Chemical
Education International, Vol. 2, Issue 1, Foreword, Published in
August 31, 2001
Foreword
Yoshito
Takeuchi
Editor-in
Chief
Department
of Chemistry, Faculity of Science, Kanagawa University, Tuchiya,
Hiratsuka-shi, 259-1293 Japan
[email protected]
It
is a great pleasure for the editor and the editorial board to announce
the release of the 2nd issue of Chemical Education International.
At the same time, the editor wishes to apologize for the delay of
this issue. It was intended to release the 2nd issue by the end
of March 2001, and so with this delay of several months in mind
the editorial board would like to thank authors who made their contributions
in time to meet our original issue date.
It
would be appropriate to report how this new electronic journal was
born. In 1974, CTC started publishing the International Newsletter
for Chemical Education (INCE) to promote the exchange of ideas
and the dissemination of information on chemical education all over
the world. The circulation of INCE varied between 3000 and 4000
and it was published twice per year.
UNESCO
originally sponsored this small pamphlet. As has been the case with
many other projects, because of the budget cutbacks, UNESCO retreated
from this publication, and for some ten years or so IUPAC CTC had
a very hard time trying to maintain this publication. Donations
from several chemical societies from various countries made possible
the continuation of the publication for a few years. However, a
publication based on such elusive funding was not very stable, with
the result that continuation of the publication in a conventional
form was no longer feasible.
The
possibility of electronic publication as an alternative for conventional
publication was discussed on several occasions, firstly at the informal
CTC meeting at Brisbane on the occasion of the 16th ICCE in August
1996, and later on the occasion of the IUPAC CTC meeting in the
summer of 1999 in Berlin. At this latter meeting it was proposed
and decided that the INCE be shifted to the format of an
electronic publication, and a small working group was organized
to proceed with the proposed publication.
The
first issue of a trial version of the electronic journal was released
in July 2000, just before the 16th ICCE held in Budapest. As for
the name of the new journal, the editorial board had two choices;
one was to take over the name of INCE, and the other was to have
a new name to indicate a change. The editorial board decided to
choose the second option, and a new name Chemical Education International
was proposed. The new name was chosen in harmony with the name of
IUPAC's official news magazine, Chemistry International.
The editorial board also proposed a subtitle, Material, Life
and Environment so that the general policy of the editing of
the new journal was more clearly revealed.
The
intended readership of INCE was mostly schoolteachers and some professors
who were interested in chemical education. The editorial board intended
to widen the scope to some extent, and hopefully students (and interested
members of the general public) might be included in the potential
readership. This was not so unrealistic since to be a reader of
an electronic journal would be in one sense much easier than to
be a reader of a printed journal since one need not buy the journal.
As
for the articles included in the electronic journal, the main part
should be the announcements and reports of various international
conferences (e.g., ICCE) and events (e.g., Chemistry
Olympiad). As a feature, and as a means to attract students and
a general readership to the journal, we attempted to include a brief
interview of Nobel laureates in chemistry. Included in the first
two issues were interviews with Prof. Rowland and with Prof. Kroto.
It must be added that the two Nobel laureates were very co-operative
and agreed to spend some of their precious time with us for the
interview.
At
the CTC meeting held in Brisbane in the summer of 2001, the results
of these attempts were critically discussed, and it was unanimously
decided that the electronic publication should be continued, though
the scope of the readers would be better restricted rather than
widened.
Another
proposal by the editor to the effect that the new electronic journal
should be guided by a younger colleague with more knowledge and
experience in the field of electronic publication was also approved,
and Prof. M. M. Ito, the national representative of Japan who had
acted as the co-editor for the previous two issues was elected as
the new editor. An editorial board including some ten titular members
and national representatives with appropriate geographical distribution
was also established.
As
such, from issue No. 3 of the electronic journal the new editor
and editorial board will be responsible for all aspects of the editing
and publishing of the journal.
The
editor wishes to thank all those who helped in the renewed attempts
of INCE to bring the new electronic journal into existence and without
whose help nothing could have been done. The editor is very much
satisfied with the fact that he could somehow contribute to CTC
and the world of chemical education by opening up a new world of
electronic publication with CTC's own journal.
Last
updated
16.05.02
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