Learning Futures Festival - Beyond Distance's annual e-learning conference

7 - 14 January 2010 - entirely online.

Key international thinkers and practitioners in the field in a programme of keynotes, papers and workshops.

More information and register online at: http://www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/festival

Scottish Science Hall of Fame - National Library of Scotland

The online exhibition.

With information about:

James Clerk Maxwell, John Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell, Robert Watson-Watt, Alexander Fleming, Joseph Black, James Hutton, James Watt, Lord Kelvin, John Napier.

Includes reading lists, other useful websites and places to visit related to the men above.

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE MOBILE LEARNING 2010

Porto, Portugal, 19 to 21 March 2010
http://www.mlearning-conf.org/

Mobile Learning, a Retrospective Outlook

Since its inauguration in 2005, the IADIS Mobile Learning conference series has provided a forum to present, discuss and promote international mobile learning research.

Five years on, the IADIS Mobile Learning 2010 International Conference seeks to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of mobile learning research which provides a retrospective outlook of the field.

electronic lab symposia - Barcelona and online

Symyx organised:

1) Symposium 2010 Barcelona Onsite
May 4-6, 2010
https://www.regmadeeasy.com/symyx/symposium2010/

For the latest informatics strategies for delivering an electronic laboratory environment. Case studies and presentations will feature methods for scientists to manage laboratory information, enhance collaboration, achieve better results, and drive productivity while lowering costs.


2) Symposium 2010 Barcelona Online
May 18, 2010
http://www.symyxsymposium.com
Registration Opens January 2010.
A virtual meeting, providing the opportunity to see many of the case studies and presentations from the onsite event, and for attendees to receive additional software training.

latest update of the Beilstein database

Statistics for the new Beilstein database are as follows:

Number of compounds: 11,315,332
Number of citations: 2,249,473
Number of reactions: 22,844,168

Access details from here.

SciFinder Scholar - RN Modeling & 3D Modeling options disabled

Due to excessive downloading via the University's VPN, CAS have had to disable the RN Modeling & 3D Modeling options for the university until Information Services staff have been able to investigate and resolve the problem to CAS's satisfaction.

Information about network passwords at:
https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/ISHelp/Passwords

Main Library - 24x7 exam revision opening

From 8.30am on Thursday 3 December the Main Library will be open 24x7 until midnight on Thursday 17 December. The IS Helpdesk staffed hours remain unchanged; self-services operate when the Helpdesk is closed.

Times Higher Education signed with Thomson Reuters for World University Rankings

Times Higher Education will make use of Thomson Reuters (Web of Science) data. Full press release "New data partner for World University Rankings" at:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=408881§ioncode=26

Chemical Database Service (Daresbury) newsletter - Autumn09

This edition of the Newsletter gives further details about the current state of the Service, what has changed over the past 6 months and what may be coming soon.

http://cds.dl.ac.uk/newsletters

In particular there is news of the Mid-Range Facilities Review and upcoming trials of Organic Syntheses and Available Chemicals Directory databases.
There is also news about login changes, generating a forgotten password, Twitter, database updates plus links with ChemSpider from CrystalWeb.

Primary Data for Chemistry Available from Thieme publisher

In collaboration with the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) Thieme will have primary data registered and made available online via the Thieme eJournals website using digital object recognition in the form of Digital Object Identifiers (DOI). This will enable scientists to easily locate data accompanying the research articles Thieme publishes.

Thieme's ejournals website:
(www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals)

University of Edinburgh has full-text access to Thieme journal "Synthesis" (2001 onwards).

More electronic journals from our ejournals webpages

E-learning SIG: Technology enhanced learning – sharing innovations

10th December 2009,
Manchester Metropolitan University

The Centre for Learning and Teaching at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Higher Education Academy Physical Sciences Centre are jointly organising an e-learning special interest group meeting to showcase some examples of innovation in e-learning. Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from people actively engaging in e-learning innovation and will hear about the current drive to Open Educational Resources (OER).

For more details and to register online, please see the website:

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2009/tel_sharing_innovations

Teaching problem solving: Beyond the single piece jigsaw

17th February 2010,
University of Edinburgh

A range of speakers including representation from the secondary sector will present their views and case studies of practices going on around the UK. the workshop is organised jointly by the IOP Higher Education Group (HEG) and the Physical Sciences Centre.

For more details (incl how to contribute short case study presentations) and to register online, please see the website:

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2010/teaching_problem_solving

There is no registration fee for this meeting for those working in UK HE.

