Booth Blog

Looking Back to Look Ahead

Build it and they will come! That’s certainly the story this week at the chemistry.org booth. We’ve welcomed lots of people. All have been willing to share their views about ACS on the web and what they’d like to see going forward.

Without doubt, everyone agrees the possibilities are exciting. Age, background, interests – there’s no difference. The shared view: the Internet is central to extending the value of ACS to all members and to the chemical enterprise at large. How we do that is open to healthy debate with diverse views and opinions.

Not everyone was aware of many of the things ACS currently offers. Most visitors knew about RSS feeds but did not know they are available from ACS – you can sign up here.

Blogs and wikis created lots of enthusiasm and a demand they be offered permanently. Younger chemists and ACS governance members are looking for ways to incorporate new tools in their work; private wikis for committee work, on-line surveys to solicit views on policy proposals etc.

Multimedia was well received especially where audio, video and presentation slides are synchronized for web-delivered presentations. The concept of extending the reach of face-to-face meetings via the web to virtual communities is seen as valuable.

We came to experiment. We’ve collected lots of data to study and act on. Thank you to everyone who has participated.

This website will remain open for some weeks after the end of the national meeting. We invite your continued feedback, suggestions and ideas for permanent enhancements to the ACS Web Presence and for the 223rd national meeting in Chicago next March. See you there!

Postscript: Several organizations and individuals maintained blogs reporting of the San Francisco ACS national meeting. Here is a sampling you might wish to check out:

• Royal Society of Chemistry blog
• thescepticalchymist blog (nature.com)
• petermr’s blog (Peter Murray-Rust, Unilever Cambridge Center for Molecular Informatics)
• Using Wiki in Education (Stewart Mader)
• SteinBlog (Christoph Steinbeck’s Weblog)
• tenderbutton (Dylan Stiles blog)

Global Meetings Without Boundaries

In 2005, for the first time, ACS produced two videos welcoming members to the national meetings. Now, the San Francisco welcome video will be streamed over the web. Also in 2005, ACS used virtual marketing – podcasts and web blogs – to reach out to young people and give more visibility to National Chemistry Week. The ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF) recorded the session on “Social Software and Chemical Information” at the Atlanta national meeting and made these recordings available over the web.

Using the web to enhance national meetings and other ACS events is already gaining momentum. Until now, only by attending in person could one truly benefit from the information, professional and social networking of ACS national meetings. The web creates opportunities to extend many of these benefits to remote participants and to do this in ways that enhance value to physical attendees.

Imagine some of the possibilities….

Already in San Francisco, remote locations will be linked to national meeting symposia, enabling the participation of distinguished speakers like Dr. Harold Kroto, 1996 Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry. Live video will be available via the web for real-time or delayed viewing. Time or travel limitations need never again prevent participation by valued speakers (though the availability of technical facilities and cost might).

Other organizations have used streaming video and other technologies to enable remote audience participation. A case in point is the recent Wikimania 2006 conference held in Boston. Online participation included audio and video streams of live sessions (archived for later viewing), real-time transcripts, on-line chat, blogs, a participants’ directory, online discussions and “lightning” (impromptu) talks.

The ACS Division of Chemical Education’s Committee in Chemical Education has taken the concept a step further by organizing the first CONFCHEM, a conference held completely online. The next CONFCHEM conference, on “Ensuring the Future Through Education”, is scheduled for October 2006.
What if ACS national meetings were extended to the web? Beyond simply enabling online participation through video and audio streams, web-based capabilities could be used to facilitate discussion and comment beyond the confines of the meeting rooms. No more would timetable conflicts force one to miss interesting sessions.

What if ACS sponsored secondary meetings, for example, in overseas locations and linked these to sessions at the main site? Isn’t it time to expand thinking beyond simply national meetings to global meetings that bring together chemists around the world in person and via the web. Truly meetings without boundaries.

Please give us your feedback by clicking the "Comments" link below.

Learning from young scientists

Two Project SEED high school students, Adrian Enriquez and Dean Stanley, will stop by the chemistry.org booth on Tuesday afternoon to talk about their experiences as Project SEED interns. Both graduated from high school this year and have elected to pursue chemistry related careers, a choice that Project SEED help shape.

Begun in 1968 by Alan C. Nixon (ACS President, 1973) and others, Project SEED is ACS’ summer research program for economically disadvantaged high school students. Students work for eight to ten weeks in an academic, government, or corporate research lab and submit a report at the end of the summer. Each student receives a stipend with funding coming from a combination of sources including a SEED endowment managed by ACS, the ACS Petroleum Research Fund, local ACS sections, and individual and corporate sponsors.

This summer, approximately 350 mentors and coordinators from 28 states committed to provide internships for Project SEED students. These volunteers do not get paid for their participation but most believe they are adequately compensated in other ways. “The reward is not economic,” says David L. Cedeño, assistant professor at Illinois State University. “The reward is seeing these kids get a start in life.”

Others point to real benefits both to mentors and the host organizations. Cora Lind, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Toledo, says that having a high school student around energizes everybody in the lab. “You feel the excitement in the other person, and you can’t help but pick up a little bit of it.” Michael T. Cheng, a research scientist and mentor at Chevron Energy Technology Co., Richmond, California, mentored a student last summer who knew a lot about computers and not so much about chemistry. “We found something for him to do in laboratory, but he really helped us in terms of our computer situation,” Cheng says, noting that the student networked all of their laboratory computers that summer.”

