections each
* month of research and instructional laboratories and the chemistry
* storerrom. This Inspection Committee consists of an undergraduate,
* a graduate student and a faculty member. They turn in an inspection
* report. The Safety Committee reviews these reports and takes
* appropriate action.
=====================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 10:05:42 CDT
From: "Harmon B. Abrahamson"
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network
Subject: Paper 1, Re: Answer to short Question E
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon,
21 Jun 1993 07:56:00 EDT from

,
In his reply to short questions on paper 1, Donald Rosenthal writes:

> QUESTION E
...
> * Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum
> * techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform?

To my knowledge, we at Univ. of North Dakota do not use vacuum
techniques in our Junior-level P. Chem. lab. We DO, however,
use them in our Senior-level Advanced Synthesis Lab, where we
do vapor pressure and molecular mass measurements, along with
synthetic chemistry in the vacuum line. This course is taken by
chem. majors wanting an ACS-approved degree (typically about
one-quarter of our majors).

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Harmon B. Abrahamson | BITNET: UD108726@NDSUVM1
Department of Chemistry | INTERNET: UD108726@VM1.NoDak.EDU
University of North Dakota | PHONE: (701) 777-2641
PO BOX 9024 | FAX: (701) 777-2331
Grand Forks, ND 58202-9024 |************************************
| What's nu? E/h of course!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 13:56:12 -0400
From: "Mr. Science"
Subject: Re: Paper 1, Re: Answer to short Question E

"Number One, engage text-extractor beam... NOW!!"
"Aye, Captain!!"
BBBZZZFFFTTT!!!
"Captain, previous message locked into extractor beam. Begin reply?"
"Mr. Riker... Make it so!"

>
> * Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum
> * techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform?
>

Here at georgetown, our senior year labs involve several experiments that
utilize one form or another of vacuum technique. The senior year is when we
schedule our Physical Chemistry & Advanced Chemistry Lab courses.

The experiments we do with some form of vacuum techniques are as follows:

Simple use of vacuum pumps:

1. Velocity of sound in a gas via FFT analysis in a Kundt's tube.
2. Critical Point apparatus for gases.

Vacuum-line:

1. Synthesis of Hydrogen and deuterium Halides for spectroscopic analysis.
2. Synthesis of Various Inorganic compounds.

Students are, of course, supervised during an initial run, and then given
some latitude to run the equipment on their own, but with supervisory
personnel (graduate student T.A.'s or faculty) present in the room, keeping
a watchful (yet somewhat-distance) eye on what is going on - this gives the
students a chance to develop style, skill and confidence without feeling
like they need babysitters nor getting used to coddling - something the
Department feels very strongly about.

We use some very elementary vaccum lines - nothing fancy or complicated.
Additional information is available (via email or hardcopy) upon request.

regards,

Tony ;>

Date this awe-inspiring message was sent: 21-JUN-1993 13:47:55
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
| Anthony V. Rosati | |
| Department of Chemistry, | "A nation that cannot think, |
| Georgetown University | cannot survive." |
| Washington, D.C. 20057-2222 | |
| ROSATI@GUSUN.GEORGETOWN.EDU | - Norman Mailer, 1992 |
| A_ROSATI@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU | National Press Club |
# ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== #
| Information Exchange Coordinator and Member, Board of Directors |
| National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) |
| 1993 - 1994 |
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 13:55:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Some Questions

QUESTIONS - QUESTIONS
-----------------------------------------------------------------

VIII. SOME QUESTIONS

I would be interested in learning what other participants are
doing at their colleges and universities. Perhaps some of you would
respond to one or more of the following:

1. How are instrumental analysis and physical chemistry laboratory
taught at your school?

2. Briefly describe one or more experiments which you consider to be
particularly effective.

3. Describe how computers and computer software are used in these
courses. Is the use of specific software optional or required?

4. What do you consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of your
courses?

---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION E

* Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum
* techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION O

* WHAT SHOULD EVERY GRADUATE STUDENT KNOW? **************************

---------------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTION P

* DO MANY OF YOU INCLUDE MUCH ELECTRONICS OR INTERFACING IN REQUIRED
* UNDERGRADUATE COURSES? ********************************************
---------------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 14:50:00 EDT
From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694"
Subject: Paper 1

My earlier questions about vacuum experiments and sigital/analog signal
processing had to do with questions we are asking here about the goals of
the physical chemistry laboratory course. Certainly the course should serve
to illustrate principles taught in the lecture and should introduce students
to the acquisition and treatment of quantitative data and our course (which
seems very similar to the Clarkson course except we don't use computers
nearly as much) certainly does these things. Our advanced synthetic course
(organic/inorganic) has as a major goal to teach students a number of
important basic lab techniques that are commonly used by many synthetic
chemists. Physical chemistry lab courses don't do as much of that. Among
the important and widely-used techniques used by physical chemists I would
certainly include high vacuum (i.e. the production and measurement of
vacuums down to the microtorr range) and some of the basic digital and
analog techniques of signal processing/enhancement (e.g. lock-in
amplifiers, digital filtering).

Our course includes a mass spectrometer experiment (magnetic sector) which
uses an ion pump to get to pressures of about 10 microtorr; we don't say
much about the vacuum techniques used, however. We do nothing right now
with signal processing.

Judging from what we find in our graduate students we are not alone in
neglecting this aspect of p. chem lab. I would be interested to learn what
other schools do and think about this and what other techniques should be
included in a basic list.
this conference you might want to address replies to me (lpg@psuvm.psu.edu).
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 14:17:00 EST
From: "Arthur M. Halpern"
Subject: Re: Paper 1

In reply to the question that Don Rosenthal posed about other applications
of computer-assisted physical chemistry experiments, I would like to offer
the following information:
At Indiana State University, we use, in addition to the spectroscopy
experiments (e.g. using the FTIR spectrometer in the classic HCl (DCl)
experiment) several others that are on-line, and which use considerable
post-acquisition computer-based analysis.
In the physical chemistry laboratory, we use the scientific and
statistical program, RS1 (BBN Software, Cambridge, Mass.) for all phases of
data analysis and presentation. RS1 is an extremely powerful package that
has the particular advantage of being able to fit experimental data, whether
entered into a table manually or through a file from a disk, to any
arbitrary one-dimensional function (the FITFUNCTION routine). Thus the
data needn't be in simple polynomial or exponential form. Also, in RS1,
students can write procedures (language similar to FORTRAN), compile them,
and run them to operate on, fit, display, etc. their data. Exploratory
calculations can also be simply done using RS1 procedures. Thus RS1 combines
the basic organizational and graphical assets of a spreadsheet such as
EXCEL, and the graphing, exploring capability of MATHCAD into one very
flexible system. The down side of RS1 is that, being an 'industrial
strength' package, its expensive (about $400 after edu. discount); also it
is much more esoteric than the consumer-oriented LOTUS, EXCEL, QUATTRO,
MATHCAD, etc.

Yet I find that the students pick up the RS1 command language fairly easily.
We bought four licenses, and have then installed on four systems of our
small departmental cluster (of 7 486's). Also, RS1 generates high quality
(publication quality) plots on the HP 7440 (or whatever HP).
A few experiments that we use for data acquisition are:

1. thermal analysis - constructing the phase diagram of the
naphthalene-biphenyl system. We use an inexpensive conditioning transducer
(Temperature to Analog Converter) from Omega to send the T(t) data into a
bottom-of-the-line Metrabyte ADC, which is in an old Zenith 8088. The data
files are then read into RS1, where a derivative procedure converts them
into the
first derivative, which is plotted vs. T. In this way the positions of the
depressed melting points and eutectic transitions are much more easily
identified. Students get very good data for this system. Cooling and
heating curves are usually used in tandem.

2. collision diameters from gas viscosities - here, the output from an
inexpensive pressure transducer (Omega), which monitors the pressure of an
gas-handling manifold and 1-liter ballast as the gas is evacuated through a
capillary, is fed into the Metrabyte ADC. The files are read into RS1 and
then analyzed in terms of 1/P = 1/Po + kt, where k is determined from the
known viscosity of air. The above equation follows from the integration of
the Poiseuille equation assuming perfect gas behavior. Very good data are
obtained IF the pressure of the
gas does not exceed a point above which nonlaminar flow results (this can be
estimated from the Reynolds number - I have the students do a simple
calculation to estimate this point - for Ar, it is about 100 torr) and IF
the pressure doesn't get too low where bulk flow gives over to molecular
flow - this point the students can estimate from a comparison of the mean
free path vis-a-vis the diameter of the capillary tube.

3. chemical kinetics - the product formed in a mixed second order is
followed spectrometrically - again using an old 8088 baby sitting for an
ADC. The data are fed into RS1, and a derivative procedure allows the
students to analyze the kinetics using the differential rate law. In this
form, d[P](t)/dt = k{[A]o - [P](t)}^a {[B]o - [P](t)}^b , the students FIRST
confirm
that a = b = 1 by using the FITFUNCTION routene in RS1, and then using a =
b = 1 find k. Of course, they know [A]o and [B]o, as well as the extinction
coefficient for the product from a separate experiment.
Measuring k(T), and thereby Ea, is an extension that some students
can follow.
Using RS1 allows the study of the complex kinetics of an
enzyme-catalyzed reaction to be followed in real time and analyzed using
nonlinear methods. The 'burst' of product, formed in the classic hydrolysis
of an ester by alpha-chymotrypsin, is readily seen in real time acquisition
and analyzed according to P(t) = At + B{1 - exp(-bt)}.

Some of these experiments are completely described in a p chem textbook that
I write several years ago (Experimental Physical Chemistry: A Laboratory
Textbook Scott,Foresman/Little,Brown, 1988).

If you'd like further information, please contact me.

BITNET: CHAMH@INDSVAX1
VOICE: (812) 237-2182
FAX: (812) 237-2232

Arthur M. Halpern
Department of Chemistry
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN 47809
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 15:26:50 EDT
From: "C. H. Lochmuller"
Subject: Re: Some Questions
In-Reply-To: <9306211908.AA20356@umd5.umd.edu>; from "Donald Rosenthal" at Jun
21, 93 1:55 pm

Duke University

P. Chem is distinct from Analytical and we do not teach an Instrumental
Analysis Course per se. Our analytical course is post-P. Chem. The
experiments are illustrative of modern thought in analytical chemistry and
not a redindant series of external/internal calibrations. One can run into
the problem that experiments are viewed as either step change response or
the first derivative }peaks} if "instrumental analysis" is the emphasis {we
believe}.

Our students use modern instruments to obtain data for analysis. All our
instruments are capapble of transferring the experimental data structures to
a course dedicated VAX. The students then use MATLAB in a UNIX-like
environment to work up their data, get results, do graphical and numerical
analysis and prepare a report. All via ethernet campus-wide. Actually the
course VAX is an end-node on Internet and we do have students logging in
from thousands of miles remote over holidays finishing their latest lab
report.

All dorm rooms here have two independent fiber drops and two workstations.
All Internet as well as DukeLAN connected.

Depending on the experiment, our Analytical students do: Rank Annihilation,
Single Value Decomposition Factor Analysis, Target Factor Prediction, ANOVA,
Non-Linear LSQ Modeling and Pattern Recognition. The experiments include use
of: AA, DAD UV, FLuorescence, STM, Fully-automated HPLC, Voltammetry,
Neutron Activation, GCMS.

There are no interfacing experiments in our course sequences. All our
experiemnts are "interfaced" and all data is in digital format.
C. H. Lochmueller
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 15:52:14 +22306404
From: "Dr. John A. Pojman"
Subject: Pchem at USM

At the University of Southern Mississippi, the pchem lab has had little
computer interfacing. Apple IIe computers with HRM software and hardware
were used. We are purchasing Macintosh IIvx with Strawberry Tree
A/D boards to study the BZ oscillating reaction. (Data can be downloaded
to a Mac or DOS disk. Students will do phase plane analysis -- something
that can't be done with a strip chart recorder).

Our Instrumental ANalysis course does not explicity address interfacing.

John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
(601) 266-5035
FAX: (601) 266-5829
INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:01:29 -0400
From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster

Does anyone else do as Clarkson does and builds the cost oc a computer into
fees?

The cost is written off over four years of fees or in the first year?

My earlier questions and comments re "Real World Use" Questions B and F are
based on our findings that the graphical aspects of data analysis, chemical
models, molecular modeling software etc. are among the most important
aspects of Chemical Computing. In a DOS only environment without a GUI, it
doesn't mater how sophisticated the network programs are, you are still in
a comand line interface mode and not a true WYSIWYG environment so
essential to not just modern chemisry, but to computing in general. If not
why is Windows a runnaway best seller on top of DOS today and why are DOS
applications declining in sales wrt their Windows analogues. Those of us on
the Mac side of the fencehave been saying why for 10 years. Compelling
studnets into a DOS only environment seems to me to have the same relevence
to modern Chemputing as would BASIC programming courses!
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:09:10 -0400
From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster

In my opinion all the listed topics are important but somethinghas to
give, and iff so the higher level programing language couldwell be dropped.
So much is done in packages and their macros, een ab initio
theoreticalcalculation use Gaussian or related programs. Only theoreticians
or someone designing new computer controlled hardware really have the
programming need.

I can program but havn't had to except for a bit of code clean up in 10
years. That doesn't prevent me from being hired as a consultant on major
instrumentation projects. Compputer "architecture" per se is not needed,
but interfacing and associated software is a very useful topic -- again on
a package basis -- I've helped design electronic interfaces, and teach it
on a qualitative basis in my advanced instrumentation course in year 4 (a
course in applied sales resistance -- I turn my students loose on the
instrument vendors). Detaisl of architectorue neednot me taught -- a bit of
cpu on chip architecture can be inclded for the hardware gurus, but it
needn't be dwelled on.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:12:29 -0400
From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster

We have vacuum system experiments in P. Chem. (spectroscopy labs) the HCL
isotope expt combined with FTIR, in inorganic synthesis labs, in
instrumetal analysis as part of mass spec, and as part of my advanced
instrumentation course, and in some detail in grad. mass spec. courses.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 01:14:00 CDT
From: Ray Sommers
Subject: Paper 1

UW Stevens Point has 15 faculty in Chem and about 10 majors/year.
PC's are available in 4 student labs as well as about 15 in
in the chemistry labs etc.

Our analytical and pchem courses are separate. I am not familiar
with the pchem course. Our instrumental analysis course does not
do any interfacing.

I teach an analytical course for chemistry
minors. This is the second analytical course they take. In a kinetic
experiment we interface to a Novaspec 2 spectrophotometer via the
RS-232 port. A short program in BASIC allows us to collect absorbance
vs. time. We follow the fading of crystal violet in NaOH. It is
pseudo first order because the NaOH concentration is relatively high.
Three runs are made with known NaOH concs. and then with an unknown
conc NaOH. The data is stored in a file and then analyzed either
with a locally developed plot program or a spreadsheet. Last year
I gave each person a copy of the shareware spreadsheet ASEASYAS and
we used that for the analysis in this experiment as well in other
experiments. This experiment was formerly done with a TRS-80 and
an A/D converter.

|==================================================================|
| | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ |
| | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | |
| / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ |
| / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) |
| (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ |
|==================================================================|
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 06:43:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Paper 1 discussion

My feeling is that it is not practical to make courses on
electronics, interfacing, and computer programming a REQUIREMENT
for ALL chemistry majors, many of whom want to be physicians or
dentists, not scientists. Even most scientists treat these aspects
as "black box". Here at U. of Maryland I have taught
for many years separate upper-level undergraduate ELECTIVE courses
on those subjects. These turn out to be quite popular with
graduate students, who appreciate more than the typical undergraduate
the utility of such ancillary topics for their research. The
experiments emphasize group projects in which student teams design,
construct, program, and test simple computer-automated measurement
systems from basic parts (ADCs, op. amps, stepper motors,
monochromators, etc.), apply digital signal enhancement algorithms,
explore aspects of computer graphics, networking, and data exchange
between platforms.

Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:45:11 -0400
From: Tom Richardson
Subject: paper1

The Citadel is (again) exploring the possibility and feasability of "having
a PC/MAC in every bunk"

Among the problems that the committee has identified are the power load (on
older "dormatory" facilities).

As far as financing goes, by making it a part of the fee structure, this part
of college expense will be eligible for the student loan process (as well
as it works!)

Tom Richardson Assoc Prof Chemistry Department
DICKSONT@CITADEL.BITNET Charleston SC 29409
.edu also works
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:18:27 EDT
From: "Frank M. Lanzafame"
Subject: Gooey Computing

> In a DOS only environment without a GUI, it doesn't mater how
> sophisticated the network programs are, you are still in a command
> line interface mode and not a true WYSIWYG environment so essential
> to not just modern chemistry, but to computing in general.

I run ChiWriter as a true WYSIWYG word processor. It has an excellent
handling of multi level expressions with growing WYSIWYG structures that
expand as you build equations and formulae. It runs under DOS.

> If not why is Windows a runnaway best seller on top of DOS today and
> why are DOS applications declining in sales wrt their Windows
> analogues.

There is no accounting for taste or naivete (mine). I have purchased
Procomm for Windows, Quattro Pro for Windows, and Mathcad for Windows.
I prefer and still use the DOS versions of these programs;
particularly Procomm. Starting from a command line does not mean that
the program necessarily runs from a command line. If the Lord had
intended that we use mice, she would not have given us fingers with
which to type.

