CERAPIE

CHEMISTRY EDUCATION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE IN EUROPE 2000, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-3	EDITORIAL 1

Georgios TSAPARLIS
University of Ioannina, Department of Chemistry

INTRODUCING CERAPIE

EXCERPTS: CERAPIE is a follow-up publication to the 5th European Conference on Research in Chemical Education (5th ECRICE), that took place with great success in the University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece, from 21 until 25 September 1999. In undertaking this publication, the following targets have been set:

To provide to both researchers and practitioners of chemistry education in Europe an additional means to publish their work, taking into account that the existing international science education and chemistry education journals are very limited in number. [In particular, there is a need for an exclusive means for the publication of science education research in the special domain of chemistry.]
To secure a high quality of the published work, by submitting it to peer reviewing by professional science education researchers and/or chemical educators…
To speed up considerably the review and publication process. [It is well known that in the case of the standard journals this process is very slow (often about two years) in contrast to the science (chemistry, physics, biology, biochemistry etc.) journals where it is not unusual to have as low times as four months. Actually, this is the most important reason for which CERAPIE has been launched.]
To make CERAPIE as widely read as possible, by distributing it free through the Internet

…

The review process … With the exception of invited contributions, the full papers were each sent to two reviewers … The editorial decision about acceptance/conditional acceptance after minor or major revision or rejection of the manuscript was based entirely on the reviewers' recommendations. The reasons for rejection of mainly research papers was mainly poor methodology. As one distinguished reviewer commented criticising a particular manuscript, 'We want to encourage people to get interested in chemistry education research, but they must learn the methodologies of the discipline.'
Note that CERAPIE is not a profit-making publication. It is available free of charge on the Internet, while the cost of the present and the next issue are covered by the revenues from the 5^th ECRICE. Reviewers also offer their work without payment.

The future of CERAPIE. Certainly readers will wonder if there is going to be a future for CERAPIE. Its original aim has been to provide the best possible means for the participants of the 5^th ECRICE to present internationally their work if they so wished, and if the work was of high or at least good quality. This aim is fulfilled with the publication of the first two issues. But the four targets, which we set, could not be fully satisfied by just doing that. In our opinion, CERAPIE must have a more permanent presence. Its continuation is a very hard job which cannot be undertaken by one person. We invite everyone interested in a dialogue about the most effective way to make the presence of CERAPIE permanent.

Acknowledgement: I have to thank (1) all authors who submitted papers; and (2) all reviewers for their hard work and professional comments.

[About CERP] [Current Issue] [Past Issues] [Note on Safety]
[Reviewers of CERP] [New Call for Papers] [Guidelines for Submissions]
[Submission Form (PDF)][Help] [Home]