OER - Legal Matters - Webcast

Thursday, 5 November 2009 - 2pm to 4pm

to highlight and clarify relevant legal issues pertaining to the creation and dissemination of Open Educational Resources

More details are available here: http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ManageContent/ViewDetail/tabid/243/ID/1150/OER--Legal-Matters--Webcast--051109.aspx

Will be available to view afterwards from the link to the webcast site from above URL.

JISC-legal will be presenting at the:
Open Learning Conference in Nottingham on the 25 November 2009.

RIN ejournal online survey - Amazon vouchers

Researchers at University College London are undertaking a major study on the use of e-journals at a number of universities, including the University of Edinburgh. The first phase of the study analysed usage data from the ScienceDirect and Oxford Journals databases, and the results raised a number of interesting questions as to how scholars seek and use information.

The next phase examines user behaviour in more detail, focussing on the following subject areas:

-Chemical Engineering
-Chemistry
-Earth sciences (geology, geophysics, planetary sciences)
-Economics
-History
-Life sciences (including agricultural, veterinary and biological)
-Physics

If you are carrying out research in any of these subject areas we hope you will be able to complete a short (10 to 15 minutes) online survey. There is a prize draw for Amazon vouchers......

Direct to the survey:

Intermediate Edinburgh University Library information page

Closes end of November.

Inspiring Teaching

11 November 2009
[EUSA with the University's support]
Teviot Building, Bristo Square

possible to attend either for the morning (11.00-1.45)
or the afternoon sessions (12.45-3.30).
or the walk-around displays by Schools (12:45-13:45 with lunch).

Contributions from EUSA 2009 Teaching Awards winners and nominees

Staff and students wishing to register for the Conference can register for the morning or afternoon sessions at:

http://www.tla.ed.ac.uk/EUSAUniversityConference2009.htm

Poster Presentations - Designing Effective Posters

A webguide maintained by University at Buffalo's Arts & Sciences Library staff.

http://library.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/guides/bio/posters.html

It "provides an inventory of print and Internet-based resources for guidance and instruction for the presentation of scientific and technical information in the form of a poster presentation".

JISC sponsored Roadshow - e-Research: 'What is it and how can it help me?

Tuesday 17 November 2009,
09:30 - 14:00,
Priorslee Hall, Telford Campus, University of Wolverhampton.
Free to attend

This JISC - sponsored roadshow, for researchers and those providing IT support services, will introduce the concept of e-Research and some of the tools, along with case studies from practitioners in various disciplines.

Places are limited.

To book your place please visit :
www.jisc.ac.uk/wolverhamptonroadshow

Darwin Library - Borrowing Reserve books over the weekend

For a trial period commencing Friday 30th October 2009 Darwin Reserve books for which there are multiple copies may be borrowed from 3.00 pm on Fridays until 10.30 am the following Monday, unless the number of Reserve copies available is only one.

Windows program "Torganal2 - spectroscopic puzzles".

Vista and XP program is designed for university and college chemistry students who are beginning their study of organic spectroscopy.

Torganal2 displays high resolution spectra of organic unknowns (acquired at the University of Manchester) and users can practice and improve their spectral interpretation skills while identifying the compounds.

Free and paid versions are available. The free (demoware) version has 5 unknowns. The paid version currently has 40 unknowns and is for institutional use.

For more details and free download see www.chem.utas.edu.au/torganal/

Seminars - Research into Teaching and Learning

A new seminar series will run on the last Wednesday of each month between October and May, at 12.30 till 2 in the seminar room in Simon Laurie House, School of Education. Members of the University are welcome. For further information, contact Lindsay Paterson in the School of Education.

The seminars for session 2009-2010 are as follows; staff giving the seminars are in the School of Education except where stated otherwise:

28 October: Lyn Tett and Jenny Hounsell, "Support and progression issues for non-traditional students: some findings from the study of the experiences of students who entered the College of Humanities and Social Science directly from Further Education".

25 November: Ava Blass, Educational Coordinator, MSc in Translational Medicine. Title to be announced.

27 January: Rowena Arshad, "Teacher Education Students' Understanding of Social Justice Issues".

24 February: Siân Bayne and Jen Ross, "Researching teaching using virtual ethnography".

31 March: Charles Anderson, Kate Day and Hamish Macleod, "Evaluating a large-scale learning and teaching initiative : issues, challenges and strategies".