> Compelling studnets into a DOS only environment seems to me to have
> the same relevence to modern Chemputing as would BASIC programming
> courses!

Gee, I feel like one of the scenic attractions in Jurassic Park. I
think that some of the "modern", structured, compiled versions of BASIC
such as QuickBasic are not terribly different from "in" languages such
as C. Perhaps I should teach my BASIC problem solving course in the
History Department.

:-)

-----------------------------------------------------------
| Frank M. Lanzafame Department of Chemistry |
| Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. |
| Rochester, NY 14623 (716) 292-2000 Ext. 5130 |
| Internet: flanzafame@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu |
-----------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:40:55 +22306404
From: "Dr. John A. Pojman"
Subject: What Undergraduates need to Know

Regarding what every undergraduate chemistry major should know about
computers and programming:

What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers.
Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such
as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines
available. Maybe C is "better" but I can't say myself. Even if
Esperonto is more logical than English, not teaching English would be
a mistake for anyone who wants to communicate in the scientific world.

We want our students to use computers for what they are good at: Manipulation
of large amout of data. Therefore, knowledge of data analysis and fitting
programs like Kaleidagraph are emphasized along with word processing.
Students have choice of DOS based packages or Mac ones. THey want in
line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as
possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to
be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later.

Regarding numerical analysis: Knowing a great deal about methods is not
chemistry. However, anyone using numerical techniques should be aware
of the limitations of computers, even if they could not write the program
themselves. THat's what professional programmers are paid to do.

John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
(601) 266-5035
FAX: (601) 266-5829
INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:44:44 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 1 discussion

>My feeling is that it is not practical to make courses on
>electronics, interfacing, and computer programming a REQUIREMENT
>for ALL chemistry majors, many of whom want to be physicians or
>dentists, not scientists. Even most scientists treat these aspects
>as "black box". Here at U. of Maryland I have taught
>for many years separate upper-level undergraduate ELECTIVE courses
>on those subjects. These turn out to be quite popular with
>graduate students, who appreciate more than the typical undergraduate
>the utility of such ancillary topics for their research. The
>experiments emphasize group projects in which student teams design,
>construct, program, and test simple computer-automated measurement
>systems from basic parts (ADCs, op. amps, stepper motors,
>monochromators, etc.), apply digital signal enhancement algorithms,
>explore aspects of computer graphics, networking, and data exchange
>between platforms.
>
I agree. We strongly recommend a Physics taught electronics course and a
computer science course in either packages or a higher level language, C or
Fortran.

I also teach the instrumentation course I described last night in fourth
year and an interpretive spectroscopy (IR, NMR, MS, UV etc) in third year.

Listserv at UMDD doesn't like me -- I'm the undetermined origin three
messages that went out this morning. Sometimes it takes them and sometimes
it rejects them from the same e-mail package -- the only Listserv I have
trouble with.

Prof. Jack M. Miller,
Dept. of Chemistry,
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ont. L2S 3A1, Canada
jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:10:45 EDT
From: "C. H. Lochmuller"
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: <9306221359.AA05918@umd5.umd.edu>; from "Dr. John A. Pojman" at
Jun 22, 93 8:40 am

> What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers.
> Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such
> as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines

> line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as
> possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to
> be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later.
> John A. Pojman, Ph.D.

said:

I find no inconvenience in using Windows environment for any of the tasks
mentioned. As for Fortran, there are few chemical applications written in
recent times and commercially available that are FORTRAN-based. The fact is
that our Freshman do Allinger-type calculations as stereochem homework
including simulated 3D presentaion but need not write a line of code.

If students are standing in line for MAC use and MAC application, it is
because the DOS environment they are confronted with is on a par with
Fortran IIc. There are few wordprocessing advantages in a MAC environment
that are not matched or bettered in a Windows application. And the cost per
student is less { i486 engines are under $1K now}.

Numerical analysis can be presented much the way IR, NMR, and MS are by the
organic faculty - a tool whose physics is important but not a problem in
routine application. Even helping student understanding is only a question
of leading them through an eigenanalysis using computer projection and eigen
movies in class.

CHL
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:22:55 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know

>Regarding what every undergraduate chemistry major should know about
>computers and programming:
>
>What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers.
>Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such
>as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines
>available. Maybe C is "better" but I can't say myself. Even if
>Esperonto is more logical than English, not teaching English would be
>a mistake for anyone who wants to communicate in the scientific world.
>

If by "familiar" you mean a reading knowledge, to get some idea what the
program does, fine, but to get familiar you can either take the same course
the programers do or have a couple of lectures to give you theprinciples,
and take a self instruction book. Whith two one hour lectures in Fortran
I've written large programs, been a consultant to instrument vendors etc.
-- i.e. self taught. Its a question of what you do with it afterward. In
most cases the vendors do not give you access to source code so knowing the
language won't help you debug their programs. As you say below --datsa
manipulation and using packages are the key.

>We want our students to use computers for what they are good at: Manipulation
>of large amout of data. Therefore, knowledge of data analysis and fitting
>programs like Kaleidagraph are emphasized along with word processing.
>Students have choice of DOS based packages or Mac ones. THey want in
>line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as
>possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to
>be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later.
>
>Regarding numerical analysis: Knowing a great deal about methods is not
>chemistry. However, anyone using numerical techniques should be aware
>of the limitations of computers, even if they could not write the program
>themselves. THat's what professional programmers are paid to do.
>
>
>--
>
>John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
>(601) 266-5035
>FAX: (601) 266-5829
>INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
>or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:22:04 EST
From: Caesar Senoff
Subject: Re: Paper 1
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 01:14:00 CDT from

Could you provide some more information about the "shareware spreadsheet
ASEASYAS"?

Caesar Senoff
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, CANADA, N1G 2W1
Chmsenof@vm.UoGuelph.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 17:17:35 RSA
From: Leslie Glasser <009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA>
Subject: Re: Paper 1
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 08:22:04 EST from

ASEASYAS is an excellent spreadsheet for general use. The graphics, particular
ly, is easily accessible from within the sheet; the program is fast; it is reas
onably economical of memory (but only of standard memory); it is largely compat
ible with 1-2-3. It does lack some sophisticated functions, but it is excellen
t value for money, at $50. Available from Trius, Inc., PO Box 249, N. Andover
, MA 01845-1639. Tel: 508-794-9377 FAX: 508-688-6312.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Prof.) Leslie Glasser Dept. of Chemistry
E_MAIL: 009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA University of the Witwatersrand
Tel: (011)-716-2070 WITS 2050
FAX: (011)-339-7967 South Africa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 17:25:26 RSA
From: Leslie Glasser <009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA>
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 10:10:45 EDT from

With regard to wordprocessing for students (or anyone!), it is hard to beat LaT
ex together with the windowing environment, TEXSHELL.Both are available free, i
n an excellent DOS implementation (emTeX) and it is does the best imaginable jo
b of layout, especially of mathematics.
It is a bit of a pain to set up, but there is no more training required than fo
r, say, WordPerfect. It is not WYSIWIG, but almost transparently obvious in it
s layout.
LG

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Prof.) Leslie Glasser Dept. of Chemistry
E_MAIL: 009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA University of the Witwatersrand
Tel: (011)-716-2070 WITS 2050
FAX: (011)-339-7967 South Africa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:50:33 -0600
From: "Douglas A. Coe"
Subject: Paper #1 - Computer Course for Chem Majors

We are beginning a discussion centered on offering a computer course
(really a series of two credit sequenced lecture/laboratory courses at the
sophomore, junior, and senior levels) for chemistry majors. While computer
courses are available through the computer science department, their
emphasis and examples are not really what we would like our majors to be
exposed to. WHAT OTHER INSTITUTIONS OFFER COMPUTER COURSES FOR THEIR
MAJORS? WHAT DO YOU DO IN THESE COURSES? HOW ARE THEY STRUCTURED?

The topics we are considering include DOS, WINDOWS,
wordprocessing, spreadsheets, databases, drawing programs, curve fitting
programs, statistical software, on-line searching, numerical methods,
advanced math programs (e.g. MAPLE), programming languages, e-mail, the
Internet, molecular modeling, and chemcial speciation programs. ANY
COMMENTS CONCERNING THE APPROPRIATENESS (OR LACK THEREOF) OF THESE TOPICS
WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

Doug Coe
Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology
dacoe%mtvms2.mtech.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 12:40:49 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: Gooey Computing
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 09:18:27 EDT from

The Windows version of Mathcad is far superior to the DOS version--mice
notwithstanding.

Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 12:42:05 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 08:40:55 +22306404 from

We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be
unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform
a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries
that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching
FORTRAN.
On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:40:55 +22306404 Dr. John A. Pojman said:
>Regarding what every undergraduate chemistry major should know about
>computers and programming:
>
>What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers.
>Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such
>as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines
>available. Maybe C is "better" but I can't say myself. Even if
>Esperonto is more logical than English, not teaching English would be
>a mistake for anyone who wants to communicate in the scientific world.
>
>We want our students to use computers for what they are good at: Manipulation
>of large amout of data. Therefore, knowledge of data analysis and fitting
>programs like Kaleidagraph are emphasized along with word processing.
>Students have choice of DOS based packages or Mac ones. THey want in
>line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as
>possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to
>be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later.
>
>Regarding numerical analysis: Knowing a great deal about methods is not
>chemistry. However, anyone using numerical techniques should be aware
>of the limitations of computers, even if they could not write the program
>themselves. THat's what professional programmers are paid to do.
>
>
>--
>
>John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
>(601) 266-5035
>FAX: (601) 266-5829
>INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
>or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu

Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 18:17:00 +0000
From: Karl Oberholser
Subject: Re: Nature of Courses

The computer course tha our majors take has an emphasis on learning how to
use different software packages with an introduction to programing. These
packages are then used throughout the chemistry curriculum. In the
instrumental lab the focus is on learning how an instrument works but in the
context of solving a real world problem, at least a much as possible. Many
of our instruments have commercial interfaces with computers. To give the
students some insight as to what is happening in that interface we have
interfaced a DB spectrometer with a computer using Labtech Notebook as the
software. This software permits the manipulation of the data in a number of
different ways so that the students can study the different ways of software
enhancement of the S/N. Doing this experiment opens the students' eyes as
to what is taking place in the commercial instruments. The use of word
processors and spreadsheets are required in the preparation of the lab reports.

Students in the biochemistry lab analyze their kinetic data using a program
developed using the RS1 software package. This program calculates the
constants using two different linear methods and the fitfunction rountine,
which is available in RS1, to analyze the hyperbolic curve. The program does
an error analysis of the three methods. The students are asked to compare and
discuss the results of the three methods. There are a large number of non-
majors in the course, and that is why the focus is on the comparison of the
results and not on the details of the data analysis.

.......................................................................

Item Subject: Signature
Karl M. Oberholser Internet: oberhols@mcis.messiah.edu
Natural Science Dept. Voice: 717-766-2511
Messiah College Fax: 717-691-6002
Grantham, PA 17027
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 13:40:15 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know

Prof Glasser wrote:

>With regard to wordprocessing for students (or anyone!), it is hard to beat LaT
>ex together with the windowing environment, TEXSHELL.Both are available free, i
>n an excellent DOS implementation (emTeX) and it is does the best imaginable jo
>b of layout, especially of mathematics.
>It is a bit of a pain to set up, but there is no more training required than fo
>r, say, WordPerfect. It is not WYSIWIG, but almost transparently obvious in it
>s layout.
>LG

And a horse and bugy will still get you from a to b. TEX and its variants
was a great mainframe tex setting system for complex equations for those
familiar with FORTRAN, but to use it in this day and age is to frighten
students from the true potential of word processors that include their
graphics, equations, tables etc. If a student is writing on the word
processor, whh they should be doing, the ability to see what you wrote is
all important. Try visualizing your page from the formulaic TEX jargon.

Don't use it just because it is free or cheap. It may not be worth it and
it may train students in the wrong direction. WYSIWYG is available, it is
not expensive whether Word for WIndows or Wordperfect with academic
discounts. We should be teaching for the next generation, not the past. We
should be using, not what we were comfortable with as students, (FORTRAN II
-- that dates me, and TITAN autocode), not what has been around for years,
but we should be preparing students for the 21st century.

CHEMCONF is supposed, I thought, to be about thenew technologies in
teaching chemistry, but I hear a lot of defense of outmoded hardware and
software.

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 13:54:32 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper #1 - Computer Course for Chem Majors

> We are beginning a discussion centered on offering a computer course
>(really a series of two credit sequenced lecture/laboratory courses at the
>sophomore, junior, and senior levels) for chemistry majors. While computer
>courses are available through the computer science department, their
>emphasis and examples are not really what we would like our majors to be
>exposed to.

As a chemist returning to full time in chemistry after three years as chair
of our computer science department I could suggest that youmight get your
computer scientists to put on a course directed at chemists or scientists
other that computer scientists. Half our COSC enrolement is in such survice
courses for the University. COSC does a FORTRAn course for Physics and
Chemisstry students.
There are also service courses that introduce packages, word processing,
spreadsheets, databases, stats packages and networking. We have three one
semester courses as a sequence. Well prepared students from high school can
enter the middle one, those with no background the lower, and take one, two
or three courses.

WHAT OTHER INSTITUTIONS OFFER COMPUTER COURSES FOR THEIR
>MAJORS? WHAT DO YOU DO IN THESE COURSES? HOW ARE THEY STRUCTURED?
>
> The topics we are considering include DOS, WINDOWS,
>wordprocessing, spreadsheets, databases, drawing programs, curve fitting
>programs, statistical software, on-line searching,

All this is offered by our COSC service courses

numerical methods,
>advanced math programs (e.g. MAPLE),

these are in our Math courses -- all calculus courses use MAPLE

>programming languages, e-mail, the
>Internet,

In cosc courses, thouugh various lab modules may involve internet usage as
well as library tools for essays

>molecular modeling,

a chemistry course in forth year and part of others

and chemcial speciation programs. ANY
>COMMENTS CONCERNING THE APPROPRIATENESS (OR LACK THEREOF) OF THESE TOPICS
>WOULD BE APPRECIATED.
>
Don't reinvent the wheel unless you can't get anyone else to do it on your
campus. Chemists should teach chemical computing, leaving the mechanical
basics toothers -- what may be a legit COSC credit looks funny on a
transcript labelled "Chemistry". They are tools that every chemist needs,
but shouldn't be chemistry courses on the most part.

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 13:37:02 +22306404
From: "Dr. John A. Pojman"
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: <9306221711.AA20395@umd5.umd.edu> from "Jim Holler" at Jun 22,
93 12:42:05 pm

I would have to agree with Jim Holler when he says:
>
> We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be
> unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform
> a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries
> that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching
> FORTRAN.

I would like students to have a better understanding of the problems of
computations, such as roundoff error. We were using a subroutine from
Numerical Recipes to calculate the slope of a line and the standard
deviation of the slope. The answers we obtained for the standard
deviation were dependent on what platform we used, i.e., a Mactran compiled
FORTRAN code gave a different answer then the same code compiled on a
IBM RISC/6000 workstation. A Hypercard implementation agreed with the
RISC results so we concluded that Mactran compiler was not carrying
the calculations with enough precision.

I don't think you need to be an ace programmer to appreciate the
limitations of any software, but wonder if the average programming
course addresses this issue enough?

John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
(601) 266-5035
FAX: (601) 266-5829
INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:19:18 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Gooey Computing

>The Windows version of Mathcad is far superior to the DOS version--mice
>notwithstanding.
>

Hear, hear!!

For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives to
manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make use of a
GUI with WYSISYG capabilities.

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:26:04 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know

Jim Holler siad
>We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be
>unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform
>a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries
>that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching
>FORTRAN.

I agree 100%. How many of theparticipants have access to the Fortran code
of the packages they use (most are likely in C anyway). I know what I have
to go through in signing non-disclosure agreements etc. to get access to
source code of my mass spec and nmr programs on my large instruments. In
one case I won a copy of the source code by betting on what bad programming
practice had been used in it which I detected from the performance without
ever having seen a line of the code.
If you plan to become a theoretician writng new algorithms then you need
to become a good programmer. Almost all the types of programming refered to
in these discussions caould just as well be done, or perhaps better done
with Excel macros in a spreadsheet.

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

ASEASYAS is also available as shareware from just about any shareware
source. Last year I used version 4.0 since it fit on one 360 K floppy.
The latest version is 5.5 with lots of new features. Generally the files
are compatable with Lotus 123 and Quatro (&Quatro Pro).

Quatro Pro is available to our students on our network but since many
have their own computers at home they appreciate their own copy of
ASEASYAS. ASEASYAS is also available to them via our library's
CDROM with the PCSIG collection of shareware (over 2000 disks of
stuff).

|==================================================================|
| | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ |
| | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | |
| / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ |
| / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) |
| (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ |
|==================================================================|
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:37:19 -0500
Reply-To: Ted Labuza
From: Ted Labuza
Subject: Student Computer requirements

I have prepared the following memo to the faculty in my department based on the
discuss on paper #1 and other thoughts. We are an applied science department,
food science, which uses many aspects of chemistry, biochemistry, physics,
chemical engineering etc. I myself have been using computers since my
undergraduate days at MIT in 1958 and have gone through many conversions. Is the
world around us moving faster than we can keep up and with the financial crises
occuring at most institutions will this electronic revolution grind to a halt or
should it be the way to go to educate if the cost can be shown to be minimal.
You may share the comments with your own faculty and I would appreciate any
additions, corrections, other useful software or other examples.

