Continuing Education Committee Report 2006

We welcomed newest committee member, Chris Cahill, to our activities this year and said farewell to Marilyn Olmstead. Because Katherine Kantardjieff has assumed the office of Vice Chair of the USNC/Cr, and has stepped down as chair of that Committee’s Education Subcommittee, she and Simon Billinge have agreed to share CEC chairperson duties. Katherine will represent the CEC at the AIP Education Liaison Committee meeting in Baltimore in September.

CEC members Chris Cahill and Katherine Kantardjieff (Co-Chair with Simon Billinge) conducted the Committee’s annual business meeting in Honolulu with Marilyn Olmstead, past chair of the committee. Co-Chair Billinge and committee member, Gloria Borgstahl, did not attend the ACA meeting in Honolulu.

Summer Schools and Short Courses

The CEC was very active in the late summer and fall implementing the adopted policies with regard to accepting and reviewing applications to host summer schools and short courses. The main problem has been communicating and enforcing deadlines for submitting applications and follow-up documentation, such as reports and evaluations. The CEC also actively participated in revising and polishing the education and training policy document which has now begun to circulate. It will be published and distributed through the NAS website, and it will be communicated by the IUCr Teaching Commission to the Executive Committee. A pdf of this document was filed with the ACA office in Buffalo last spring.

We are aware that Council has proposed revised procedures for reviewing and approving summer schools and short courses, based on this committee’s previous suggestions. Because there has been no formal publicity at the Hawaii meeting informing people that we will be accepting applications for summer schools, we have suggested that Bob Bau make a short announcement at the banquet, to reach some of the membership, and/or to possibly post an announcement on the message board. Furthermore, the CEC would like to propose to Council, regardless of whether the new policy is implemented immediately or we continue as we have, that the CEC prepare an application packet (with guidance from Bau and Ohlendorf) that can be downloaded from the ACA website. This packet will include pdf documents containing instructions, guidelines, reporting forms, survey/evaluation forms, education and training policies, timelines and a proposed budget. If schools or courses will be matched with corporate support, letters should also be submitted with the application and budget, as would be in a grant. Because we rely heavily on workshops and summer schools for training and education in the US, we value these activities, and we need to take them seriously to ensure quality. We would like to add to the documents that future considerations for hosting workshops and summer schools will be contingent on timely reporting and filing of supplementary documentation.

The feedback on both summer schools has generally been good. Jenny Glusker has filed with Kantardjieff a notebook (provided to Council for their records) containing hard copies of lecture notes/course materials from the small molecule summer school, as well as a CD containing additional lecture materials and PowerPoint presentations made by students. The small molecule summer school is well organized by Charles Lake. The complaint this year has been lack of sufficient hands on practice. Rigaku brought in one of their prototype tabletop instruments, but data was collected by Lee Daniels. While the room temperature data were sufficient to determine the structure, the data were not publication quality. Remote data collection was attempted, but it did not work well. Once again, people have indicated that the macromolecular school was somewhat disorganized. Andy Howard was also late in submitting necessary paperwork to the USNC/Cr, which delayed delivery of funds.

Undergraduate Research Showcase and Awards

The American Institute of Physics is the mother organization of the ACA. It has a very active student group, SPS, which sponsors student awards at member society meetings, and sends student reporters to cover the event. This year, the AIP sponsored two inaugural prizes, one for best oral presentation, and one for best poster presentation, both by an undergraduate. The presentations were reviewed by a panel of five judges representing the diversity of the projects presented. There was some confusion in the scheduling, as all the presentations were intended to be associated with the showcase on Sunday and some were not. A second schedule later circulated, which showed some additional presentations at other points in the meeting. One alleged oral presentation was scheduled for Thursday, after the awards presentations. Some judges, one way or another, were able to view most of the other posters, but were not able to make all the other oral presentations, and we question whether the presenters were really undergraduates. There some confusion with at least one other set of poster awards, the J Chem Cryst (Vic Young can provide details). These issues are easily resolved before the Salt Lake City meeting. A suggestion was also made after the banquet to limit those wishing to be considered for prizes to one award, avoiding the potential for multiple awarding to one person. People would choose the award for which they wish to be considered upon abstract submission as they do now, but would be limited to one choice.

