On-line Scandal to Come

I am currently working on creating an on-line Introduction to Regulatory Affairs course for our College of Continuing Education.  Aside from the course material itself, which I will go into at a later date, I have been assigned a minder to "help" ensure that all the university on-line content rules are followed.  In the course of my initial meeting with the continuing education folks a conversation on ensuring the security of courses ensued.

There are people who will take on-line courses for students and/or will take on-line examinations for the student.  With the increasing push toward on-line education educators need to get ahead of the future scandal when this issue comes before the public.  A widely publicized incident where a public figure or a group of pseudo-public figures are caught which unearned on-line credentials will cause a backlash that will have the public throwing out baby and bathwater.  This endangers what promise on-line education has.

One potential solution to the problem of credentialing the on-line student is to enforce identity checks in on-line testing.  This could be done through a little cooperation between institutions.  In a state like California where you can't spit without hitting a community college, Cal. State or Univ. of Cal campus there could be testing centers where the on-line student can come with their ID to take tests.  If we add in public libraries and public high schools this type of cooperative sharing of resources could actually facilitate the development of on-line education in a form where the credential actually has some value.

For those in the physical sphere of education, it should be pointed out that similar checks might be appropriate in your courses too.  As class sizes have grown, how many of us really know all our students.  I am reminded of a case from over a decade ago where a colleague discovered at the last exam of the semester that one student taking his organic course, and earning an A, was not in fact the student of record, but a family friend dentist who had been in the classroom and taking tests all semester.

I also have a colleague in the business college who checks photo ID at every exam.

I have stated it before; As the internet makes content freely available the job of institutions of higher education will increasingly become one of credentialing and training in technique where on-line learning is not sufficient.

T.S. Hall

The George Molecule

My undergraduate organic instructor and research mentor loved the nonstandard names given for organic molecules, including George, Housane, Pagodane, etc.  They bring a little whimsy into the subject.  In those days common nomenclature was the primary type of naming used in the course.  In the intervening decades IUPAC nomenclature appears to have taken the drivers seat in most texts.

This semester I have been teaching for the first time from the organic text by Jones and Fleming.  While the students really like the writing style, I have found that the use of common nomenclature is driving me to distraction.  IUPAC nomenclature is brought in, but common nomenclature is used the vast majority of the time.  One bit of irony for me is that the authors write about "bling" in talking about diamond, but still use amyl and appear to think that the name ethylene is IUPAC nomenclature.

While common nomenclature is necessary as it is still used, systematic nomenclature offers the opportunity to train the student's mind to build a body of rules that can be applied to systems they have yet to see.  It fits well into the idea of building the capability to predicting the products of reactions between reagents one has never seen.

One problem in the use of IUPAC nomenclature in text is that most of us don't know all the basic rules, so many text include errors in their IUPAC naming.  Taking a page from days gone by when there were texts on organic nomenclature, perhaps we need a primer on IUPAC nomenclature for organic faculty.  Something like a Oxford primer soft cover book.

T.S. Hall

Stop the Slaughter! Please! I'm begging here!

Perhaps I should not have given an exam the Friday before Halloween.  The students were in a particularly blood thirsty mood.  The wanton destruction put me in mind of Timur (Tamerlane) standing on a pile of the heads of his 100,000 captives during the conquest of Delhi.  It made no difference (to the students, not Timur) what Lewis acid was on the oxygen, the carbon-oxygen bond was almost always broken.

I warned the class several times about decapitation of alcohols and alkoxides, to no avail.  Appeals to consider electronegativity differences did not sway this group of students.  When asked, they remembered the picture of the decapitated alcohol, which they thought was funny.  To bad that they did not remember the concept behind it.

I often try to bring in analogies that will make them laugh to help them remember concepts, particularly those that they commonly trip up on.  The lesson, I suppose, is that being entertaining is not the same thing as educating.

So, back to the drawing board.

T.S. Hall

Hold your nose

Thank God the elections will be over in a couple of days.  If the campaigns have demonstrated anything, they have demonstrated that the nation is full of people who are diametrically opposed to working with anyone other than their clones.  This does not bode well for our future.