At both the graduate and undergraduate level we want our students to be
knowledgeable and able to handle work in a computer environment. They will
certainly be exposed to required to do that when they leave here. I have been
tracking the first computerchem conference on a listserve on email. It certainly
illustrates why math/calculus is the key to scientific language? What I have
come to as a conclusion is that students by the time they graduate should:

1. Know how to handle at least three environments
eg DOS, AMAC, OS2, Widows, UNIX etc

2. Know the rudiments of programmining, this teaches logic and illustrate how
computer interfaces work on instruments; for example on a densitometer, HPLC or
GC the insturument measures signal over noise as a function of time (or
distance), stores the data in an array and then derivatizes the signal-time
function and measures when ds/dt = 0 to get the start, maxima (ie retention time
or retention distance) and end point. It also intergrates the signal-time
(distance curve) to give area and multiplies by a constant (supplied by the
user) to get the total concentration. Do students understand this, do theyt
know how to write a program to do this? I think that they should be able to do
it. Mac users should also be exposed to the rudiments of the scripting language
in Hypercard. There are many programs available that use this and they can
increase their productivity by making such stacks for their own analysis of
data. This is what has been done for all the problem sets in FScN 5555 and 8312.

3. Given 2 above, the same thing can be learned in a spread sheet. Spreadsheets
are higher order languages using math and english notation to do the same thing.
Once they learn to do spreadsheets they have a much better way to handle their
own data. They should learn at least Excell or Lotus.

4. Many of they blindly use both linear and non-linear regression packages
without understanding them. Again simple techniques need to be understood in
programming so they see why it works? For example why do most non-linear
packages use the derivative method, ie the proposed equation is differentiated
for each constant and then the method finds when a change in one constants
causes a minimum change in all other consatants for all values of Y as a
function of X. As noted by J. Pojman on the computerchem conference in regards
to numericall analysis" Knowing a great deal about the methods is not
chemistry. However anyone using numerical analysis should be aware of the
limitations of computers, even if they could not write the programs themselves.
That's what professional progranmmers are paid to do". How many of us complain
about the number of significant figures handed in on problem sets, thats at
least one complaint we did not have back in the days of the slide rule. There
are many good packages for non-linear regression today including Sigmaplot (both
Mac and IBM) and Excell as well as the new Mac and IBM versions of JMP which is
a PC based SAS. They should be able to use this. This would then get them
exposed to using the PC for statistical data analysis. I presume that they do
this in stats classes, ie use the PC although some places it is still done on
the mainframe in a dinosaur like fashion unless they use a network to transfer
in the data.

5. They also should learn one or two graphics packages and feel comfortable in
making pie charts, bar graphs with error bars, and scatterplots with confidence
limits. They should also be able to understand the meaning of the constants when
the graphics package runs a polynomial or exponentila regrassion of the data for
plotting. This can be learned in many packages such as Sigmaplot and the
Spreadsheets but also in Deltagraph, Kaleaida graph, Cricket Graph, Plot It
etc.

6. They should learn some drawing program. Many are available such a Canvas,
McDraw etc. This insures that they can handle illustrations and download Clipart
into their drawings for exporting to a printer or to a word processing document.

7. They should have competency in using a visual aids graphics program in color,
ie a slide and overhead making program. This will be essential to insure they
have excellent communications skills. One of the best is PowerPoint but even
newer ones are coming on the market that will incorporate run time movies and
sound.

8. They must learn how to use e-mail and use a network system by logging onto
the internet and use the resources like Archie, Veronica and Jughead to find and
retrieve information. The minimum should be experience with something like
Fetch, Gopher or Telenet. They should learn how to access peripherals on a
network and transfer data.

9. They should know how to use a word processor inconjuction with an equation
editor and possibly a chemical drawing program. Of the latter, there are many
different ones available such as Mathcad, Chemwindows, Mathtype, Chemintosh etc.
For the word processing I prefer Word for both the IBM and Mac environments
since they can easily transfer formatted documents between them.

The major questions any department must need to adress to implement this is
whether:

1. we should be teaching this ourselves or should the "XXX" department do it? If
us, do we create a regular course. Who will teach it? If service (education) is
our goal, shouldn't we be implementing this now? Can we hire someone outside to
do this? Why not have a yearly seminar course (ie freshman, sophomore etc) that
is used to teach these skills?

2. We should be using this stuff ourselves (perhaps not all of us doing
programming) and certainly incorporate and require the use of the skills where
appropriate in all courses.

3. We should insist that students hand in homework by email to save time and
paper. Word 5.1a allows the marking of annotated notes in the original document
on disk so that you can correct in this way. email allows the transfer of
attached documents with graphics.

4. We should be using spreadsheet analysis in any of our courses where data
analysis is required. We can learn this easily and set up our test scores on a
speardsheet. That is a quick way to learn about some of the imbedded macros.

5. All faculty should have as a minimum working knowledge of word processing,
graphing, spreadsheets using some type of data analysis and visual aid programs.
Perhaps we need to teach us first. Who will do this? If we don't then our
students will be at a disadvantage in other courses which require such skills
and certainly when they eave for a job.Even US highschool students are learning
these skills. We cannot tolerate the situation where we will be using the
equivalant of a sliderule when the students are using the Thinkpad or Powerbook.

We should discuss this at the next faculty meeting and certainly in the program
committee meetings. The Computer committee should survey the courses in the
department to findout what is being done and used.

Dr Ted Labuza tplabuza@EPX.CIS.UMN.EDU or tplabuza@staff.tc.umn.edu
Department of Food Science & Nutrition
136 AMLMS U of Minnesota
St Paul, MN 55108
Home Fax 612-633-0627
Voice 612-624-9701 UM Fax 612-625-5272

"SURFING THE WAVES OF CYBERSPACE"
___
||
| \|
|__|
|
---|----
/ \
|___/__/\_____/
\ /\ /\ /\/\/\/\ /
\ /\ / \/ \ /\/ \ /
\/ \/ \/ \/

Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once". Except in
my office which exists in a time warp!!!
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:42:27 +0000
From: Ray Johnson
Subject: Re: Comp. Course for Chem. Majors

In answer to the question about "Computer Courses courses for Chem. Majors" (
Doug Coe), I would say what he has planned is similar to what I currently do
in a course called Computer Applications in Chemistry (2 hours). Since my
course started in 1974, and is offered every other year, it has never been the
same course twice. It started as a programming course using mainframes ("
Fortran and Basic to solve chemical problems"), later it was more of a data
analysis and numerical analysis course using these languages along with a few
quantum mechanical calculations thrown in, was later modified to be carried
out on IBM-PC's and also used these and Apple-II's for data acquisition and
analysis. However the last two times I have offered the course it has
emphasized applications packages, and now has very little traditional
programming in it. The college spent a great deal of money buying Macintosh
Computers so now most of the applications packages are on Mac II's with
instruments interfaced to IBM clones. The last time I offered the course (
Spring 1992) I covered wordprocessing (Microsoft Word), spreadsheets (Excel),
drawing (Chem Draw and ChemIntosh for chemical drawing and Canvas and a CAD
program to draw instruments, circuit diagrams, etc.), statistics (simple stuff
with Cricket Graph and more complex with Stat View), advanced mathematics
using Mathematica (I spent 3 weeks using the book by Ellis and Lodi, which is
a good intro. to Mathematica in a tutorial format, students did equation
solving, sets, 2D and 3D graphing, numerical and symbolic differentiation and
integration, curve fitting, matrix operations, statistical functions),
literature searching using STN, an overview of DOS commands and Windows, how
to use a scanner and OCR (Wordscan by Calera), and a limited amount of
programming (Quickbasic) since I still can't face up to teaching a computer
course with absolutely no programming. Students were also required to set up
an experiment and run it on an HPLC (Waters-Maxima) and an FTIR (Bio-Rad-
Galactic Software) and to examine effects of resolution, S/N, smoothing,
deconvolution, apodization functions, zerofill, etc. on an infrared spectrum.
Students take this course at the same time as they take Physical Chemistry lab
and they are required to incorporate the techniques that they have learned
into their lab reports for P. Chem. I have also used several specific
application programs over the years (SpectraCalc, NMR and IR simulators,
Huckel MO Programs come to mind but there have been many others). These
programs usually depend on what is new at the time. Since the last time I
taught the course we now have e-mail and Internet so I plan to include these
next Spring. We have also purchased HyperChem (by Autodesk) and I can't wait
to include many good things from it into the course next spring. I have also
taught students how to add memory, change boards and hard drives etc. (usually
not a planned part of the course, simply fixing whatever broke). To anyone
who wants to offer this type of course I would say: 1. Plan to revise the
course every time you offer it because the hardware and software changes every
year. 2. I have taught the course for 18 years and it is more fun to teach
than any other course (and much more fun now, with applications programs, than
it ever was in the days of Fortran and Basic).
Ray Johnson
Hillsdale College
Hillsdale, MI 49242
ray.johnson@ac.hillsdale.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:57:47 +22306404
From: "Dr. John A. Pojman"
Subject: Re: Gooey Computing
In-Reply-To: <9306221950.AA01805@umd5.umd.edu> from "Jack Martin Miller" at
Jun 22, 93 03:19:18 pm

Jack Martin wrote:
> For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives to
> manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make use of a
> GUI with WYSISYG capabilities.
>
His comment about fear for mice prompts a question: Do faculty not like
the Mac/Windows mouse and menus approach simply because they did not
grow up playing video games? When teaching a workshop, I found that
most faculty had a heck of a time manipulating the mouse, a problem
I have never seen the average student have.

If my hypothesis is correct, than faculty who scoff at GUI and mice, are
holding their students back from interacting with computers at the
level that they are most comfortable. I would hate that some in our
time would complain about the video revolution the way some elder Greeks
no doubt complained about writing. "Kids today don't know how to memorize
20,000 lines of the Iliad, all they do is read all day!"

John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
(601) 266-5035
FAX: (601) 266-5829
INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:54:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: COMPUTERS AND WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW

PAPER 1 - COMPUTERS AND WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW
From: Donald Rosenthal
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699-5810
ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET

Date: June 22, 1993
=====================================================================
In response to a comments on Monday, June 21 at 22:01 and 22:09
from Professor Jack Martin Miller

re: Question B and F and my answers

Many years ago I did a considerable amount of computing (mostly
statistical and numerical methods) on an IBM mainframe. This was at
a time when punched cards and batch processing was the state of the
art. The turn-around time was typically an hour or more. I
programmed mostly in FORTRAN. One of the frustrations (other than
turn-around time) was JCL (job control language). Very often jobs
wouldn't run because I forget (or didn't know enough) to insert a card
with /* or some such thing. Fortunately, I don't have to contend with
that sort of thing anymore.
I'm afraid I can not get very excited about an MS DOS versus
WINDOWS or IBM versus Mac debate. I've used WINDOWS and the Mac a
little. Personally, I think that a mouse and icons are very useful
for children and perhaps those who are just learning to use computers.
I don't see any particular advantage in these things for ME. I know
that other people feel differently about this. I DON"T REALLY WANT
TO DEBATE THESE TOPICS. Personally, I'm waiting for the day when
voice recognition and more intelligence is built into computers (and
instruments) and I will be able to tell them what it is I want
to do and the computers (and instruments) will do what I tell them
without my having to do much work. That's when I'll get really
excited.
I don't really care whether my software runs under MS DOS, WINDOWS
or something else as long as I can do what I want and the software is
reasonably user friendly. Professor Martin predicts that
Windows will replace MS DOS. He is probably correct. Windows will
continue to be up-graded and DOS will become extinct. None of the
software I used for my course required Windows. The RS/6000 does
run X-Windows. Some of the modelling software used in the organic
chemistry course does use Windows or X-Windows.
======================================================================

In response to my questions (see Question O):

* WHAT DOES EVERY UNDERGRADUATE CHEMISTRY MAJOR NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
* COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING? *****************************************

* WHAT SHOULD EVERY GRADUATE STUDENT KNOW? **************************

Tom O'Haver responded (June 22 06:43 EDT):
> My feeling is that it is not practical to make courses on
> electronics, interfacing, and computer programming a REQUIREMENT
> for ALL chemistry majors, many of whom want to be physicians or
> dentists, not scientists.
I don't necessarily disagree with Tom's statement. However,
I was considering students working for an ACS certified degree.
What should an undergraduate student who is planning to pursue a
career in chemistry need to know? (At many schools students
(pre-meds, etc.) can major in chemistry without obtaining an ACS
certified degree.) I do believe that it is not necessary for
ALL chemistry majors to learn very much about electronics and
interfacing in chemistry courses. However, I believe they should
have some familiarity with interfaced instruments, word processing,
numerical and statistical methods, spreadsheets and be able to
program in a general purpose high level language. Of course, I am
at a university where every student has a computer and ALL students
are required to take at least one computing course.

(Regarding pre-meds - hospitals, doctors and dentist's offices are
very much computerized these days.)

Should statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics be taught in
undergraduate physical chemistry courses? Should the transuranium
elements be taught in an undergraduate inorganic course? - After all
these courses are taken by pre-meds.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:02:38 -0500
Reply-To: Ted Labuza
From: Ted Labuza
Subject: Example Kinetics Program

A lot of my work revolves around the shelf life testing of foods and drugs which
essentially is te simple application of kinetics to time based data. With one of
my graduate students I developed a very user friendly (many beta tests with
students) Hypercard Stack which takes the data and does the proper
transformations to determine the best order. It calciulates the r2 and SE
values, plots the data, draws the regression line and confidence limits. It will
calculate future values or values insuide the limits. The program is a good tool
for research as well. The Mac mathchip gives very good results as compared to
SAS. Several years ago when I used calculators it was interesting to see how
different the values were between various brands of the. The HP always gave the
best result as compared to a double percision program on the main frame written
in Fortran. The second part of the program will then take the rate data from
several temperatures and do an Arrhenius regression and calculate Ea and Q10
values. It is a good way to incorporate statistics with chemistry (eg in the
literature some papersincorecctly use the SE as the tool to choose the best
order) In another program I have developed we do the same thing and then also
allow for input of time temperature data (or regular functions like sinewaves)
and the students can do what ifs. These are available free to educational
institutions by email. Leave me your address and I will send it, I will also
think abouit putting it on the gopher network so it could be accessed by ftp. I
have several others including Clausius Clapeyron, moisture diffusion kinetics by
the Crank equation and am in the process of trying to do a similar kinetics
program in Excell for microbial growth kinetics which can also be used for
chenmical data.

"SURFING THE WAVES OF CYBERSPACE"
___
||
| \|
|__|
|
---|----
/ \
|___/__/\_____/
\ /\ /\ /\/\/\/\ /
\ /\ / \/ \ /\/ \ /
\/ \/ \/ \/

Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once". Except in
my office which exists in a time warp!!!
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:04:00 -0400
From: RICHARD GRAHAM
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know

I wholeheartedly agree on the comments of Jack Miller about the use of
TeX or any of its variants. i used similar systems on the old DEC PDP11/23
and on the Prime 850. Both were cumbersome to use. Each had the .command
structure and you never could _KNOW_ what the product would look like until
it was printed and printed and printed and printed, ..... The equation editor
in Word Perfect for Windows (or WP5.1) works very well. The beauty is that
you see on the monitor what the equation will look like _BEFORE_ it is printed.
It is somewhat cumbersome since you must "leave" the document to enter the
equation editing screen, but it's a lot less cumbersome and _EASIER_ to
visualize than TeX documents. I wish that WordPerfect had

used the algorithm that another equation editor addin I used under WP 5.0 and
Word 4.0 (Can't remember the name) and that is .. as you typed in the commands,
the image grew before your eyes without having to press the REDISPLAY button.

Dick Graham
Towson State University
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:17:03 +22306404
From: "Dr. John A. Pojman"
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: <9306222007.AA02933@umd5.umd.edu> from "Jack Martin Miller" at
Jun 22, 93 03:26:04 pm

>
> Jim Holler siad
> >We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be
> >unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform
> >a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries
> >that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching
> >FORTRAN.
>
> I agree 100%. How many of theparticipants have access to the Fortran code
> of the packages they use (most are likely in C anyway). I know what I have
> to go through in signing non-disclosure agreements etc. to get access to
> source code of my mass spec and nmr programs on my large instruments. In
> one case I won a copy of the source code by betting on what bad programming
> practice had been used in it which I detected from the performance without
> ever having seen a line of the code.
> If you plan to become a theoretician writng new algorithms then you need
> to become a good programmer. Almost all the types of programming refered to
> in these discussions caould just as well be done, or perhaps better done
> with Excel macros in a spreadsheet.
>
>
I am interested in knowing how common MAPLE or Mathematica are in the
class/lab? I think we are on the verge of a major change in learning
when these programs become cheap as calculators. Perhaps teaching
programming is like teaching about slide rules?
--

John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
(601) 266-5035
FAX: (601) 266-5829
INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:24:42 -0400
From: "Mr. Science"
Subject: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education

A great deal has been said about the application of personal or mainframe
computers in the education of future chemists. I would like to add my two
cents worth at this point.