28 April: Zoe Williamson, final title to be announced, on the theme of "Becoming a researcher: the impact of self-study on practice".

26 May: George Meldrum and Catherine Morgan, a topic to be confirmed on cross curricular teaching and learning in science and geography.

Call for papers - Green Chemistry: Multidisciplinary Use of Chemical Information Resources

239th ACS National Meeting
San Francisco, March 21-25, 2010
CINF Division

The symposium will focus on databases, features, and functions that support the reduction or elimination of any negative environmental or health effects. Accepted contributions will describe innovative uses of chemical information resources in support of sustainable chemistry.

All accepted presentations will be judged and a cash prize will be awarded.

Presentations will be 25 minutes, including time for questions. The ACS site for submissions is open until October 19th at http://abstracts.acs.org/chem/239nm [N.B. needs an ACS ID or to register for one].

Call for Registration - 5th German Conference on Chemoinformatics

Hotel 'Der Achtermann',
Goslar, Germany
8 - 10 November 2009

The international conference covers plenary talk, regular talks, and posters in the following sessions:

* Chemoinformatics and Drug Discovcery
* Chemical Information, Patents, and Databases
* Molecular Modelling
* Computational Material Science and Nanotechnology

Online registration via the conference website at www.gdch.de/gcc2009.

The deadline for registration is October 8, 2009.

Chemical Drawing software for Mac OS from contributors to CHMINFL

Unedited and untried but from a reputable source, the following comes from contributors to the CHMINF-L mailing list.

The first options were in response to a question about freely available alternatives to ChemBioDraw for Macs.

BKChem - http://bkchem.zirael.org/
written in Python and should also work on a Mac. Exports to ISO26300 format (OpenDocument Format, ODF) which can then be used or edited in OpenOffice.org. It is free.

ChemDoodle - http://www.chemdoodle.com/

JChemPaint - http://jchempaint.sourceforge.net/
free and open source

Bioclipse - http://www.bioclipse.net/
free and open source

MarvinSketch - http://www.chemaxon.com/product/msketch.html
written in Java. Free for academics with registration.

The following are not Mac-specific:

A review of a number of Chemistry graphics packages can be found here at (beware of pop-ups) - http://dragon.klte.hu/~gundat/rajzprogramok/dprog.html

ACD ChemSketch - http://www.acdlabs.com/download/chemsk.html

Symyx Draw - no fee

KnowItAll Academic Edition - http://www.knowitall.com/academic/
free to students, faculty, and staff at degree-granting schools, colleges, and universities.

Xdrawchem - http://xdrawchem.sourceforge.net/

Review of the Student Learning Experience in Chemistry

The Higher Education Academy commissioned a series of National Subject Profiles to cover the areas of Materials, Biochemistry Microbiology and Media and Communications.

The Physical Sciences Centre consider chemistry and physics to be such vital subjects that two subject reviews, one for chemistry and one for physics and astronomy, have been independently funded.

Find the reviews at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/home/projects/subjectreviews

NeSC newsletter

September 2009's issue at http://www.nesc.ac.uk/news/newsletter/index.html

Includes information about the e-Science Institute call for new Theme proposals and a summary of Jul09 StoMP (stochastic dynamical modelling for prokaryotes) workshop, when "microbiologists and physical and computational scientists joined forces to expose the inner workings of bacteria."

10th European Conference on Research In Chemistry Education (ECRICE)

In July 2010 the Pedagogical University of Kraków organizes the 10th European Conference on Research In Chemistry Education (ECRICE) and 4th International Conference Research in Didactics of the Sciences (DidSci).

More information at:

http://ecrice2010.ap.krakow.pl
http://didsci2010.ap.krakow.pl

First Call for Papers - Computational Aspects of Metabolomics

239th ACS National Meeting
San Francisco, March 21-25, 2010
CINF Division

Submissions invited for talks about computing, informatics as well as chemical information aspects of metabolomics. Topics could include the analysis of metabolomics experiments, metabolomics databases, computer-assisted structure elucidation of metabolites and more.

Abstracts may be submitted via http://abstracts.acs.org. The metabolomics session is part of the CINF division symposiums.

Deadline is October 19, 2009.