The feedback on the UG session has been extremely positive, and the recommendation from the CEC is that it becomes a regular session at future meetings. We do not think that a SIG, such as YS, would pick this up, but it is sponsored by the AIP, and we feel that is reason enough, as it is of broad interest to the ACA and runs across all SIGS. On a related note, there is interest on the part of a growing group within the membership in proposing an Education SIG, and Council will likely see a proposal in the near future.

ACA Workshops

Workshop organizers this year apparently were not provided with survey/evaluation forms. The CEC would like to offer to create an online version of these forms, and email the participants the link to complete the form. Statistics will be gathered simultaneously and be made available very quickly to Council.

The CEC is charged with suggesting topics for workshops at future meetings. Council then takes these into consideration with suggestions coming from the SIGS in planning the next meeting’s schedule. Based on discussions committee members have had with membership, as well as general impressions, we would like to propose the following topics, with brief justification:

• CCP4 “power users” workshop. CCP4 could not send a contingent to the Hawaii meeting. A request was made in Orlando by the YSSIG and Bob Scavetta that a CCP4 workshop be held, and that it not be basic, but a more advanced “power user” type workshop. Given that a workshop was not held in Hawaii, this should be given strong consideration for Salt Lake City. This would be a full day session. The CCP4 group here in Hawaii says this can be done. However, they will think about the format, as they would like to have no more than 30 people, and they would like participants to bring laptops with a CCP4 installation (should be possible if this is a power user group). Moreover, with this being an advanced workshop, participants will likely bring problems to solve, and the CCP4 people would like to recruit people to assist as facilitators.
• Modulated/incommensurate structures. A number of people suggested this topic in Orlando, and it has been raised again in Hawaii as a topic of interest. Several individuals have expressed interest in organizing and participating in this workshop. The CEC feels this should be given strong consideration. This would likely be a full day session.
• SHELX workshop. Peter Mueller suggested this last year, and it will be suggested again this year. Given the new developments, the various “flavors” of SHELX available, and that a workshop has not been offered recently, the CEC would like to suggest that a workshop be offered. The organizers can decide how narrowly or broadly to focus the workshop, but Mueller has suggested that the first half day be on advanced applications, whole molecule disorder in particular, and that the second half be for more novice users.
• Crystallography Teaching and Education. While such a workshop might raise a few eyebrows, our rationale is as follows. The USNC/Cr and ACA have drafted and begun to distribute an official policy document. We are riding on the wave of momentum and would like to sustain this. In our initial publicity about this document, we have noted that we hope the document raises awareness, as well as stimulates discussion and sharing of best practices. During discussions at this meeting, it is clear that not everyone feels comfortable teaching crystallography, but they appreciate that good courses and effective ideas for inclusion in related coursed are needed and desired, and they would very much appreciate hearing about best practices and sharing resources with experienced people. This would not be a hodge-podge, smorgasbord of topics, but rather a selected set of focused topics and presentations by invited individuals, blended with audience participation and live practice. This would be coupled to the policy document, and where possible, methods for dissemination and assessment would be provided.  This workshop could be a full or a half day session, and it could be structured for either. This session could also be coupled to a sponsored half day focused session on the same specific topics, which may be suggested by either the Service or Small Molecule SIG. Several individuals from a variety of subdisciplines have expressed interest in either organizing or participating in this workshop.
• Standards for Publication of Macromolecular NMR Structures. This proposed half-day session could be coupled with a session on NMR/X-ray results. The objective is to modernize standards for publication/provide guidelines for publications in IUCr journals. It seeks input from the NMR community to provide standards for publication in IUCr journals (not the reverse). This would draw an international audience, and there could very well be international invitees. Potential sponsors would be the IUCr and Bruker. This idea is prompted by a recent publication of an NMR structure in Acta F. The desired outcome is a consensus document outlining standards that would be published and would govern publication in all IUCr journals. The workshop could be followed by a breakout (offline perhaps) where the standards are formally drafted. Several individuals have already expressed interest in organizing and participating in this session.

Respectfully submitted by Katherine Kantardjieff, Co-Chair CEC