Whether we teach using computers or not, our students (current and future)
WILL be facing them in their work. How we advise them to use computers is
probably the most important educational decision, IMHO, we can pass on to
them with regard to instrumentation.

The goal of using computers in chemistry, from my point of view, is as a
tool to get to the answer for a problem I am working on. To use a computer
to solve a problem, I must have some sense of what needs to be done and
how the computer would assist in the solution. One must then weigh the
pluses and minuses of using certain hardware and/or software. For example,
our department wanted to incorporate some form of automation of data
analysis so that our advanced labs would lose that component of anxiety that
accompanied each writeup. Instead of teaching programming, we settled on
doing least-squares analysis on a spreadsheet. This afforded us another
advantage that could not be easily arrived at if we chose programming;
graphical visualization of different chemical models. We have used spread-
sheets to model Vib-Rot IR spectra, kinetic systems, among just a few. The
impact on the students' appreciation of the information they were learning
was impressive, to say the least. We even, this past year, incorporated
the new program HyperChem in our Advanced chem Lab to allow students some
exposure to Computational Chemistry; and the students loved it!

With regard to instrumentation, computer interfacing has to explained, even
if it means just rudimentary discussions. For example, in our PChem and
Advanced Chem Labs, we do kinetics experiments using an HP Diode Array
spectrometer with the kinetic software module. The data gets recorded on
ASCII text files and we have the students incorporate them into a spread-
sheet program to do data analysis. This keeps the students' attention on the
experiment (automating the data collection), but does not isolate them from
the experiment or allow them to become dependent on some software to do the
actual analysis. We have even icorporated exercises that show the error of
just blindly accepting the answers a piece of software spits out at you,
without checking and verification.

we have automated quite a few of our experiments, but it is a rudimentary
form of automation, to allow the students to retain interest in the experiment
(which previously may have had an unacceptable amount of tedium inherent in
it), but at the same time keep them focused on the "thinking" aspect of
chemical problem solving.

In addition, we have developed a style of teaching in our PChem and Advanced
Chem Labs that reminds the students that the data collected is reality, and
the models they use are attempts to explain the reality they have observed.
This, I feel, is the essential gist of using computers is to learn when to
use them and when to step back. There may be times that necessitate special
coding and software development, but these, in my experience, occur "in the
field", so to speak - that is, in research.

Students need to use the tools available to them. I feel the following are
more than appropos to a chemistry major track:

1. Spreadsheets - data analysis, graphical visualization of models and
results.

2. Word Processing - Simple text creation and editing.

3. Desktop Molecular Modelling software or Desktop Chemical Computational
software.

As for how a department incorporates them, I feel that is better left to
each one to find out how to deal with that aspect. The department here at
Georgetown prefers to incorporation relevant instruction within each course
that requires it, usually at as minimal level as necessary.

Regards,

Tony ;>

Date this awe-inspiring message was sent: 22-JUN-1993 15:42:15
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
| Anthony V. Rosati | |
| Department of Chemistry, | "A nation that cannot think, |
| Georgetown University | cannot survive." |
| Washington, D.C. 20057-2222 | |
| ROSATI@GUSUN.GEORGETOWN.EDU | - Norman Mailer, 1992 |
| A_ROSATI@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU | National Press Club |
# ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== #
| Information Exchange Coordinator and Member, Board of Directors |
| National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) |
| 1993 - 1994 |
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:58:44 EDT
From: Allan Smith
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon,
21 Jun 1993 22:01:29 -0400 from

At Drexel we have had in place since 1984 a prgram in which each
entering undergraduate is required to have access to a personal computer.
In the begining of this program we chose the Apple Macintosh, and as the
years have progressed we have remained with our initial choice, even though
the actual machine or machines we recommend for purchase to the students
have changed each year. The pwoer of the machines being offered to
students this year awes me, especially since I chaired the unversity
committee which initiated this program in 1984 and chose the 128 kB
Macintosh with one 512 kB floppy drive as the standard. This year we
offer students a choice of one of the following:
"minimum machine": Mac Classic Color, 6 mB RAM, 80 MB hard drive
next one up: Centris 610, 8 MB RAM, 230 MB hard drive
top model: Centris 650, 8MB RAM, 230 MB hard drive
Don't quote me, but in 1984 I think our mainframe had about these
capabilities. I can't give prices, but they are a good deal better than
street prices because we buy about 1100 computers for students. Our
campus is literally awash in Macintoshes.
Another significant part of our approach is to offer a bundle of
Mac software (for $350): the present bundle includes MacWrite, Excel 4.0,
Filemaker, MacDraw, Brushstrokes (a paint program), and of course
Hypercard and System 7.1; there is a coupon given students to obtain
one more package, which may be ClarisCad, PageMaker, TK Solver Plus,
Think C or Think Pascal, plus a few others.
How do students afford to buy this stuff? We of course get the best
price we can, but we then point out that the overall price is a small
fraction of the total tuition they will pay while at Drexel ( we do this
in a much more polished way than I have described, of course). Computer
cost can be covered by financial aid in the same way as regular tuition
and fees. I guess we don't get applications from students who think
that $2000 is too much to pay for a computer to have while they are
undergraduates.
More later about what we actually do with all of these cycles.
Allan Smith, Drexel University
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:25:59 -0500
From: George Long
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Paper 1 discussion

I have implemented computer interfaced labs for equillibrium and kinetics
experiments. Both use LDC 600's interfaced via the RS 232 program. Students
then analyze the data using easyplot, and write the report using the
accesories available in windows. This generally works well, however I
have some difficulty because of the difference in computing abilities of
the students. Some are quite comfortable with windows while others barely
know how to turn the computer on. I believe an introductory course on the use
of PC's is a good idea. Our students are required to take Fortran, but this
does not help them with the PC's. I am hoping to convince my colleagues
to change the requirement. Physics courses do teach some electronics and
interfacing, but it seems only a few of the students actually learn anything fro
m this. I think these topics should be reinforced as much as possible.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:30:04 EDT
From: Allan Smith
Subject: Re: Paper #1 - Computer Course for Chem Majors
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon,
21 Jun 1993 22:50:33 -0600 from

I am teaching a graduate course in chemical information retrieval
this summer as a pilot for a similar offering to undergraduates next
year. WE do a lot more than just on-line searching, email, and Internet
capabilities ( Gopher, WAIS, telnet, etc), but these topics are
included. I'll be giving a paper on this course at the Chicago ACS meeting.
Allan Smith, Drexel
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:53:00 EST
From: Bill
Subject: Computer courses for chemists

I teach a _Computers for Chemists_ course at a two year college. The
course is given in the second semester of the freshman year. I use
WordPerfect for wordprocessing, QuattroPro for spreadsheet work, and
IBM BASICA for programming. We switched from a FORTRAN only course, to
a FORTRAN and BASIC on pc course to the present arrangement. I'm thinking
of doing more with spreadsheets and less programming in BASIC in the
future. Has anyone looked at the new book out by D.M. Etter, _Quattro Pro
A Software Tool for Engineers and Scientists_, published by Benjamin
Cummings? Since DOS 5 and 6 include QBASIC, can anyone recommend an
introductory text on QBASIC?

We use Quattro for its regression and graphics capabilities and BASIC
to create disk files of titration curves including first and second
derivatives. These disk files are then imported into Quattro for viewing.

The students e-mail their programs to me via the VAX.

Bill Metzar Bitnet: metzar_w@snybccva
Broome Community College Internet: metzar_w@sunybroome.edu
Binghamton, NY 13902
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 17:04:00 CDT
From: Ray Sommers
Subject: Paper 1 ASEASYAS via FTP

Just remembered that the ASEASYAS spreadsheet is also available via
anonymous FTP. One site I found is:
WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU and it is in /mirrors/msdos/spreadsheet
with filenames ASA55C-1.ZIP and ASA55C-2.ZIP
|==================================================================|
| | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ |
| | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | |
| / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ |
| / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) |
| (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ |
|==================================================================|
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:30:51 PST
From: "Edward H. Piepmeier"
Subject: Re[2]: Paper #1 Why Mac's and Windows?

Jack Martin wrote:
>For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives
>to manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make
>use of a GUI with WYSISYG capabilities.

>John A. Pojman replied:
>His comment about fear for mice prompts a question: Do faculty not
>like the Mac/Windows mouse and menus approach simply because they
>did not grow up playing video games? When teaching a workshop, I
>found that most faculty had a heck of a time manipulating the mouse,
>a problem I have never seen the average student have.

Why do students like Mac's?
The most efficient use of a student's time when interacting with a
computer program will be made when the commands are obvious to the
student. Menu driven programs with short explanations of each menu
item when it is selected (and more extensive context sensitive help
when needed) are the best in this regard. Mac programs seem to
require common menu items to be placed in the same menu structure
(e.g. Print occurs under the File main menu in all programs I have
used). Windows programs have tended to follow a similar pattern, as
have some DOS programs. This consistency across platforms and
programs helps the student to learn to use new programs more quickly
and may be one reason why students like Mac and Window platforms.
Just as important is the ability of a good menu to quickly remind the
student about what commands are available, and to allow the student to
do some quick trial and error lookups to find a new command.

It is worthwhile to distinguish between a mouse and a good menu,
although both are often present. Pointing with a mouse to select a
menu item is not a fast as using the keyboard to select the item for
an experienced "power user", but such pointing seems easier for new
users and offers a break for someone who wishes to avoid the keyboard.
On the other hand, many editing operations are faster to do with a
mouse in a well written program (regardless of platform).

>John A. Pojman also writes:
>I am interested in knowing how common MAPLE or Mathematica are in
the class/lab?

I have personally used MAPLE and Mathcad in research, but not in
courses. MAPLE has only a relatively short menu and has a long way to
go to be useful without a manual, and even Mathcad for Windows could
be improved in this regard. These both are high level languages with
many useful procedures, but I would like to know how others have
found them useful in courses to do things that cannot be done with
spreadsheets that are much easier for students to use.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 23:46:12 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: paper1

I have some questions that I could not ask because I was out of town.

Do your students remain in lab for the full three hours?

Do the students have 6 hours of lab per week? I was not sure
from the text.

Why do You use nylon as the polymer? Wouldn't the standard
polystyrene in toluene or methanol/toluene mixtures or
BSA in aqueous urea mixtures be
as good for the purpose. This might free up some lab time
for a laser experiment or a molecular modeling exercise.

I have some concern over the type of pchem experiments. My concern
is similar to that of Moore and Schwenz. Pchem is not seen as being
very exciting to many students because so many of the experiments
seem out of date and do not reflect the current literature.

I don't want to belabor the points raised by Ted Labuza about what
every undergraduate should know. I came up with a very similar list.

I would include introducing students to how the software gets into the
computer. So many of my students are very neive about computers.

I would also want my students to be able to do some simple trouble
shooting when the printer or plotter doesn't work for them befor they
holar uncle.

Another item on my wish list is that students learn something about
molecular modeling and molecular computation as used in a wide
variety of research areas. Nothing fancy but surely the concepts of
a z matrix and potential energy function. I would also hope for some
molecular mechanics and quantum mechanics, at least at a very good
semi-empirical level and beyond the black box level of most of these
types of applications. What we teach in pchem lab should reflect to
some degree what is appearing in the literature today and not what
appeared in the literature 40 years ago.

Some ideas about the operation and theory of lasers is very important.

At Niagara University I insist that all lab reports be typed using a
word processing program and that all tables be typed and all data
analyzed using a spreadsheet. I use SC5 because it is very easy for
first timers to learn and the graphics interface is simple. All plots
are prepared using a 6 color plotter of a printer. I also introduced
a MathCad exercise this year using it to study kinetics curves for
reversible and series first order reactions. The students taught the
program to themselves and did the required lab study in two afternoons
(8 hours). Having them teach themselves builds their computer
self confidence, important for so many of my students some of whom have
not touched a computer in a scientific setting before.

It is nice to read about all the facilities that some of you have for
your students. I try to make up for a lack of facilities by a bit
more novelty and creativity for teaching some of the same things
that you guys at the bigger schools can do more easily.

Theresa Julia Zielinski
Niagara University
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:12:53 +0100
From: Hugh Cartwright
Subject: Re: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education

Obviously the question of how computers should be used in the laboratory,
and how students should be taught to use them, is one about which many of us
have strong views.

It is not surprising then that the discussion on chemconf has thrown up
arguments in favour of teaching everything from word processing and
spreadsheets to Basic and FORTRAN programming. Probably almost
every participant in chemconf is computer-literate, and feels that
computers have an important place in the education of scientists.
I certainly do.

However, I am concerned about the possibility that we might overemphasize th
e
importance of computing. When we graduate chemists from our universities,
their expertise must first and foremost be in chemistry. I am therefore
a little concerned at comments like the following
from Ted Labuza

He suggests that students should...

> Know how to handle at least three environments
> eg DOS, AMAC, OS2, Widows, UNIX etc

> Know the rudiments of programmining...

> ...should also be exposed to the rudiments of the scripting language
> in Hypercard.

> They should learn at least Excell or Lotus.

> They should be able to use [Sigmaplot (both
> Mac and IBM) and Excell as well as the new Mac and IBM versions of JMP which i
s
> a PC based SAS]

> They also should learn one or two graphics packages and feel comfortable in
> making pie charts, bar graphs with error bars, and scatterplots with confidenc
e
> limits. They should also be able to understand the meaning of the constants wh
en
> the graphics package runs a polynomial or exponentila regrassion of the data f
or
> plotting.

> They should learn some drawing program.

> They should have competency in using a visual aids graphics program in color,
> ie a slide and overhead making program.

> They must learn how to use e-mail and use a network system by logging onto
> the internet and use the resources like Archie, Veronica and Jughead to find a
nd
> retrieve information.

> They should know how to use a word processor inconjuction with an equation
> editor and possibly a chemical drawing program.

This is quite a shopping list. As a computational chemist, I would
be delighted if my students knew this much, but NOT if that knowledge were
gained at the expense of a proper understanding of chemistry.
There is only a limited amount of time available in the university
year, and we need a balance between computing (which, surely, is a tool,
not an end in itself) and science, which computers can help us to learn
and understand.

I am in sympathy with Donald Rosenthal, who writes:

> I believe they should
> have some familiarity with interfaced instruments, word processing,
> numerical and statistical methods, spreadsheets and be able to
> program in a general purpose high level language.

Some might argue that chemistry now consists of four branches:
organic, inorganic, physical and computational, and that the
increasing emphasis on computers in chemistry merely reflects
the changing nature of chemistry. We must be careful that, in our
desire to make full use of computers, we do not lose the balance
in our courses, diluting the chemistry content to a level at which
we may produce students who are computer-literate, but scientifically
second-rate.

Hugh Cartwright
Physical Chemistry, Oxford University, UK.

@ @
Obviously t
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 05:48:08 -0500
Reply-To: Ted Labuza
From: Ted Labuza
Subject: Re: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education

In message Hugh Cartwright writes:
> Obviously the question of how computers should be used in the laboratory,
> and how students should be taught to use them, is one about which many of
> us
> have strong views.
>
> It is not surprising then that the discussion on chemconf has thrown up
> arguments in favour of teaching everything from word processing and
> spreadsheets to Basic and FORTRAN programming. Probably almost
> every participant in chemconf is computer-literate, and feels that
> computers have an important place in the education of scientists.
> I certainly do.
>
> However, I am concerned about the possibility that we might overemphasize
> th
> e
> importance of computing. When we graduate chemists from our universities,
> their expertise must first and foremost be in chemistry. I am therefore
> a little concerned at comments like the following
> from Ted Labuza
>
>
> He suggests that students should...
>
> > Know how to handle at least three environments
> > eg DOS, AMAC, OS2, Widows, UNIX etc
>
> > Know the rudiments of programmining...
>
> > ...should also be exposed to the rudiments of the scripting language
> > in Hypercard.
>
> > They should learn at least Excell or Lotus.
>
> > They should be able to use [Sigmaplot (both
> > Mac and IBM) and Excell as well as the new Mac and IBM versions of JMP
> > which i
> s
> > a PC based SAS]
>
> > They also should learn one or two graphics packages and feel comfortable in
> > making pie charts, bar graphs with error bars, and scatterplots with
> > confidenc
> e
> > limits. They should also be able to understand the meaning of the constants
> > wh
> en
> > the graphics package runs a polynomial or exponentila regrassion of the
> > data f
> or
> > plotting.
>
> > They should learn some drawing program.
>
> > They should have competency in using a visual aids graphics program in
> > color,
> > ie a slide and overhead making program.
>
> > They must learn how to use e-mail and use a network system by logging onto
> > the internet and use the resources like Archie, Veronica and Jughead to
> > find a
> nd
> > retrieve information.
>
> > They should know how to use a word processor inconjuction with an equation
> > editor and possibly a chemical drawing program.
>
>
> This is quite a shopping list. As a computational chemist, I would
> be delighted if my students knew this much, but NOT if that knowledge
> were
> gained at the expense of a proper understanding of chemistry.
> There is only a limited amount of time available in the university
> year, and we need a balance between computing (which, surely, is a tool,
> not an end in itself) and science, which computers can help us to learn
> and understand.
etc

The reason for my long shopping list is not that we should be teaching all this
in a chemistry class. rather this should be a total university/college goal and
the skills should be practiced and used in all courses where applicable. When a
student leaves for a job, more than likely they will be required to have some
form of computer expertise, I doubt many will just end up running one type of
instrument with one type of interface, so why not prepare them. The minimum
would be word processing, graphics and spreadsheet analysis. They could use the
word processing to do overheads for presentations which most of them will have
to make. Several participants have suggested that we use only shareware, but my
experience as a consultant with major companies (3M, P&G, Pillsbury for example)
is that you need to use commercial $oftware since that's what the staff has and
your work needs to be compatible. That brings up the dilema since such $oftware
is costly to students and you want their work to be compatible with yours. I
don't have a solution to that.