SciFinder e-seminar - Exploring What’s New with SciFinder

Exploring What’s New with SciFinder®!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
18:00 – 19:00 GMT

Wednesday, November 11, 2009
18:00 GMT

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
11:00 GMT & 14:00 GMT

To register, visit: http://casevents.webex.com

* Learn how to limit reaction searches by a specific solvent or group of solvents and get similar reactions based on reaction centers
* Explore substance property enhancements such as refine substances by physical property values
* Introduce new collaboration tools for sharing information with SciFinder users within your research site
* Discover new content such as 13C-NMR Spectra for 25 million substances
* Share new performance and usability enhancements

Fifth Joint Sheffield Conference on Chemoinformatics - July 2010

13th - 15th July 2010.
University of Sheffield

The conference is being sponsored by the Chemical Structure Association Trust and the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society.

The call for papers will be announced in the autumn and further details will be placed at http://cisrg.shef.ac.uk/shef2010/

Beilstein update

The latest update of the Beilstein database, 2009/03, was made available on Thursday 3rd September.

Statistics for the new Beilstein database are as follows:

Number of compounds: 11,196,514
Number of citations: 2,239,376
Number of reactions: 22,732,872

There are no changes to the DST files from the previous version, 2009/02.

CambridgeSoft's Seminar - Munich

September 28, 2009

"The meeting will include presentations on the current use of E-Notebook and other enterprise and desktop solutions, opportunities to discuss challenges and solutions with colleagues who have faced similar situations, and sessions allowing you to converse directly with the CambridgeSoft team regarding current products and solutions."

Free for "qualified industry professionals". Registration required.

For additional information at
http://www.cambridgesoft.com/seminars/Default.aspx?eventid=248

use of ChemTube3D

Enhancing the value of interactive 3D chemistry (iChem3D)

iChem3D
ChemTube3D

iChem3D is a JISC funded project that sets out to investigate the use of ChemTube3D an interactive, freely available, resource providing 3D simulations and animations modelling the structure and reactivity of organic molecules.

Team at UoLiverpool is researching the current use and investigating the development of a range of learning designs to be used in blended self-directed learning.

Currently they are investigating the use of ChemTube3D to establish the types of visitors using the resource and also how it is used and would like to hear how ChemTube3D is used by students, teachers or professional chemists.

Contact details for Kirsty Barnes, Research Associate

William Dick Memorial Lecture

Professor Richard Leakey will deliver this year's lecture.

Friday 18 September 2009, 5.30pm - 6.30pm
Assembly Hall, New College

Ticketed event.

RIN newsletter

The Research Information Network (RIN) August newsletter includes:

Keeping Research Data Safe 2 project which is inviting people to contribute to the data survey, if they have research datasets and associated cost information.

The RCUK Public Engagement with Research Team has announced the dates for the 2010 scheme aimed at supporting public engagement activities in National Science and Engineering Week 2010 (12-21 March). All seven Research Councils are involved in supporting the scheme, providing access for funds of up to £2,000 per project.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has published its annual higher education National Student Survey (NSS)

Also, Events and training courses which include

"Text mining hands-on course and training seminar", 5-6 October 2009, Cambridge,

"Vitae national research staff conference", 5 November 2009, London. "This national conference will enable attendees to consider the research environment and examine issues that impact on research staff across institutional and disciplinary barriers..."

Centre for Research Collections - talks or tours for new session

Centre for Research Collections (CRC - which includes Special Collections, The University Archives and The Lothian Health Services Archive) is preparing for the coming academic year and would like to promote its collections and services to new staff and students.

CRC staff would be happy to arrange induction tours or formal presentations early in the new session. These can be arranged to take place either in the CRC (which is in the newly refurbished levels 5 and 6 of the Main Library in George Square) or talks can also be given to groups in their Schools .

To arrange a tour or a talk, please get in touch with your liaison librarian.

more about CRC at their webpages

Synthetic Organic Chemistry research: Analysis by scientometric indicators

Kumari's 2009 article in Scientometrics 80(3), p559-570, which includes the conclusion that:

"G7 nations, being leaders for the volume of literature published and citations attracted are showing a decreasing trend over the years probably due to shifting and diversification of their research efforts to other emerging research fronts. In contrast smaller nations though publishing low volume but high quality research are represented by Netherlands."

Full-text available by library subscription

Main Library - extended opening hours

Ground Floor of the Main Library, George Square, will be open to users on a self-service basis on Saturdays and Sundays this coming weekend (15h and 16th August) and for the subsequent 4 weekends of the Vacation in order to provide enhanced access to study space and other Ground Floor facilities.