Similar kinds of self destructive things happen in our departments.  For instance, my department is currently discussing the prospects of writing a grant to replace our research NMR.  This will require all our NMR users to work together in the effort.  Some are withholding any activity toward the grant until the university promises to hire an NMR technician.  Do we need an NMR technician?  Perhaps, but holding up any progress toward resolving our NMR needs problem, which is real, does not serve the faculty members withholding their effort or the department.

A department needs to be a community working together for a common good.  Even with budget problems and administrators who care more about six year graduation rates than education and the careers of our graduates.  The department faculty need to work together to use with the budget they have and educate administrators and students alike.  Stamping our feet and saying, "It's our way or no way!" is never appropriate in an academic department or a state house or congress.  Our students deserve better, colleagues deserve better, our state deserves better, and our nation deserves better.

T.S. Hall

Celebrating Chemistry

In case you did not notice, last week was National Chemistry Week, and last Saturday was Mole Day.  If it slipped by without you contributing to the festivities don't worry, next year is the International Year of Chemistry.  The goals of the International Year are to spread the good news of chemistry to the citizenry.  Now is the time to start thinking about how you will contribute.

While I am thinking about how to celebrate chemistry I am also thinking about the all important Department Halloween Party.

I am thinking that this year I will really terrify and go as an Organic Exam.  Baby blue sheet enblazened with the text normally found on a Blue Book including the bar code on the back lower corner.  Make sure to fill in the student name and the all important course info.  You could have the family go as labware, but DO NOT suggest that your spouse go as a pear flask.  (You will get no treats.)  I recommend suggesting a stirring rod complete with a nice rubber policeman hat.  Better yet, a white sheet can become the organic exam questions.  Put questions on the front and back.

Just remember that celebrating is about having fun.

T.S. Hall

Our Ailing Infrastructure

My father and mother lived in a homeowners association once the chicks had left the nest.  One of the interesting things about homeowners association living is that while they are non-profit, associations they set up a "reserves account" to cover those non-annual costs.  Things like resealing the parking lot or replacing roofing.  The carried over reserve funds are not considered profit.  They are a sensible mode of covering costs that are not regular annual costs.  The association adds a basic level of funding to build the account each month.

What does this have to do with chemistry?  Repair or replacement of instruments has become an impossibility given the lean years we have faced and see into the future.  Immediate needs get covered in lean times and infrastructure can go to hell in the mean time.  Just look at the nations bridges.

Our institutions generally don't have anything resembling a reserve account for our infrastructure.  My department has not had a state funded operating account in years, so adding money to an infrastructure reserve is out of the quesiton.

Looking for another option, I have brought this issue up in our development committee only to meet with the response that donations for repair and replacement of infrastructure is not something people will donate to.  Scholarships, yes, instrumentation, no.  Is this a problem of not making a strong enough case?  Without the resources to train the students with modern functioning equipment, scholarships only support training graduate for jobs in the last century.  Hardly a value added degree.

And what of our institutions and our statehouses.  If we are supposed to be training the high tech employees of the future, how are we supposed to do it without of date and nonfunctioning equipment.  Yes, it will mean that the increase in costs of education will outstrip the rate of inflation.  But should we expect that the up-to-date technology will cost nothing.  This is how we get into an infrastructure hole that you can't get out of.

T.S.Hall

Billable Hour

In a few weeks the 2010 elections will be over, and the advertising for the 2012 elections will begin.  As part of the anti-intellectualism of today's political candidates, the faculty at institutions of higher education will be identified as welfare queens who only work 12 hours a week.  It's annoying and to the extent that it effects the resources we have to do our jobs, not to mention feed our families, it aggravating.

To address the issue and head off the politicos I suggest that we academics declare a "billable hours week".  The week of the elections would be good.  We can use technology to remind us every hour to assign the work of the previous hour to "accounts" that reflect our duties.

The accounts list might include the following.

In class work: teaching, class preparation, preparing assessment activities, grading assessment activities, office hours, E-mail and other student communication
Scholarly activities: grant writing, grant administration, supervision of students, writing papers, communicating with collaborators, your own lab work
Service: departmental meetings, college meetings, university meetings, meeting prep, servicing university facilities, reviewing grants and papers, department and student development

If the exercise does nothing else, it should help us individually determine where the hours go.  I know I have been wondering.

T.S. Hall