Dr Ted Labuza
Department of Food Science and Nutrition 136 ABLMS
University of Minnesota
St. Paul MN 55108
Voice 612-624-9701 or Home 612-633-8928
Fax 612-625-5272 or Home Fax 612-633-0627

There is no such thing as a poverty of time, rather there is a poverty of being
able to say "NO".

=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 05:54:50 MDT
Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu
From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU
Subject: Re: paper1

Is it possible to obtain a copy of this MathCad exercise? It sounds like
a good idea. Barbara Gaddis, UCCS, ColoradoSprings, CO 80933
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 08:57:24 EDT
From: Felix Akojie
Subject: Re: Paper 1 ASEASYAS via FTP
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 93 21:33:56 EDT from

Larry, thanks. I shall be back to Waller hall at about 11.10. I hope you will b
e around to give me the updated version of the ASEASYAS. See you later.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:28:29 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 13:40:15 -0400 from

Agree wholeheartedly on TeX. Try Ami Pro. It's got TeX built in to do
math, and it is WYSIWYG. It also has a shallow learning curve.
On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 13:40:15 -0400 Jack Martin Miller said:
>Prof Glasser wrote:
>
>>With regard to wordprocessing for students (or anyone!), it is hard to beat
>LaT
>>ex together with the windowing environment, TEXSHELL.Both are available free,
>i
>>n an excellent DOS implementation (emTeX) and it is does the best imaginable
>jo
>>b of layout, especially of mathematics.
>>It is a bit of a pain to set up, but there is no more training required than
>fo
>>r, say, WordPerfect. It is not WYSIWIG, but almost transparently obvious in
>it
>>s layout.
>>LG
>
>
>And a horse and bugy will still get you from a to b. TEX and its variants
>was a great mainframe tex setting system for complex equations for those
>familiar with FORTRAN, but to use it in this day and age is to frighten
>students from the true potential of word processors that include their
>graphics, equations, tables etc. If a student is writing on the word
>processor, whh they should be doing, the ability to see what you wrote is
>all important. Try visualizing your page from the formulaic TEX jargon.
>
>Don't use it just because it is free or cheap. It may not be worth it and
>it may train students in the wrong direction. WYSIWYG is available, it is
>not expensive whether Word for WIndows or Wordperfect with academic
>discounts. We should be teaching for the next generation, not the past. We
>should be using, not what we were comfortable with as students, (FORTRAN II
>-- that dates me, and TITAN autocode), not what has been around for years,
>but we should be preparing students for the 21st century.
>
>CHEMCONF is supposed, I thought, to be about thenew technologies in
>teaching chemistry, but I hear a lot of defense of outmoded hardware and
>software.

>Jack Martin Miller
>Professor of Chemistry
>Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
>Brock University,
>St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
>
>Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
>FAX (416) 682 9020
>e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca

Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:33:10 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 15:26:04 -0400 from

Another good example of this is HyperChem. It has about 100 person-years of
Ph.D. expert programming in molecular mechanics and ab-initio MO built in,
and it is amazingly easy to get up and running. Our students MUST learn
to use these kinds of tools. In the unified WYSISYG environment of Windows
and the Mac, once students learn how to operate the environment, they become
productive very quickly. This is not true of programming languages. All
of this serves to free them to think about chemistry rather than DO loops
and arcane syntax.

On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:26:04 -0400 Jack Martin Miller said:
>Jim Holler siad
>>We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be
>>unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform
>>a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries
>>that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching
>>FORTRAN.
>
>I agree 100%. How many of theparticipants have access to the Fortran code
>of the packages they use (most are likely in C anyway). I know what I have
>to go through in signing non-disclosure agreements etc. to get access to
>source code of my mass spec and nmr programs on my large instruments. In
>one case I won a copy of the source code by betting on what bad programming
>practice had been used in it which I detected from the performance without
>ever having seen a line of the code.
> If you plan to become a theoretician writng new algorithms then you need
>to become a good programmer. Almost all the types of programming refered to
>in these discussions caould just as well be done, or perhaps better done
>with Excel macros in a spreadsheet.
>
>
>Jack Martin Miller
>Professor of Chemistry
>Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
>Brock University,
>St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
>
>Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
>FAX (416) 682 9020
>e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca

Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:39:25 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: Paper 1 - ASEASYAS
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
22 Jun 1993 14:21:00 CDT from

But Quattro Pro is very inexpensive for students and much more powerful.

On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:21:00 CDT Ray Sommers said:
>ASEASYAS is also available as shareware from just about any shareware
>source. Last year I used version 4.0 since it fit on one 360 K floppy.
>The latest version is 5.5 with lots of new features. Generally the files
>are compatable with Lotus 123 and Quatro (&Quatro Pro).
>
>Quatro Pro is available to our students on our network but since many
>have their own computers at home they appreciate their own copy of
>ASEASYAS. ASEASYAS is also available to them via our library's
>CDROM with the PCSIG collection of shareware (over 2000 disks of
>stuff).
>
> |==================================================================|
> | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ |
> | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | |
> | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ |
> | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) |
> | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ |
> |==================================================================|

Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:41:36 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Gooey Computing

> Jack Martin wrote:
>> For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives to
>> manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make use of a
>> GUI with WYSISYG capabilities.
>>
>His comment about fear for mice prompts a question: Do faculty not like
>the Mac/Windows mouse and menus approach simply because they did not
>grow up playing video games? When teaching a workshop, I found that
>most faculty had a heck of a time manipulating the mouse, a problem
>I have never seen the average student have.
>
>If my hypothesis is correct, than faculty who scoff at GUI and mice, are
>holding their students back from interacting with computers at the
>level that they are most comfortable. I would hate that some in our
>time would complain about the video revolution the way some elder Greeks
>no doubt complained about writing. "Kids today don't know how to memorize
>20,000 lines of the Iliad, all they do is read all day!"
>
In response to John Pojman with whom I'm in full agreement, I have a
possible cure for rodentophilia. My wife a professor of fine arts, found
the Mac impossible with a mouse, but as soon as she saw a trackball on a
Mac portable she was convinced, so her own Mac now has a trackball instead
of a mouse. Her difficulty was the orietation of themouse when holding it,
not a problem with a trackball.

Jack M. Miller, jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:24:29 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education

Hugh Cartwright writes:.
>
> However, I am concerned about the possibility that we might overemphasize
>th
> e
> importance of computing. When we graduate chemists from our universities,
> their expertise must first and foremost be in chemistry. I am therefore
> a little concerned at comments like the following
> from Ted Labuza
>
The list that follows lists just about everything that I do so it really
hit the nail on the head, BUT, it may be too much to expect that level of
computer literacy from an undergraduate, but NOT from a PhD graduate.
Having just hired a new faculty member this year in organic chemistry, he
is doing these things BUT many of my faculty colleagues are not and do not
see the need. In that I detect some of the resistance in the discussion --
from traditionally minded chemists. We can't teach all chemistry. Almost
everything I teach wasn't invented when I was a student, and certainly in
my research I was taught nothing aof what I am doing in mass spectrometry
and nmr of organometallics.
>
>
> This is quite a shopping list. As a computational chemist, I would
> be delighted if my students knew this much, but NOT if that knowledge were
> gained at the expense of a proper understanding of chemistry.
> There is only a limited amount of time available in the university
> year, and we need a balance between computing (which, surely, is a tool,
> not an end in itself) and science, which computers can help us to learn
> and understand.
>
And perhaps these courses should replace some of the traditional math or
physics courses. My classical elec and mag. has done me no good as a
chemist, but my electronics course was a wonderful preparation. Three
courses in calculus were a waste of time. If I have to integrate something
I do it digitally or analytically via Maple or Mathematica.

> Some might argue that chemistry now consists of four branches:
> organic, inorganic, physical and computational, and that the
> increasing emphasis on computers in chemistry merely reflects
> the changing nature of chemistry. We must be careful that, in our
> desire to make full use of computers, we do not lose the balance
> in our courses, diluting the chemistry content to a level at which
> we may produce students who are computer-literate, but scientifically
> second-rate.
>
On should not forget the bailing wire, black wax and string origins of
experimental chemistry. The computer today is an integral part of the
experiment and if you are to do original research you must be as adept at
modifiying the computer, its interface and or its software as in the old
days of drilling holes in vacuum systems etc. No research equipment is
truely being used to its full potential if you've not modified it to
improve things, and that includes the computer end of it. Its not just the
"computations" chemist that needs to know about computers, perhaps they
need the least -- just give them a computer language or Gaussian and access
to a porwerful remote machine and they're off. Its more complicated if I
want my emperimental data delivered from spectrometers run by Sun and SGI
UNIX boxes, proprietary computers such as Brucker's Aspect 3000, PCs and
old CPM machines, molecular modeling results, all to my office Mac to put
into the papers I'm writing. I can do it all now, but it isn't clean and
easy. That's what I'm trying to do for the whole department so both Mac and
PC users can get all their data in one place to use it, process it, feed it
into major computational or database packages etc. That's not computational
chemistry. That is good old fashioned experimental chemistry with life made
a lot easier.

Jack Martin Miller jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 08:33:52 PDT
From: David Green
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: ; from "Jim Holler" at Jun 23, 93 9:33 am

I am not a strict proponent of learning a programming language by every
chemistry major. However, there is value in learning *a* programming
language that IMHO goes beyond just the mechanics of programming. Indeed,
there are many software packages that will do many of the things students
want(need) to do to solve a problem. But what about a problems that need
one-time solutions that don't really lend themselves to MathCad, spread-
sheets, etc? There are some like that.

One (arguably useful) aspect of programming for chemists is learning to
work in a highly structured environment that is somewhat unforgiving. We
and our students work in the laboratory where structure is lowered for more
abstract thinking... i.e. When I mix A and B I get ???? then I can either
filter or .... Certainly programs are coded for IF-THEN choices but it is
difficult to achieve that "fuzzy" logic in the software. In learning to
write even rudimentary code, students have to think about occurrances which
may make the program NOT work - divide by zero, endless or useless loops,etc.

I have found that those who can program, and not even good at that, often
think differently in the laboratory. I have also found the opposite as
well. Anyway, the value of programming as a way of thinking (chemistry
aside) I don't think should be underestimated.

David Green
Natural Science Division
Pepperdine University
Malibu CA

dgreen@pepvax.bitnet
dgreen@pepvax.pepperdine.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 08:35:18 PDT
From: David Green
Subject: Re: Paper 1 - ASEASYAS
In-Reply-To: ; from "Jim Holler" at Jun 23, 93 9:39 am

With academic discount and promotionals I got my first copy for QPro 4 Windows
for $70 and my second copy for, I think, $89.

>
> But Quattro Pro is very inexpensive for students and much more powerful.
>
> On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:21:00 CDT Ray Sommers said:
> >ASEASYAS is also available as shareware from just about any shareware
> >source. Last year I used version 4.0 since it fit on one 360 K floppy.
> >The latest version is 5.5 with lots of new features. Generally the files
> >are compatable with Lotus 123 and Quatro (&Quatro Pro).
> >
> >Quatro Pro is available to our students on our network but since many
> >have their own computers at home they appreciate their own copy of
> >ASEASYAS. ASEASYAS is also available to them via our library's
> >CDROM with the PCSIG collection of shareware (over 2000 disks of
> >stuff).
> >
> > |==================================================================|
> > | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ |
> > | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | |
> > | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ |
> > | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) |
> > | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ |
> > |==================================================================|
>
> Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
> Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
> University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
> Lexington, KY 40506
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:13:23 -0400
From: Mary Swift
Subject: Programming

I agree that being able to program causes one to begin to think in a different
way ...that one now begins to try to consider many alternative results and
plan for each possibility. In addition the top down approach gives a better
idea how to frame questions and go about answering them.

I think the ability to write efficient macros in spreadsheets should be
enhanced if one has some programming experience. At least you have some
idea why things might not (or did not) work out as planned!!!

I recently purchased "QBASIC Primer Plus" by D.R. Mackenroth, a Waite Group
book. While I have not had much time to spend with it yet it looks good for
a beginning student. I have used another Waite Group book "C by example"
to learn C myself and I found it to be quite good.

Mary L. Swift
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:04:00 EDT
From: Don Rosenthal
Subject: CHEMCONF Schedule

Two days have been allocated to the discussion of each paper at this
Conference. At 7:09 AM this morning Tom O'Haver announced the END
of the discussion period for Paper 1 andthe BEGINNING of the discussion
period for PAPER 2.

It was expected that the author and participants would begin by responding
to SHORT QUESTIONS and regular discussion would begin.

ANY ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION OF PAPER 1 SHOULD BE RESERVED FOR THE GENERAL
DISCUSSION PERIOD. (SEE THE SCHEDULE)

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT PAPER 2 - AUTHOR AND PARTICIPANTS
WHERE ARE YOU?

Donald Rosenthal
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 13:54:55 +22306404
From: "Dr. John A. Pojman"
Subject: Paper 2

We have used AppleTalk and ETherTalk with our Macs, both in my lab and
in our department cluster. The only advantage most students find
with the Appletalk configuation (4 Mac LC) is that they can all
print on the same laser printer in the background. In our lab, with
about 6 undergraduates and 5 graduate students, the conversion to
Ethernet was amazingly simple. The students find it easy to
transfer large image files from video digitization, which would not
fit on a floppy disk.

I am interested in know what other use can we make of a network? The author
describes networking, but doesn't show the clear advantage?

Legal question: Can many students work off one copy of a program on a
server?
--

John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
(601) 266-5035
FAX: (601) 266-5829
INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:48:40 CDT
From: "Harmon B. Abrahamson"
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network
Subject: Paper 2 - Networks
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed,
23 Jun 1993 14:04:00 EDT from

I think that Prof. Jim Hood presents some useful information and
reaches reasonable conclusions for those installing a network where
none has previously existed.

Our experience at the Univ. of North Dakota Chemistry Dept. has been
somewhat different, in that the network has grown incrementally,
and now consists of a hybridization of physical media and protocols.

We began about 8 years ago with a twisted-pair AppleTalk (LocalTalk)
net linking a handful (3-4) Macs (512 and Mac+) and a LaserWriter.
As we switched departmental word processing from a stand-alone IBM
DisplayWriter, more faculty got Macs on their desks (personal or grants)
and were linked into the net. Then we got a grant for a MicroVAX II
and linked it with our 300MHz NMR by ethernet. We shortly linked the
two nets with a FastPath bridge/router which allowed us to put a
central AppleShare server on the MicroVAX, and also allows us to
use Macs running a terminal emulator as terminals for the MicroVAX.
Wait! There's more!
Last fall we opened our new building addition, which has 10-Base-T
jacks in every office and lab, which means that people in the new
wing are linked by EtherTalk. In addition, two newer MicroVAXes
(for crystallography and computational chem) are also on EtherNEt.
Now, in addition to the old central file server and print spooler,
Macs using System 7 can do Peer-to-peer file sharing.

My job this summer includes adding a new computer lab to the net,
along with implementaing security and use procedures for the new
student Macs (Centris - better than most of us faculty have!)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Harmon B. Abrahamson | BITNET: UD108726@NDSUVM1
Department of Chemistry | INTERNET: UD108726@VM1.NoDak.EDU
University of North Dakota | PHONE: (701) 777-2641
PO BOX 9024 | FAX: (701) 777-2331
Grand Forks, ND 58202-9024 |************************************
| What's nu? E/h of course!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:09:55 -0400
From: Jack Miller
Subject: Re: Programming

>I agree that being able to program causes one to begin to think in a different
>way ...that one now begins to try to consider many alternative results and
>plan for each possibility. In addition the top down approach gives a better
>idea how to frame questions and go about answering them.
>
>I think the ability to write efficient macros in spreadsheets should be
>enhanced if one has some programming experience. At least you have some
>idea why things might not (or did not) work out as planned!!!
>
>I recently purchased "QBASIC Primer Plus" by D.R. Mackenroth, a Waite Group
>book. While I have not had much time to spend with it yet it looks good for
>a beginning student. I have used another Waite Group book "C by example"
>to learn C myself and I found it to be quite good.
>
>Mary L. Swift

If you do teach computer language programing use real world languages. "C"
as horrible as it is for the 21st century, or Fortran for number cruching
scientific work.
Forget BASIC -- it is dead in real applications.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:11:51 -0400
From: Jack Miller
Subject: Re: Programming

P.S. on programming languages.

Symetrical multiprocessing is becoming a part of even the Intel world.
Except for transputers using Occam, the two languages which tendto have
parallelizing compilers and extensions are C and Fortran.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:16:19 -0400
From: Jack Miller
Subject: Re: CHEMCONF Schedule

Coments re schedule:

Since the delay inherent in Listservers when traffic is heavy can be as
much as 6 hurs, and given office hours, early afternoon stuff doesn't
necessarily get delivered to thenext morning so cut off should logically go
to noon on the third dy.

