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ECTN: AN ESTABLISHED FORUM FOR EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY CHEMISTS These days most people involved in university education know what ECTS is. But the same will not be true of ECTN. The origin of the acronyms is different: ECTS is the European Credit Transfer System, ECTN the European Chemistry Thematic Network. But in fact the two are closely connected. Chemistry was one of the five original ECTS subjects, and when the SOCRATES programme was introduced the European Commission decided to foster the setting up of Thematic Networks as a forum where educators could discuss their problems and look at possible ways of solving them, and disseminate best practices, in a European context. So the members of the original "inner circle" decided to form such a chemistry network, with the aim of attracting representative universities from all the EU countries. It is also hoped to get national chemical societies involved, but so far only the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Czech and Slovak Chemical Societies are members. ECTN has now grown to a healthy size of over 100 members from 28 different countries and during its six years of existence has managed to do a great deal of useful work. A number of Working Groups have been set up, including Core Chemistry, Safety in Chemistry, Practical Skills, the Image of Chemistry, Chemistry and the Environment, Postgraduate Training, Biological Chemistry, and Green Chemistry. These working groups have presented reports which can be found on the Internet (www.ectn.net). Contacts have been established with FECS and the European Community Chemistry Council (ECCC). The Core Chemistry group set itself the task of surveying the whole of Europe in order to find out what the member countries consider as the common ground for university education. The tangible result of this was a report published as a sizeable volume. On this basis ECTN has devised a series of computer-based tests to enable students to determine whether they have mastered this core material as well as testing the pre-university knowledge in schools. These tests are available, in demonstration form, in 17 different languages. The initial phase of this project is complete and a CD is being distributed and tested throughout Europe. In the near future these tests will be available on the internet. The members of ECTN (which are universities, not departments of chemistry) are of course aware that their function is not to aim for homogenisation of chemistry tertiary education in Europe but to act as a forum for discussing ideas which can find wide acceptance within the chemistry community. Presently ECTN is taking part as a "synergy group" in the EU-sponsored project "Tuning Higher Education Structures in Europe", and as part of this activity a paper has been produced which suggests a possible framework for a "Eurobachelor" degree in chemistry. ECTN hopes to receive support from the relevant organisations within the countries of Europe and from the national chemical societies and to extend its membership as Europe expands. Since it is possible that financial support from Brussels may eventually dry up, ECTN is at present in the process of forming a separate organisation, the European Chemistry Thematic Network Association (ECTNA), which will allow it to act on a wider basis. Terry
N. MITCHELL,
RESEARCH
IN SCIENCE EDUCATION: NOW PUBLISHED BY Research in Science Education (RISE) is the journal of the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA). It is an international journal which publishes scholarly science education research of interest to researchers, practitioners and others interested in science education. Articles are published relating to early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary, workplace and informal learning contexts as they relate to science education. Since 2001, the journal has been published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. Members of ASERA receive the journal as part of their membership. For more information see: Kluwer Academic Publishers at: http://www.kluweronline.nl ASERA at: http://www.fed.qut.edu.au/projects/asera or contact the editor at Professor
Campbell McROBBIE, Director, Centre for Mathematics and Science Education,
JOURNAL
OF SCIENCE EDUCATION This
peer reviewed Journal (ISSN 0124-5481) is indexed and abstracted in
Chemical Abstracts (CA), Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC),
Educational Research Abstract, UK; Contents Pages in Education, UK;
Yahoo!: Issue No. 1, Vol. 3, 2002 is in circulation now. It is distributed with the free CD-ROM of the multimedia educational software. The objective of this journal is to publish the results of the investigations of authors from different countries about various matters, and new active methods of physical, chemical, biological education. We also welcome material from investigations in the teaching of mathematics applied to the science instruction. We offer space for research work in the teaching environment sciences, biotechnology and other new interdisciplinary subjects, that have increasing importance for society. The
Web page of the journal (in English and Spanish): http://www.colciencias.gov.co/rec We invite you send us articles and other materials for next numbers. You can send us too the advertising information about your academic and research programs. YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE WITH VISA CREDIT CARD! Director of the Journal: Yuri ORLIK, Ph.D., Kar 15A # 44- 13, of 202, Bogota, Colombia; phone/fax: (571) 340 32 12; fax: (571) 285 05 03; e mail: oen85@yahoo.com
RESEARCH
ON MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION: The Finnish Association for Research in Mathematics and Science Education (Professor Erkki Pehkonen, chair), and the Finnish Graduate School of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry Education (Professor Maija Ahtee, chair) have jointly published a book with the above title. It is in English and contains a number of refereed papers by an international panel of reviewers. The papers derive from graduate research work carried out by students if the Graduate School. In addition, it contains papers by Professor Laurence Viennot, University VII, France, and Professor Georgios Tsaparlis, University of Ioannina, Greece, who gave lectures and workshops at seminars of the Graduate School in Joensuu, and Professor Erkki Phehkonen, who gave a lecture at a seminar in Vaasa. Publisher is the Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyvaskyla. Papers related to physics and chemistry education are the following:
THIS PUBLICATION CAN BE OBTAINED FROM: Institute for Educational Research, Customer services, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35, FIN-40351 Jyvaskyla, Finalnd. Phone: + 358 14 260 3220; fax: + 358 14 260 3241; e-mail: terttu.airama@ktl.juv.fi; www: http://www.jyu.fi/ktl/
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