This is in addition to the normal opening (access to all Floors) on Saturdays 10am to 1pm.

The following revised opening hours will apply:

Saturday 15th August, 22nd August, 29th August, 5th September, 12th September: Building open 10am to 8pm (staffed service 10am to 12.50pm)

Sunday 16th August, 23rd August, 30th August, 6th September, 13th September: Building open 12 noon to 8pm (no staffed service)

JISC Second Life guide helps lecturers teach in the virtual world

JISC's new guide to Second Life is written by lecturers for lecturers, to help others to use virtual worlds for teaching.

'Getting Started in Second Life' answers some common questions like how to set up in Second Life, what the rules of the world are, how to plan lessons and how best to help students use it effectively for learning.

The aim of the guide is to present the basics in order to help lecturers experiment, rather than them getting lost in mastering the detail of the virtual environment.

To download 'Getting Started in Second Life' or order a paper copy, go to http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/gettingstartedsecondlife

SciFinder e-seminar - SciFinder® for Biomedical Scientists

September 9, 2009

* Locate the literature most valuable to your research by utilizing Explore by Research Topic

* Find a biological compound of interest to you with Explore by Substance

* Utilize SciFinder’s powerful Refine, Analyze, and Categorize tools to focus your results

* Obtain source information for the research documents of interest with Get Cited and Get Citing

* Learn how to get the most recent updates on your topics of interest with Keep Me Posted


To register, visit: http://casevents.webex.com

eLearning@Edinburgh conference

26th of August 2009
National e-Science Centre (NESC)

Speakers this year have been invited to highlight ways in which technology can support group working and peer engagement. The invited speaker is Megan Quentin Baxter (acting Director of Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine)

The provisional timetable and for booking: http://tinyurl.com/lh9u8x
(N.B. wiki is on planned downtime this morning so try later).

If you'd like to showcase your work and discuss it on the day, there is space for posters and/or demos for break times. These can be about any eLearning topic and the contact for this is Daniela Gachago.

Changing Academic PRactice: Implications for future Physical Sciences academics

Wed 4th Nov 2009
10:30-16:00
University of Oxford - Lincoln EPA Science Centre

A colloquium to bring together doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers and junior and senior academics to discuss challenges etc for those wishing to pursue an academic career in physical sciences.

More details and registration at: http://www.physsci.heacademy.ac.uk/events/forthcoming

Making Web 2.0 Work for You - workshop

Wed 28th Oct 09
09:00-16:15
Leeds - The Old School Board

Focus on implications arising when teaching practice leaves the classroom/VLEs. Examples of practice on integrating new technologies and techniques into teaching.

More details and registration at: http://www.physsci.heacademy.ac.uk/events/forthcoming

Workshop for New and Aspiring Lecturers

Fri 30th October 2009 (noon) - Sat 31st October 2009 (1pm)
York - Best Western Monk Bar Hotel.

Delivered by physical science practitioners in a context relevant to chemistry, physics and related disciplines.

More details and registration at: http://www.physsci.heacademy.ac.uk/events/forthcoming

NeSC newsletter - includes Rapid portlets in Chemistry UG teaching

August 2009 editions at http://www.nesc.ac.uk/news/newsletter/August09.pdf.

Page 3 for how a Rapid portlet helps in teaching chemistry students computational chemistry.

$50 Amazon gift certificates - ACS survey

ACS Publications is interested in finding out what is valued in the journals they produce. Submitted answers will be used in their promotional marketing campaign.

Answer both of the following questions in three sentences or less, and your name will be entered in a draw for one of three $50 Amazon gift certificates.

1. Why do you read ACS Journals?
2. Why do you publish in ACS Journals?

To participate, access the survey here

Completion by 11am EST on Friday, August 7, 2009.

latest update of the Gmelin database - 4th Aug 09

Statistics for the new Gmelin database are as follows:

Number of compounds: 2,687,265
Number of citations: 1,397,567
Number of reactions: 2,044,673

More information about accessing Gmelin

UK Research Reserve (UKRR) - first members, incl UoEdinburgh sign up

15 UK higher education institutions (HEIs) were accepted by the UKRR Selection Panel at its inaugural meeting. These first members include the University of Edinburgh.

Shared across the the 15 participating institutions, over 14k linear metres of material will be processed during this first tranche of activity.

More information from the UKRR website.