I have beenawaiting the author's answers to the short questions before
beginning my own discussion.

Jack m. Miller, jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:25:15 -0400
From: Jack Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 2

>We have used AppleTalk and ETherTalk with our Macs, both in my lab and
>in our department cluster. The only advantage most students find
>with the Appletalk configuation (4 Mac LC) is that they can all
>print on the same laser printer in the background. In our lab, with
>about 6 undergraduates and 5 graduate students, the conversion to
>Ethernet was amazingly simple. The students find it easy to
>transfer large image files from video digitization, which would not
>fit on a floppy disk.

Backgrond printing works identically under appletalk or Ethertalk. I don't
see why you make the distinction - the only difference is the higher speed
of ethertalk. There are multipleways to connect an old apple talk only
printer to the ethernet and background spoolingworks in both cases.

>
>I am interested in know what other use can we make of a network? The author
>describes networking, but doesn't show the clear advantage?

Sharing one copy of an expensive piece of software, transfering files from
laboratory instruments to office machines used in preparation of papers,
manuals etc., student submission of assignments, and student receipt of
individualized assingnments, moving files between coauthors, between
students working togetheron a lab report, controlling use of laser printer
to those with printing priveleges so that you don't print everyone'sthesis
on your printer, having the need of only a single connection to the
University backgbone, internet etc., etc. I could go on and on.

>
>Legal question: Can many students work off one copy of a program on a
>server?
>--
You only need mount one copy but legally you must possess "n" copies if "n"
students are to work simultaneously. If you use Apple's server software or
MacJanet you can set in software thenumber ofsimultaneous users permitted,
and can encode the software against copying. A copy will not work offthe
network.

>
>John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
>(601) 266-5035
>FAX: (601) 266-5829
>INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
>or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:29:58 -0400
From: Jack Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks

Harnom Abrahamsus is correctin talking about the evolution and 10baseT
wiring. Even ifFDDI over copper wins over ethernet or fast ethernet,
10baseT will be the copper used. Prof. Hood both in his paper and to me
privately argues for thinnet. This just will not work in real existing
buildings or in new ones. I have old buildings and am building a new one to
house 125 more computers. If FDDI over 10baseT will work for Lawrence
Berkely Laboratory it will work for the rest of us despite what salesmen
for thinnet technology would have you believe.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 23:09:27 -0400
From: Judith Faye Rubinson
Subject: Re: Paper 2

We do not have a network in place at the moment but will probably end up
setting our computers up in one soon. We have two MAC's and several PC's. (Yes
there are advantages to students' exposure to both environments!) Could anyone
give me some advice on the best way to find out how to set up our network?
Faye Rubinson, College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, OH 45233-1670
(RUBINSON@UCBEH.SAN.UC.EDU)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 23:50:46 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Programming

The discussion about students thinking differently after they learn about
programing is an example of the development of critical thinking skills
in students as they encounter challenging courses. After all it is the
student who develops the skills and usually not most effectively through
only listening. The must be given greater opportunities to think
and think about their own thinking. This is the most important
result of a computer course - students think about thinking ie how
to get something done and all of the possible alternates. So much of
chemistry instruction is predigested information. How do we get
students to think more critically - this goes beyond problem solving
which is considered by some to be a lower level skill - one that can
be done by students operating at Perry level 2.

Theresa Julia Zielinski
Niagara University
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 06:22:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks
In-Reply-To: <9306240309.AA07301@umd5.umd.edu>

I think there is some confusion of terminology here.
AppleTalk is not the same as LocalTalk. AppleTalk is a LAN
protocol stack; LocalTalk is the low-speed twisted pair
LAN wiring system that Macs have built-in. You can
run Appletalk over Localtalk or over Ethernet - the latter
of course being faster. All the Mac labs on our campus
use Ethernet rather than LocalTalk, and I notice that
Mac Quadra models have built-in Ethernet ports. Handy.

Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 06:34:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Paper 2
In-Reply-To: <9306240258.AA06468@umd5.umd.edu>

Another advantage of running applications off a file server
is that it is much easier to upgrade software to new versions
and to change global settings. In a large installation
with dozens of users running dozens of programs, upgrading
would be time consuming if every machine had a separate copy on
its own hard disk.

> Legal question:....

We use a utility called KeyServer that provides the software
checkout counting and user notification required for proper
application distribution and also keeps a record of how often
and when each software program is used.

Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 07:22:21 EDT
From: Sherman Henzel
Subject: Computer Languages

Jack Miller writes, "Forget BASIC it is Dead."

Like Mark Twain reports of BASIC's demise are gorssly exaggerated."

I am currently at the U of R working on a summer research project that involves
user LASER spectroscopy to study the kinetics of reactions that occur in the ps
range. The program that takes in data and that controls aperatures and a
moving mirror is written in QuickBasic. For the next eight weeks at least I
can not forget BASIC. I hope it doesn't die while it is controling the
instrument.

Also several years ago I had the oppotunity to tour one of the labs at Kodak.
The labs were involved in running very large distillation columns. The
language used in that control was BASIC.
___________________________________________________________
| Sherman Henzel Department of Chemistry |
| Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. |
| Rochester, NY 14623 (716) 292-2000 Ext. 5124 |
| Internet: shenzel@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu |
-----------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 09:26:38 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks

>I think there is some confusion of terminology here.
>AppleTalk is not the same as LocalTalk. AppleTalk is a LAN
>protocol stack; LocalTalk is the low-speed twisted pair
>LAN wiring system that Macs have built-in.

Sorry if I contributed to the confusion -- us old timers in the Mac world
(128k !!!) go back to the time when Apple used the same Appletalk term for
both.

You can
>run Appletalk over Localtalk or over Ethernet - the latter
>of course being faster. All the Mac labs on our campus
>use Ethernet rather than LocalTalk,

We have gradually converted our labs, and our new Math and COSC building
(125 machines) will be all ethernet except for one lab that we hav't got
the funds this year to buy new machines for, and its not worth getting
ethernet cards for old SE's to be abandoned within a year. The network
performance in a class of 20-30 is remarkably improved, though it is
surprising the throughput a Local talk net can handle including the
departmental printer traffic and my perusals of the Internet world with
large FTP fetches.

and I notice that
>Mac Quadra models have built-in Ethernet ports. Handy.

All the new high end Macs are supposed to have the built in port.
Unfortunately with three ethernet standards you still have to buy either a
10baseT or thinnet tranceiver. Few people opperate in a thicknet
environment. Some of the UNIX boxes now come with both 10baseT and thicknet
built in, a clear indication of the impending demise of thinnet.
Jack M. Miller

>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Maryland

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

>Another advantage of running applications off a file server
>is that it is much easier to upgrade software to new versions
>and to change global settings. In a large installation
>with dozens of users running dozens of programs, upgrading
>would be time consuming if every machine had a separate copy on
>its own hard disk.
>

There are also advantages to booting from the server with boot roms on the
ethernet card. That way the hackers don't muck up the system (whether DOS
or Mac) and I challenge anyone to defeat the good hackers. (This may be
less a problem for chemists, but also being chair of computer science we
have greater problems in this area.) Yes you can defeat them, but you
disable your system to the extent that not all software packages will run.
There is also software available that will reload a fresh copy of the
system nightly after the labs close to all machines on a net, to keep a
relatively clean systme going.

>> Legal question:....
>
>We use a utility called KeyServer that provides the software
>checkout counting and user notification required for proper
>application distribution and also keeps a record of how often
>and when each software program is used.
>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Maryland

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Our network situation is similar to that described by Harmon B. Abrahamson
("the network has grown incrementally"), except on a much smaller scale and
about two years behind: several Macs with an Appletalk network and access to
a VAX through a terminal server. We would like to convert from LocalTalk to
Ethernet (EtherTalk?) for up to 10 MacII-series computers. Our campus network
gurus are trying to force everyone who converts to Ethernet to purchase
PathWorks (for PC-DOS or Mac) as well as their recommended Pathworks-compatible
Ethernet card. We are currently using VersaTerm-Pro to interface with the VAX
(terminal emulation) and Mac System 7 to share files, etc. Does anyone else
out there have experience using PathWorks? Seems I recall that this was
created by a joint venture between DEC and Apple a few years ago. What does
Pathworks do for you that VersaTerm and the Mac Chooser (and Sys 7 file-sharing)
cannot accomplish over Ethernet? Why can't we just buy any 10baseT Ethernet
cards and "plug-and-play"? The network wiring is already in place.

Thanks to Harmon Abrahamson, Jim Hood, Jack Miller, Tom O'Haver, and
John Pojman for the useful advice so far!

---------------
Greg Powell - Dept. of Chemistry -
Abilene Christian University - Abilene, TX 79699
powell@acuvax.acu.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 08:35:14 PDT
From: David Green
Subject: Re: Computer Languages
In-Reply-To: ; from "Sherman Henzel" at Jun 24, 93 7:22 am

>
> Jack Miller writes, "Forget BASIC it is Dead."
>
> Like Mark Twain reports of BASIC's demise are gorssly exaggerated."
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
I think everyone agrees that IMSAI Basic is dead. It had a limited
instruction set, handled I/O rather clumsily, no graphics, etc and it was
a modern language in the 60's. But QuickBasic is truly structured
(if you want it to be), has good I/O capabilities to the outside world,
graphics (not standard in ANSI C or ANSI Pascal), a quite elaborate
instruction set in integer-single-double precision, easy to learn
especially if you know another language, and other stuff.
I'm not saying it's the best (and it's not particularly fast), but, as
many have said, if it gets the job done, it's the right
hardware/software/program/language.

End of soapbox.

David Green
Natural Science Division
Pepperdine University
Malibu CA

dgreen@pepvax.bitnet
dgreen@pepvax.pepperdine.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 14:35:39 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks

>Our network situation is similar to that described by Harmon B. Abrahamson
>("the network has grown incrementally"), except on a much smaller scale and
>about two years behind: several Macs with an Appletalk network and access to
>a VAX through a terminal server. We would like to convert from LocalTalk to
>Ethernet (EtherTalk?) for up to 10 MacII-series computers. Our campus network
>gurus are trying to force everyone who converts to Ethernet to purchase
>PathWorks (for PC-DOS or Mac) as well as their recommended Pathworks-compatible
>Ethernet card. We are currently using VersaTerm-Pro to interface with the VAX
>(terminal emulation) and Mac System 7 to share files, etc. Does anyone else
>out there have experience using PathWorks? Seems I recall that this was
>created by a joint venture between DEC and Apple a few years ago. What does
>Pathworks do for you that VersaTerm and the Mac Chooser (and Sys 7
>file-sharing)
>cannot accomplish over Ethernet? Why can't we just buy any 10baseT Ethernet
>cards and "plug-and-play"? The network wiring is already in place.
>
We looked at Pathworks and it doesn't do anything for you unless you want
to use your VAX as a server. Since DEC was so obnoxious with us refusing to
sell us a VAX three years ago since we wouldn't go with an all Dec campus
(we had to buy the VAX via third party) we use Macs as Mac servers or use
areas on the disk of our SGI UNIX boxes. Pathworks was hideously expensive
compared to everything else on the market. Avoid it like the plague unless
you are in an intgrated DEC environment (I don't envy you if you are)

>Thanks to Harmon Abrahamson, Jim Hood, Jack Miller, Tom O'Haver, and
>John Pojman for the useful advice so far!
>
>---------------
>Greg Powell - Dept. of Chemistry -
>Abilene Christian University - Abilene, TX 79699
>powell@acuvax.acu.edu

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 14:38:30 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Computer Languages

>>
>> Jack Miller writes, "Forget BASIC it is Dead."
>>
>> Like Mark Twain reports of BASIC's demise are gorssly exaggerated."
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>I think everyone agrees that IMSAI Basic is dead. It had a limited
>instruction set, handled I/O rather clumsily, no graphics, etc and it was
>a modern language in the 60's. But QuickBasic is truly structured
>(if you want it to be), has good I/O capabilities to the outside world,
>graphics (not standard in ANSI C or ANSI Pascal), a quite elaborate
>instruction set in integer-single-double precision, easy to learn
>especially if you know another language, and other stuff.
>I'm not saying it's the best (and it's not particularly fast), but, as
>many have said, if it gets the job done, it's the right
>hardware/software/program/language.
>

As chair of our computer science department as well as being a chemist, I
can tell you that in the real world of employers looking for job skills,
nobody (almost -- 1 in 3 years) asks for skills in BASIC of any flavour --
and what they did want was old classic basic). This discussion is about
what to teach that will be potentially useful to our students IN THEIR
FUTURE WORKING LIVES!!!

>End of soapbox.
>
>David Green
>Natural Science Division
>Pepperdine University
>Malibu CA
>
>dgreen@pepvax.bitnet
>dgreen@pepvax.pepperdine.edu

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Jack Martin Miller writes:

> As chair of our computer science department as well as being a
> chemist, I can tell you that in the real world of employers looking
> for job skills, nobody (almost -- 1 in 3 years) asks for skills in
> BASIC of any flavour -- and what they did want was old classic
> basic). This discussion is about what to teach that will be
> potentially useful to our students IN THEIR FUTURE WORKING LIVES!!!

I have worked in the N. Wirth family (Algol/Pascal/Modula2/Oberon)
for some time, and in my own unique situation, I am quite exuberant
about it.

What are your experiences with this family? Do you have enough
experience to contrast Modula2 or Oberon with ANSI C or C++?
I'm not so interested in Pascal, as Prof. Wirth's experience has
gone too the new languages, leaving Pascal as a 20 year old snapshot
of the art.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 13:12:39 EST
From: Tecnologia Quimica e Informacao
Subject: mod&sim

Hello,

I would like to have a help to identify ftp SERVERS in the area
of modeling and simulation of chemical processes.

Thanks

Adalberto Cantalino
E-MAIL: tqi@sunrnp.ufba.br
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 15:41:00 PDT
From: Jaqueline E Madison
Subject: Re: CHEMCONF Schedule

I requested papers 1, 2, and 3 a couple of weeks ago. I
recently received paper 1, but haven't seen the latter
two. Perhaps there are others in the same situation.

Jackie
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 08:16:34 +0800
From: "\"Gary Williams"
Subject: Re: Programming

Reading the mail regarding which programming languages are dead or alive has
lead me to the conclusion that we just have to accept the many so called
standards
that we presently have. In some situations BASIC is alive and well over here
in Western Australia - especially in primary and lower secondary schools. In
upper secondary and non-computer science departments at this University (UWA)
a lot of people use ThinkC and ThinkPascal, and if they are involved in
multimedia development Hypertext.

Yes - the computer science department uses the far more recent languages, and
there is a tendency for one group to consider every other group as behind the
times or not using a 'real' language. But we need to accept that it really is a
case of horses for courses and accept that all languages are ideal to achieve
certain objectives.

Considering this is actually a chemical education conference - we are spending
a fair amount of time (including myself) thinking about a side-issue to our
main subject?? Is this really chemistry research and education?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 23:07:38 -0500
From: Barry Rowe
Subject: Re: Programming

> In some situations BASIC is alive and well over here
>in Western Australia - especially in primary and lower secondary schools. In
>upper secondary and non-computer science departments at this University (UWA)
>a lot of people use ThinkC and ThinkPascal, and if they are involved in
>multimedia development Hypertext.

BASIC is wonderful for kids and programming for fun, but as the complexity
of the toolboxes available to program have increased, BASIC has been left
behind. Everyone seems to be going to C, even the Pascal-based Macintosh.
However, as machines increase in complexity and speed, I think we will find
an increasing use of higher level languages, such as the upcoming Dylan for
the Power PC. In essence, the programming languages are coming closer to
database, hypertext and word processing 'languages' -- english-like script.
They all seem to be object oriented also.

I think the University of Illinois may have the best idea. They wrote a
language and it is used in the introductory classes. It is lisp-like and
oriented towards teaching programming. Shades of Pascal!

I prefer Pascal for my use, and I use HyperTalk because I teach HyperCard
in school. It is particularly elegant, but HyperCard itself is rather
limited.

HyperStudio has been released by Roger Wagner Publishing for the Macintosh
(ported from the Apple IIGS), and its scripting language is Logo! That is
strange, I think.

>Considering this is actually a chemical education conference - we are spending
>a fair amount of time (including myself) thinking about a side-issue to our
>main subject?? Is this really chemistry research and education?

Be careful!! I said this about the platform argument, and got soundly
hooted down!

barry
[] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

Barry E. Rowe browe@ncsa.uiuc.edu
NCSA ChemViz group
240 CAB, 152 E. Springfield Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820

ANY PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF
PHYSICS OBVIOUSLY INVOLVES
MATTER, AND IS THEREFORE
CHEMISTRY.
[] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 00:57:45 EDT
From: "John P. Ranck"
Subject: Paper 3 - Answers to Short Questions

PAPER 3 - ANSWERS TO SHORT QUESTIONS
From: John P. Ranck
Elizabethtown College
Elizabethtown, PA 17022
RANCK@VAX.ETOWN.EDU

Date: June 25, 1993

=======================================================================
From: Carolyn S. Judd

Q: Yes! Better visualization will surely lead to increased understanding.
Can you give an estimate of the time needed to produce your movies?