Project SEED is an example both of a program that helps attract young people to careers in chemistry and one where established chemists can also learn from young people. On the former, concerns continue to be voiced about “a troubling decline in the number of U.S. citizens who are training to become scientists and engineers while the number of jobs…. continues to grow” (NSB Science & Engineering Indicators, 2004). Through dialog and learning with young people, we can perhaps find new approaches to address this problem.

Consider the example of the Project SEED student whose computer expertise benefited his host laboratory. Young people today can really help those of us, who are older and more set in our ideas, discover new ways to use and benefit from computing and communications technologies. Many of the emerging tools and capabilities for collaboration, interaction and networking are second nature to high schoolers but can be intimidating even to young graduates who have not grown up with them.

More than ever before, young scientists can make  important contributions for ensuring the healthy evolution of the Chemical Enterprise. Perhaps we need more programs like Project SEED to promote a stronger dialog with youth. Perhaps we need to accelerate efforts to adapt innovative communications and collaborative approaches into our curriculum so as to engage youth with science on their terms. What do you think? Please add your comments below.

What can you trust?

Wikis, blogs, discussion forums, on-line collaboration, personal publishing… All are new ways for sharing scientific information via the web.

Lots of it, but can you trust it?

The younger generation does. ACS research indicates that students are more likely to use Google than the library in their quest for information (a finding that’s also supported by Microsoft studies). On-line access is convenient and part of the youth culture. By comparison, traditional publishing is costly, slow and after the event. But, when information is published without reputable prior review, can you trust it?

Michael Eisen, assistant professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University California, Berkeley, describes the situation this way:

"Anyone who has tried to look for scientific or medical information on the Internet will find all sorts of information – some credible and some quackish. But, unless you are logged on from a major research university, you will find that the more reliable and comprehensive source of scientific and medical knowledge is locked behind subscription-controlled barriers of scientific publishers." (Wikimania 2006).

An advocate of "open access", Eisen perceives that the system can and is being changed, for example, by "scientists and scientific journals… starting to head down a wikipedia like path." This begs many questions.

Wikipedia is itself wrestling with trust and quality issues. Allowing anybody to edit any article has fostered high growth. As many detractors have pointed out, the approach does not ensure quality.

The issues of online trust and information quality have attracted interest far beyond the scientific community. Significant research efforts are underway in all sectors – government, academic and commercial. Solutions, however, might be close at hand; for example, by simply applying proven concepts and principles to the new environment.

On-line Collaboration , Communities & ACS

ACS has built its reputation on trust and quality content. Quality is managed pre-publication, for example, through professional editorial teams, peer review and similar processes. The ease of Internet publishing challenges these quality safeguards.

Trust begins with people. Therefore, let’s build on-line communities populated by people who know, trust and respect one another, especially with regard to subject matter knowledge and expertise. This is akin to establishing an editorial board for a new journal.

The founding group may then engage others to contribute and participate in community activities… collaborative authoring of wiki articles, participating in peer review processes etc. In other words, make participants in the online community responsible for establishing trust, ensuring quality, and expanding participation to other qualified contributors (with anybody allowed to browse most content and even contribute according to the rules of the community).

Welcome to the world of self-governing, regenerative communities.

Isn’t it just this approach that has made ACS, ACS Journals, Technical Divisions and other groups respected and successful? What are your thoughts? Please comment below.

Anticipating San Francisco

One year ago, the ACS Board approved $9.4 million to reinvent the ACS Web Presence. Since then, staff members from across the Society have been researching, planning and working to implement this initiative, with input from ACS members and other constituents. Their goal is to maximize value for all who interact with ACS and each other via the web.

ACS website visitors will see benefits in 2007, with information and services easier to find on the ACS websites.

Our plan for San Francisco is to experiment. This website is one of three inter-linking elements of ACS Web Presence participation in the national meeting. Much of the website content relates to the other elements: focus groups and other research; and the many events and activities being held in the chemistry.org booth. Through videos and podcasts, we’ll even bring some of the happenings at the booth and elsewhere live to the web. Or, if your schedule does not permit your live participation, you may view a recording after the fact.

San Francisco is an opportunity to explore possibilities beyond the initial 2007 rollout of Web Presence. Using the web to promote enhanced collaboration across ACS communities is a strategic agenda item where national meeting participants can help. For example, is there real value in using the web to extend the reach of ACS events, including national meetings, across time and geography?

This website also includes wikis and blogs (plus explanations describing the purpose and use of these tools). National meeting participants can contribute to web-based content and discuss scientific topics, including “Disaster Recovery” one of the multi-discipline themes of the San Francisco National Meeting. First time attendees can share experiences and offer tips to peers for getting full value from national meeting participation. And everybody can swap details of favorite local restaurants, places to visit and opportunities to relax and enjoy San Francisco.

The ACS Web Presence team wants to extend the dialog with ACS members and others to continue researching needs and to prioritize improvements. Many eager ears will be waiting in the ACS Web Presence booth to hear your opinions, suggestions, and ideas. More formal processes will also be employed to inform decision-making, including focus groups, surveys and user testing of interface improvements. You may also contribute your opinions and ideas using the interactive features of this website.

For the ACS Web Presence team, San Francisco is a laboratory where we can experiment to improve ACS websites in general and discover specifically how the web might be used to enhance the value and reach of future national meetings. Please give us your feedback by clicking the "Comments" link below.