A: As in most things, it takes longer the first time. From beginning to
end, the entire production of these animations required 3 - 4 days (a long
weekend). The tasks were:

1) Determine a short enough dynamics step time that molecular
vibrations would be apparent and yet long enough that the entire course
of the reaction would run in 100 or fewer frames. The step time was
0.6 femtoseconds and frames were captured every 2 steps.

2) Optimize the geometry of a transition state complex with
O---C---Cl distances "frozen" at reasonable distances, use this as a
starting point for a dynamics run and let the transition state complex
"come apart" to form the "reactants". Then reverse all velocity vectors
and add a slight extra component along the reaction coordinate. This is
the starting point for the reaction run. With the slight extra velocity
component along the reaction coordinate, the fragments (reactants)
recombined and went "over the hill" to form the products. All this took
some fiddling to get starting conditions just right.

3) Write a script to do this automatically, stopping every two
dynamics steps to calculate, display, and capture the molecular orbitals.
I wrote the script as a macro in Microsoft Word (strange use of a word
processor) because the macro language is Word Basic which has control
structures (loops, logical if's, etc.) which are missing in HyperChem's
scripting language. (HyperChem scripts are basically sequences of menu
commands.) I had never used Word before and the peculiarities of its macros
took some learning -- especially to generate a systematic file name for each
frame and to open and close files, etc. The data (frame) collection run,
after all the preps and false starts took somewhere between 2 and 4 hours.

4) Becauuse HyperChem assigns the phase (and color) of the orbital
lobes arbitrarily, the colors were not consistent from frame to frame.
To maintain continuity of color in the animation, it was necessary to reverse
the colors in half the frames. Time: 1 to 2 hours per animation after
learning the idiosyncrasies of a color editor (HiJaak for Windows).

5) Assemble 100 frames into a .FLC file (Using Autodesk Animator Pro
with which I was already somewhat familiar). Time: about 30 minutes per
animation.

==========================================================================
From: Donald Rosenthal

Q: How do you use the animation files - do you use them as demonstrations
in lectures or do students have access to them outside class?

A: I constructed these animations as a feasibility test toward constructing
interactive "textbooks." My desire is to have a "text" in which:

1) chemical reactions are represented by dynamic animations instead
of static reactant --> product representations;

2) mathematical equations and graphs are active and allow variations
in parameters and choice of variables to plot;

AND the student has available immediately beside the text (with cut and paste
options)

1) a Chemistry Workspace (e.g., HyperChem) in which it is possible
to change the nucleophile, add side groups to provide "steric hindrance,"
change the plane for which the orbitals are displayed, change temperature,
initial velocities, etc.;

2) a Mathematics Workspace (e.g., MathCAD) in which the mathematical
relations presented may be similarly explored

AND have all this wrapped in a hypertext system in which suggestions for
exploration may be provided if needed.
-----------------------

Q: How do students react to these animations? What sort of student
evaluations have these materials received?

A: I have shared these animations with only one small class of physical
chemistry students. They claimed that they will never see chemical reactions
the same way again. The sample is too small to be meaningful and I set them
up.

=========================================================================
From: Charlie Abrams

Q: Do you have a graph of the potential energy vs. frame number? Even
better would be an energy surface with O-C and C-Br distances as the
X and Y axis respectively.

A: Such a map showing the trajectory on a potential energy surface could,
of course, be constructed from data generated by HyperChem.
It depends on what one is trying to exhibit. My attempt here was to
develop an revealing dynamic alternative to the static presentations of
an elementary reaction type. HOMO and LUMO orbital energy profiles vs.
reaction coordinate (correlation diagrams?) would also be useful in another
context.
------------------

Q: Can you provide more information on exactly what parameters were used
for the calculation? (ie. what level of sophistication, etc.)

A: HyperChem uses molecular mechanics or quantum mechanics to compute a
potential energy surface and then determines the motion of this potential
energy surface using classical mechanics. I used the AM1 semi-empirical
methods to calculate the energies and the orbitals.
-------------------

Q: How much faith do you have in these calculations? Is it safe to
assume that the *qualitative* behavior is independent of the level
of sophistication?

A: I am trying to convey qualitative information (molecules vibrate during
the course of a reaction; the reactants do not combine smoothly through the
activated complex and come apart directly as products; the electron orbitals
are really quite spread out over reactants and products and are dynamically
changing in complex ways during the reaction) with some degree of accuracy
in the quantitative details. I consider these illustrative rather than
highly accurate.
----------------------

Q: Can you generate shaded *surfaces* with HyperChem? Was this avoided
because of computational expense, or memory expense, or both? (By
surface I mean CPK type image).

A: Shaded (CPK) surfaces are a HyperChem option (actually, they are quite
"pretty") and orbitals can be superimposed over the atomic rendering, whatever
it be. I chose the dot surfaces (1) so that the orbital contours did not get
lost in a wash of color and (2) shaded surfaces give a greater sense of looking
at the molecule from the outside. I wanted to emphasize the electron
"distribution" so I used contour maps (necessarily in a plane) instead of
orbital boundary surfaces which show only one constant contour surface without
any information about gradient. The dot surfaces provide some representation
of the atomic "size" (van der Waals radii) without being as obtrusive as I
thought the shaded CPK surfaces would be.
------------------------

Q: I've had trouble getting the display to behave properly on one
monitor. The program did not give me the 640x480 driver option when I
used a DEC "PC7XV" monitor (with a DEC 433dxLP computer), and would
only display 'oversized bits'. Are other drivers available?

A: Autodesk *.FLC files also display quite nicely (but a bit more slowly)
using Microsoft Windows Media Player (mplayer.exe). On some systems (using
Media Player) the background washes with strange colors during the first
playing of the animation, but behaves correctly during the second and
subsequent runs. I think this is due to some slight frame errors introduced
when I did the color editing.
===========================================================================
From: Andy Tanton

Q: I have seen a movie representation of SN2 mechanism before (prepared by
Bruce Branchaud of U. Oregon) which was very similar to yours, and may have
also been developed on HyperChem, although I don't remember. In addition to
representing the mechanism graphically, Branchaud's movie also gave potential
energy values for each frame (computed by the program). He used this not only
to discuss the nature of the high-energy SN2 transition state, but also to
hint that the gas-phase SN2 reaction coordinate has a very peculiar energy
profile. Can you get your program to calculate and display potential energies?

A: See answer to Charlie Abrams question (above).
--------------------

Q: If so, is there any way for the program to estimate solvent effects on the
species, so as to demonstrate the difference between solution and gas-phase
SN2?

A: HyperChem lets you place a molecular system in a periodic box of water
molecules to simulate behavior in aqueous solution. This is useful for
simulating conditions for biological systems. After creating this aqueous
system, it should be possible to edit the system to substitute other solvent
molecules, though I have not tried this.
===========================================================================

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 10:26:57 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Programming

k.
>
>>Considering this is actually a chemical education conference - we are spending
>>a fair amount of time (including myself) thinking about a side-issue to our
>>main subject?? Is this really chemistry research and education?
>
Of course it is Chemiscal Education. How and with what do we equip chemists
to meet the rapidly changing job needs. In terms of simple pedagogy most of
what I teach wasn't discovered when AI was a student. We are trying to find
out how to teach and what to teach chemists in this time of exponential
growth of technology. When it comes to computers, anything that is
commercially available is obsolete, but its what we have to use, whether
networking discussed in paper two or other questions raised in paper one.
Using twenty year old technolgy may illustrate a pedagogical point in
elementary school, but is it what we want chemists who will be the
teachers, researchers and working chemists of the future to know?

>Be careful!! I said this about the platform argument, and got soundly
>hooted down!
>

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Does anyone out there know of software that will allow a DOS machine to access a
Caman GatorBox over a local talk network?

We have several Macs and a couple of DOS machines connected to a laserprinter
using a local talk network. The Macs are connected to ethernet using a gaterbox
that is connected to the local talk network, but the DOS machines can't seem to
find the gatorbox and so far I have not been able to connect them to ethernet
from the local talk network.

Loren Carter
Chemistry Department
Boise State University
Boise, Idaho
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 15:11:24 -0400
From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster

Animation is great. If only we could get a standard that would be truely
protable. Whether QuickTime movies now available in both PC and Mac format
provide this I don't know.

Certainly interplatform operability is a problem, and even between diferent
machines on the same platform.

Jack M. Miller Brock University: jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 15:13:03 EDT
From: "C. H. Lochmuller"
Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet
In-Reply-To: <9306251905.AA13068@umd5.umd.edu>; from "Loren Carter" at Jun 25,
93 1:03 pm

There were rumors of appletalk/easytalk/... cards about 8 months ago.
outfits name began with D but the fact is that it was vaporware " .. we hope
to get ...by ....". Dakom?

I would be intersted in finding a way myself.

CHL
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 17:16:56 +0800
From: "\"Gary Williams"
Subject: Questions Paper 3

Are there any hypertext/hypermedia characteristics inherent in the package
called 'HyperChem'? That is can you develop movies that the student had a
degreeof control over - for example the speed of the movie, the ability to
replay
the movie and pause at particular frames?

To what extent is HyperChem compatible with Hypercard? Can Hypercard call
HyperChem movies or do the movies have to be stored in a Quicktime format.
I know that some packages, e.g. Studio1, have quite an extensive library of
Hypercard compatible commands. I have used these to provide 1st year uni
students with a degree of control over the movie. Is this the case with
HyperChem?
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 17:22:58 +0800
From: "\"Gary Williams"
Subject: Paper 3

The discussion regarding the use of wedges and dotted lines to assist in
conveying 3-D characterisitcs to 2-D representations reminded of a small
piece of software I looked at a few years back. It involved this character
called Dr Smedley and included simulated rotation around a bond, using
MacroMind director. Unfortunately I only had access to a demo-version and
I remeber that it was quite a nice bit of graphics.

Does anyone have any information as to whether the software featuring
Dr Smedley was developed further and whether packages are available. The
demo version I saw involved SN2 reactions.

TNX 1 x 10^6, Gary W
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1993 14:35:45 -0500
From: James Barrett Aldridge
Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know
In-Reply-To: <9306221812.AA24482@umd5.umd.edu>

LaTex today? Surely not. A good Mac or Win PC with Word and its associated
equation editor is light years ahead. Good grief.

J. Aldridge
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 16:37:11 EDT
From: Ying Wang
Subject: signing off from the conference

Please sign me off.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 11:43:13 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet

>Does anyone out there know of software that will allow a DOS machine to access
>a
>Caman GatorBox over a local talk network?
>
We do it all the time. No software is needed unless your Gator Box is
miss-set. I assume you're using a Farallon card in your PC -- it should
see all other Mac zones just like a Mac -- you shouldn't know the Gator Box
is there.

For general network access to Non-MAC environments, if the PC has TCP/IP
drivers it should tunnel through the Gator Box to the Internet world, the
UNIX boxes on ethernet etc. without an trouble. D. Bockus, my
administrative assistant (dbockus@spartan.ac.Brocku.ca) apparently does
this all the time without problem, or so my Network Administrator informs
me.

>We have several Macs and a couple of DOS machines connected to a laserprinter
>using a local talk network. The Macs are connected to ethernet using a
>gaterbox
>that is connected to the local talk network, but the DOS machines can't seem to
>find the gatorbox and so far I have not been able to connect them to ethernet
>from the local talk network.

If you mean connect to ethernet devices, not ethertalk, then you need
TCP/IP on your PC, just as you do on your Macs.

>
>
>Loren Carter
>Chemistry Department
>Boise State University
>Boise, Idaho

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 11:53:30 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet

Correstion to my earlier response.

Yes we routinely go through the Gator box to other Appletalk zones over the
ethernet backbone, but we've not tried to get through to ethernet itself
with a TCP/IP packet driver which will probably have to be modified from
standard PC TCP/IP.

Sorry for the confusion.

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 11:55:41 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet

Have you checked with the PC card vendor for the packet drivers or with the
Gator Box people?

Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Dept. of Computer Science,
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.

Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 13:14:10 EDT
From: "John P. Ranck"
Subject: Paper 3 Q & A
From: Gary Williams

Q: Are there any hypertext/hypermedia characteristics inherent in the package
called 'HyperChem'? That is can you develop movies that the student had a
degreeof control over - for example the speed of the movie, the ability to
replay the movie and pause at particular frames?

A: HyperChem has the ability to save atomic coordinates and velicities in
a snapshot file during a dynamics run. The snapshot file can subsequently
be played back as a movie without recalculating each frame. The user can
specify the starting and stopping frame in the sequence and can interrupt
the playback at any time. Because the "frames" are saved as coordinate and
velocity data, the rotation and scaling options may be applied to the
playback, i.e., the playback can be run with the user observing from different
angles. Saying it another way, the snapshots are not screen images but are
molecular data.
------------------------------

Q: To what extent is HyperChem compatible with Hypercard? Can Hypercard call
HyperChem movies or do the movies have to be stored in a Quicktime format.
I know that some packages, e.g. Studio1, have quite an extensive library of
Hypercard compatible commands. I have used these to provide 1st year uni
students with a degree of control over the movie. Is this the case with
HyperChem?

A: HyperChem is available for DOS/Windows and for Silicon Graphics workstation.
Hypercard is a hypertexting system for the Macintosh. There is no inherent
compatability. However, screen IMAGES (not snapshots of atomic coordinates)
from HyperChem can be saved as bitmat (*.BMP) and/or windows graphics metafiles
(*.WMF). There are numerous graphic image conversion programs which convert
such images to other formats, e.g., CompuServe Graphics Image Format (*.GIF).
I used these *.GIF images to assemble the Autodesk *.FLC format movie files.
I believe Macintosh quicktime movies can also be assembled from *.GIF images.
The movies, once created and stored can be called from a hypertext system
such as Hypercard for the Macintosh or Toolbook or Guide for DOS/Windows
systems. These movies, however, will not be "interactive" in the sense that
the student can rotate, etc. as they are sequences of screen images and are
not constructed on the fly from atomic coordinates as are the playbacks of
snapshot files from within HyperChem.

John P. Ranck Internet: ranck@vax.etown.edu
Department of Chemistry Voice: 717-361-1315
Elizabethtown College FAX: 717-361-1207
Elizabethtown, PA 17022-2298

=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:19:08 -0400
From: William Harwood
Subject: Paper4

Following are the questions and our responses for paper #4:

1. From Carloyn S. Judd, Central College, Houston Community
College System (cjudd@tenet.edu)

>I love The World of Chemistry videos! My students love them also.
>Could you give more detail about the student projects involving
>their own video productions. Was there an exact assignment? How
>long were the videos. Did the institution furnish the equipment?
>How did the class presentation go? Were there more student
>questions following a student presentation than the presentations
>from The World of Chemistry?

Response:

The assignment for the class at U of Maryland was open-ended.
Students were to provide a creative project linking chemistry to
a topic of their own interest. I did not suggest or expect video
projects, in part because no support was provided to produce these.
Nevertheless, it is apparent that some American students are quite
proficient in the use of video technology.

The video projects typically ran for 15 minutes. As I stated,
some were poorly put together. This may be do to the lack of good
editing facilities available to that student. The best video
project, regarding drug use and abuse, was quite proficient. This
student had access to some home video editing equipment. More
importantly, however, the student had an excellent directorial
sense. She clearly thought about when to present certain material
and in what order.

The students who used World of Chemistry and other videos to
augment a class discussion found the class to be somewhat
responsive. The limited success of discussion in class seemed to
be related to the ability of the student to encourage and lead a
discussion. Some students, lacking this skill, inadvertently
stifled participation by the class.

2. From Donald Rosenthal, Dept. of Chemistry Clarkson University,
Postdam, NY (Rosen1@clvm.bitnet)

>Six references are listed at the end of your paper. The
>videotapes are cited. What about the other references? Were any
>of these used in the courses you discussed? Was the laboratory
>manual used? What sort of experiments are in the laboratory
>manual?

Response:

The American program was lecture only because too few students
expressed an interest in a laboratory portion for the course. It
was intended that students would have labs such as making soap and
making oil of wintergreen. We did have a short in-class lab to
make silly putty (during our discussion on polymers). In addition,
there were a lot of demonstrations. Many of these are "classic"
Shakhashiri demos such as the use of purple cabbage as an acid-base
indicator. Several books are used by our department as sources of
demonstrations.

The Israeli version used some of the "World of Chemistry
Laboratory Manual" labs.

3. From Tom O'Haver, UMCP, (Thomas_C_OHAVER@umail.umd.edu)

> 1. Specifically what societal, economic, and political
>differences between Israeli and American chemistry students have
>a bearing on the video-based course experiment?

> 2. Do you find important differences between the television
>viewing habits of Israeli and American students?

> 3. Are there differences between the extent to which Israeli
>and American students are exposed to video production technology
>at the secondary level?

Response:

Tom, you hit the nail on the head! American students are
generally more technologically wealthy than their Israeli
counterparts. Many homes in America have camcorders and videotape
machines, often with at least limited editing capability.

American and Israeli students watch a great deal of
television, though Americans have a much larger number of viewing
hours than do typical Israeli students. Many of these programs,
including the very popular MTV, are quite sophisticated in the mode
of video expression. Also popular are the "how did they make that
film" shows. These describe how video technology is used in the
film industry and provide some general information for students.
Young American students are, in general, fairly sophisticated
critics of film production elements.

The challenge, of course, is to encourage students to focus
on the content. American students may be more easily engaged thatn
Israeli students. This is because the World of Chemistry videos
are catered to and tailored for the needs of young Americans. They
also portray "American style" daily lives, housing, concerns and
societal debates. To some extent, student in other contries,
including Israel, have an avid interest in things American. This
interest porvides some help in bridging the cultural gap inherent
in the World of Chemistry video programs.

Exposure to film and video in secondary schools is still
widely limited to passive viewing of shows. Interactive video use
in the classroom or use of multimedia (videos and computers) is
just beginning in America and Israel.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:39:19 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: paper3 late reply

I'm sorry that this is late but I misread my calendar.
Please don't reply to the Server. Save it for later
or send to me directly and I will summarize.

The approach given here is one that addresses a fundamental problem in
chemical education. During lectures students are given the "facts" ,
"just the facts" for the most part. After all they must learn them
somewhere. Reactions are written on the board, some questions are
asked, and some responses obtained. But, just how much do most of
the students really understand? A chemical reaction has many levels
of understanding associated with it as the author points out.
Faculty and other professionals penetrate into various levels as needed
for a discussion. Students usually do not have this multi-level
multi-faceted appreciation of a reaction mechanism. Nevertheless
we talk to them in class as if they did especially if a facet of
interpretation has been introduced once or even twice before.

Then a dilemma develops. This dilema is due to our modes of learning.
Students often play into our model of them by often saying yes when
we say, "do you understand?" We in turn are surprised when they do
poorly on an exam that shows clearly that they do not understand.

There may be several reasons why they say yes that they understand
even when they don't.
Not knowing enough to even ask a question might be
one of them and frustration at not being able to understand may be
another. There are many others that you can come up with, some
showing the student in a favorable light
and some showing him/her in an unfavorable light.
I choose to think that since the student is
in college he/she has some interest in learning and honest motives
causes for success and/or failure are beyond this discussion.

One way to help students learn better is with animations like the
ones included in this paper. Various levels of understanding are
displayed and can be redispalyed over and over and at various
speeds and looked at and discussed with peers and teachers.
It opens new doors of understanding. Group discussion situations
can also be used effectively to accomplish this when animations are
not available. In groups students can learn effectively to
articulate their nascent questions and gain confidence in talking
about science.

Another effective strategy is for the teacher to use assessment
techniques to assess learning not to assign a grade.
Teaching under the old paradigm of lectures measures student
understanding only at exam time when it is too late to
correct misconceptions. By using brief well designed assessments
to diagnose student understanding maybe many misconceptions
can be nipped in the bud. But you may claim that this will take too
much time away from that important goal of lecture, the rapid
transfer of information. My reply is that you may be transferring
information but the receiver is not turned on when comprehension
and understanding on the part of the student is absent.

In closing I add that we cannot give students everything that they
need for their next career step. What we can give them is a set of
skills with which they can get what they need on their own and when
they need it. Isn't that what professional chemists do?

Theresa Julia Zielinski
Niagara University
Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109

Roszieli@UBVMS
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 09:08:08 -0700
From: Stephen Lower
Subject: Peper 4 discussion

In discussing the outcomes of these courses, the authors
emphasize the students' "increase in felt knowledge",
but nothing is said about the results of objective
tests of what the students have learned in terms of
the (unstated) goals of the course, which presumably
extend beyond making students feel good about Chemistry.
Perhaps if I were familiar with the "World of Chemistry"
materials I would have a more clear idea of what these
goals might be, but I think that some discussion of this
in the paper might have been helpful.

I suspect that the "cultural differences" alluded to
in the paper are just as great between different groups
within the two countries as between the countries themselves.
Educational institutions have traditionally forced the student
to conform to the learning styles (and the "culture", if you like)
that developed amongst the small elite that sought education
in the last century, and have not made much of an effort to adapt
to the cultural diversity that exists amongst the populations
that many of them are supposed to serve. Studies of this kind
tend to be met with something between dismissal and apathy
on the part of the academic establishment, so I am happy to see
this one here.
----------
Steve Lower - Vancouver, Canada
Dept of Chemistry - Simon Fraser University - Burnaby BC V5A 1S6
lower@sfu.ca 604-291-3353 FAX: 604-291-3765
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 15:36:38 -0400
From: William Harwood
Subject: paper 4 response

Steve Lower comments that we could have provided some detail
regarding mastery of chemical knowledge by the students in the
courses. Our reason for not including this information was the
lack of a specific control group. However, the syllabus of this
course is typical of many non-science major courses in introductory
chemistry.

Students were expected to perform at different cognitive levels:
knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis and analysis.
They had quizzes, exams and (for many) a final exam in both
countries.

The achievements of the students by these measures were not
significantly different from other classes of similar type that the
instructors have taught previously. Still, we have been struck by
the enthusiasm and improvements in attitudes toward the study of
chemistry that these students have demonstrated. Moreover, a major
goal of these courses, and the World of Chemistry video programs,
is to demonstrate that chemistry is in us and around us. Students
in America and Israel got this message easily, clearly, and
enjoyably.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 16:38:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

PAPER 4 DISCUSSION ON USE OF VIDEOS

TO: AUTHORS AND PARTICIPANTS

In the paper the authors indicate:
> " The use of video as a primary or supplementary means of presenting
> information on science issues . . ."

I wonder how extensively "The World of Chemistry" videos are used:

1. In high school chemistry

2. In teaching non-chemistry undergraduates

3. In teaching undergraduate chemistry majors

Are they used:
a. in lecture (tutorial or quiz sessions),
b. as required homework assignments,
c. or as optional resource materials?

I imagine that the tapes have been used in all of these ways in
particular courses. Do the AUTHORS have any statistics on such use?
In the courses described in their paper the authors seem to be
discussing 2-a and b usage. Have they used the materials in other
ways?

How have PARTICIPANTS used these tapes and other materials?
Describe how the course is organized and how useful the videos have
been.

Donald Rosenthal
Clarkson University
ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 22:35:13 EDT
From: Dan Swartling
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

We have used the video series as lab material for our chemistry for liberal
arts class. The tapes are very informative and very well received.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 21:31:04 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: <9306292056.AA10856@umd5.umd.edu>

On Tue, 29 Jun 1993, Donald Rosenthal wrote:

> PAPER 4 DISCUSSION ON USE OF VIDEOS
>
> TO: AUTHORS AND PARTICIPANTS
>

> I wonder how extensively "The World of Chemistry" videos are used:
>

Houston Community College System offers three freshman level and organic
sophomore level chemistry courses. I use the World of Chemistry vidoes in
all these courses. I cannot imagine teaching without " The Mole" (one
faculty member reported applause after her students viewed this video.) I
use this video in all freshman level courses. " Signals from Within" is an
excellent introduction to infrared for the organic chemistry
students. "Water" is another of my favorites for the freshman level courses.
Our three freshman courses are (1) introductory chemistry for students who
never took chemistry in high school (a 3-hr lecture/lab), (2) a 4-hr
(lecture/lab) course for those following a health career path, and general
chemistry.
I also use parts of many of the other videos; only time limits prevents my
inclusion of additional videos. The World of Chemistry is a high quality
program that always hold the attention of my students.

Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman
Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103
cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 09:01:11 CST
From: John Moore
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

I have used the World of Chemistry videotapes in categories 2 and 3 of Don
Rosenthal's question. I think they worked very well to give the students a
view of the forest of chemistry as opposed to the view of individual leaves
on the trees that we usually present in lecture or textbooks. The tapes were
a semi-required part of the course. I had one tape each week and picked out
the half-hour tape that matched what I was doing in lecture that week. Tapes
were available in a laboratory room and at the end of the week in the big
lecture hall with a 3-gun video projector. Students watched them raptly
until the summary review at the end, at which point they figured everything
was over. I was present at most of the showings, except when I was out of
town. By semi-required, I mean that the tapes were said to be required but
the points to be gained by watching them were only a small fraction (1.6%)
of the total for the course. Most students watched the requisite number of
tapes, and I think they got a good overview of each week's content as well
as a much better idea of how that content fit into real-world applications
of chemistry. I was quite pleased with the way this worked.

John Moore
University of Wisconsin-Madison

As a reminder, Don Rosenthal's categories 2 and 3 were:

>2. In teaching non-chemistry undergraduates
>
>3. In teaching undergraduate chemistry majors
>
Our main freshman course includes some chemistry majors but lots of other
science majors and some students who are satisfying a science distribution
requirement.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 09:08:25 CST
From: John Moore
Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

Re the comment that more World of Chemistry tapes would be used if there
were more time, it is not necessary to use and entire tape and consequently
an entire half hour's time. Conference participants should be aware that Nava
Ben-Zvi has edited many of
the demonstrations and animations from World of Chemistry into two hours
worth of video laserdiscs that have been published by Journal of Chemical
Education: Software as World of Chemistry: Selected Demonstrations and
Animations I and II. The laser videodisc format makes it possible for you
to go to any desired demo or animation and show only the part that you
want. Thus you could use this in lecture without having to show a whole
tape or queue up exactly the section you want. The material is barcoded and
frame numbers are given for each segment in the written documentation for
each disc. Each laser videodisc costs $150. If you want more information
contact J. Chem. Educ. Software at 608-262-5153.

John Moore
University of Wisconsin-Madison
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:25:18 -0500
From: "James E. Van Verth"
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

Selected portions of the World of Chemistry tapes are available on
two videodiscs, available from JCE-Software, U. Wisconsin, $150 each.
The advantage of the videodisc format is, of course, rapid access of any
segment, so that a number of short sequences can be easily interspersed
within a lecture.

James E. Van Verth Department of Chemistry
VANVERTH@CANISIUS.BITNET Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:34:45 EDT
From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET>
Subject: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: Message received on Tue, 29 Jun 93 16:50:29 EDT

regarding Donald Rosenthal's comment;
the WOC tapes have been used all over the world in many different ways, not
only in 1,2 and 3 but also in junior high schools and in the workplace,
such as industries and also in teachers in-service and pre-service workshops.
they were not aonly used as a,b, and c but also as examination materials.
We do not have any statistics about the relative different uses, but we have
information from various sources about the different ways the WOC tapes are
used. Our studeants in the case study described in the paper , used the tapes
together with text book, study guide and laboratory guide.
Ifmore informationrequested, please write to
NAVA BEN ZVI 201226@UMDD
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:42:51 EDT
From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET>
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: Message received on Tue, 29 Jun 93 22:36:19 EDT

thanks for the information about the extensive use of the WOC tapes.
Nava
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:44:52 EDT
From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET>
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: Message received on Tue, 29 Jun 93 22:51:31 EDT

regarding Carolyn S. Judd's comment;
Thank you for sharing with us your experience with some of the WOC tapes.
To the best of our knowledge the tapes are shown and used extensively
around the world in different languages and for different puposes and
the general feeling is that they bring a new dimension to the learning
of chemistry.
Ifmore information needed, write to
NAVA BEN ZVI at
201226@UMDD
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:47:10 -0400
From: "Frank W. Darrow"
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

In my non-majors courses "Chemistry and Your Body" and
"Contemporary Chemical Issues" I use two to three hours of video
from "The World of Chemistry" during the semester and in the
first year majors course I use about one hour. In our second year
organic course we use about one hour. In all cases the video is
used during class sessions and is preceded with an overhead or
two, or blackboard, preparing students for what they will see and
what they should look for. The video is followed by lecture and
discussion about it. The faculty manual that accompanies the
telecourse is useful in preparing the pre and post showing
things.
We bought one of the videodiscs and we will use it instead of
the videotape when appropriate this next year.
Like most we also use other videos, discs, and demonstrations.
In my non-majors courses they account for about one-third of
class time, in the major course about one-fifth (the extent of
content problem). Whatever is most appropriate to get the job
done as we see it.
Students receive these things well, and the change of
pace/style of presentation is useful in keeping students "on
task".

----------

Frank W. Darrow, Chemistry Dept., Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850
Darrow@Ithaca.BitNet (607) 274-3991
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 12:18:02 EDT
From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET>
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: Message received on Wed, 30 Jun 93 10:06:14 EDT

REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S COMMENT;
THANK YOU FOR SHRING YOUR OWN EXOERIENCE WITH THE WOC.DID YOU TRY TO USE A
SEGMENT OF THE TAPE AS AN EXAM QUESTION?
NAVA
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 12:21:10 EDT
From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: Message received on Wed, 30 Jun 93 10:08:30 EDT

REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S SECOND COMMECT;
YES, WE DO HAVE DEMONSTARATIONS AND GRAPHICS FROM THE WOC SERIES ON VIDEODISCS.
OUR NEXT STEP WILL BE THE CD-ROM. ANYBODY WANTS TO JOIN IN?
NAVA
AT 201226@UMDD
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 15:28:51 EDT
From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET>
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: Message received on Wed, 30 Jun 93 11:51:23 EDT

REGARDING FRANK BARROW'S MESSAGE
IT IS VERY PLEASING TO READ HOW THE WOC MATERIALS ARE USED IN A VARIETY OF
SHEMISTRY COURSES WITH A STRONG STS APPROACH.THANKS.
NAVA
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 15:23:00 MDT
Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu
From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU
Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

I'd like more information about the CD ROM. Barbara Gaddis
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 18:14:08 CST
From: John Moore
Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

>
>REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S COMMENT;
>THANK YOU FOR SHRING YOUR OWN EXOERIENCE WITH THE WOC.DID YOU TRY TO USE A
>SEGMENT OF THE TAPE AS AN EXAM QUESTION?
>NAVA

The answer to this is no, because I never had an exam where all of the
students were in a room where I could show the tapes. However, I would like
to use the videodisc this way.
John Moore
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 18:16:54 CST
From: John Moore
Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES

In Message Wed, 30 Jun 93 16:57:35, chemconf@umdd.bitnet writes:

>
>REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S SECOND COMMECT;
>YES, WE DO HAVE DEMONSTARATIONS AND GRAPHICS FROM THE WOC SERIES ON VIDEODISCS.
>OUR NEXT STEP WILL BE THE CD-ROM. ANYBODY WANTS TO JOIN IN?
>NAVA
>AT 201226@UMDD

In another six months JCE: Software will begin distributing CD ROM discs,
but I do not know what will be on the first one yet. We would have to get
permission to do WOC from the videodiscs, right Nava?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 20:09:32 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: John Moore on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES
In-Reply-To: <9306301429.AA20228@umd5.umd.edu>

John,
Thank you for the ideas for using the Videodisc The World of Chemistry.
Hopefully J. Chem. Ed: Software will soon receive orders from my college
for both volumes.

Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103
cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 22:37:06 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Use of WOC videos in Courses

I have used WOC videos in non science majors courses for the past two
years. I use these videos as an alternative to lecture.
Before viewing the video I provide the students with a typed page
of questions that they must complete after viewing the video.
The assignment involves concept identification and clarification
as well as application of the concepts to new situations.
This year was the first year for using the question sheet.
Student feed back was that they wanted more oportunities to
review the video so as to get the correct ideas written down.
They convinced me that it would also be good to have a discussion
period after the video in which they could explore their understanding
more thoroughly. I will do this in the comming academic year.

Regarding 15-20 page papers.

Students at Niagara like students everywhere are great procrastinators.
Term papers are postponed to the last minute with stress build up
at the end of the semester. I have found that more frequent shorter
papers on more focused topics with 2-4 page limits at the rate of
one every two weeks or so interspersed with other writing assignments
keeps up a steady pace and facilitates learning. It also releaves
me of the burden of grading so many long papers at the end of the semester.

Theresa Julia Zielinski
Niagara University
Niagara University NY 14109

Roszieli@ubvms
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 23:19:46 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: paper 4

It is not surprising that materials produced in one country are
not fully transferable to another even if that other country
has a similar technological base. Even within one country the
situation can be very complex when materials are used in non
traditional learning situations or in bits and pieces to fit a
traditional course. Further complications arise when age and
cultural differences within a country are included. This makes
assessment of the materials difficult. But instead of waiting
for the perfect assessment tool for a diverse population of
practitioners and students, assessment should proceed and the
findings incorporated as they are discovered as is indicated in
this paper.

My interest in assessment is relatively new. I am trying to
learn how to do it appropriately. I know that I don't want
more numbers for my roll book. I want to assess learning
during learning while I have time to affect the out come of
instruction. In my opinion exam time is too late for
identifying cognitive problems. What are people doing about
assessing learning during instruction?

My interest is to use pre and post assessment with my chem
majors in pchem - first, to discover misconceptions (I am aware
of Bodner's work in this area). Unfortunately all those
misconceptions that I discovered in students over the past 25
years were not written down and since I have a poor memory I am
now trying to get them any way that I can. Second, I would
also like to assess the degree of learning due to a particular
activity.

In the paper it mentions that students overall chemical
literacy improved as did their attitudes toward chemistry.
These are two very important outcomes for the student who must
now become an independent learner of science in an ever more
complex and technological world. One of my goals as a teacher
is to make science "user friendly" or rather to generate some
friendly users of science. Toward this end I would be very
interested in assessing science literacy and science attitudes
in my classes for non science majors. I heard that assessing
science attitudes was very difficult. What tests did you use
for science literacy and science attitudes. Would you be able
to share the tests or the sources? I am trying to generate
assessment tools for my own students and would appreciate any
help that could be extended in this area.

Theresa Julia Zielinski
Chemistry Department
Niagara University
Niagara University NY 14109

Roszieli@UBVMS

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