For more information on the implications for EUL, please contact your Liaison Librarian

Bridging the Gaps - call for proposals (EPSRC)

The EPSRC are seeking outline proposals for their Bridging the Gaps call to help research organisations build a programme of activities that will stimulate creative thinking, across disciplines, reflecting institutional strengths and strategies.

They encourage applications that bridge the gaps between engineering and physical sciences (EPS) and other non-EPS research areas. In particular, they welcome proposals that include working with the social sciences and/or arts and humanities.

More information from the EPSRC website

Deadline for applications is 16 September.

Call for nominations for Biosciences Federation Science Communication Award 2009

Sponsored by Pfizer, this award recognises bioscience researchers from UK universities and institutes who make an outstanding and consistent contribution to communicating science to the public.

Awards categories are New Research (£500) and Established Research (£1500).

More information from the Federation's website

Nomination of researchers working in any sector of the biosciences, from UK universities or institutes, must be supported by a named representative from a Biosciences Federation Member or Associate Member Organisation by submission of a completed Nomination Form.

The deadline for receipt of nominations is 28 August.

Vitae researcher development conference 2009: realising the potential of researchers

8-9 September 2009,
Warwick

More information from the Vitae website

This conference will address strategic and practical implications of:
*sustaining the investment in our researchers in order to build research capacity and remain globally competitive;
*research and evaluation relating to the impact of researcher development and of researcher careers;
*the implementation of the Concordat, including the benchmarking process;
*the latest developments in policy relating to postgraduate researchers and practice to support researcher skills and career development.

Library Catalogue - no self renewals early next week

The Library Catalogue is getting an upgrade next week. There'll be a period when only the Aquabrowser interface is available and when the catalogue's information is a little out of whack with the situation on the shelves.

It is expected that self-renewals on the library catalogue won't be possible midday Monday 27th July until the evening of Wednesday 29th July. The best idea would be to renew now, otherwise contact library staff.

More information on the library news pages

Call for papers - 5th German Conference on Chemoinformatics

Hotel 'Der Achtermann',
Goslar, Germany
8 - 10 November 2009

Submission of abstracts for talks and posters in the following plenary sessions are invited:

* Chemoinformatics and Drug Discovcery
* Chemical Information, Patents, and Databases
* Molecular Modelling
* Computational Material Science and Nanotechnology

In addition other highlights in the field of Computational Chemistry are also welcome.

Visit the conference website for more information

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 30 July 2009.

New look for the Ejournal webpages

There has been a recent change in the way the library's e-journal webpages look. This is because we've changed to a different feeder database which, behind the scenes, will integrate better with the library management system and help us improve services.

The default presentation of the list is more streamlined than before. Select "Switch to Detail View" if you want to see, for all the titles listed, the years available and from which websites. Select the "i" for this information for individual titles.

There are no records for our electronic journals in the library catalogue but these will be coming.

More information on library news

There's also a known problem linking to Elsevier's Science Direct journal site from Web of Knowledge and other databases using "findit@Edinburgh". As with all links to journal full-text, double check whether or not you can get it from the library using the e-journal webpages and the library catalogue incase we have only have the journal/year in print.

As you can tell, it's a work in progress and we'd welcome comments or questions on it.

E-Journal web pages

Higher Education Academy’s Student Employability Profiles

The Higher Education Academy’s Student Employability Profiles have now been in use across the sector for almost five years and we are following up on the outcomes, usage and success of the profiles with a short survey.

The Employability Profiles are available on the Academy’s website: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/employability/disciplines

The survey results will inform the Academy’s future work in further developing the Student Employability Profiles, to enhance graduate employability through effective learning. The survey should take no more than 15 minutes:
https://www.questback.com/thehighereducationacademy/sep/

Improving Student Learning (ISL) International conference

7th -9th September 2009,
Imperial College London

Improving Student Learning Symposia will bring together researchers into learning in higher education and practitioners concerned with improving their practice.

Participants, whether presenting papers or not, are invited to bring a poster presenting work they are doing which is concerned with improving student learning.

Registration is now open. Full details can be found on our web site:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/isl/isl2009/index.html

SciFinder e-seminar - Using SciFinder to Your Competitive Advantage

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

14:00–15:00 U.S. Eastern Standard Time
(19:00-20:00 GMT)

Rebroadcast date and times for the e-Seminar will be:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at
6:00 AM EST (11:00 GMT) and
9:00 AM EST (14:00 GMT)

To register, visit: http://casevents.webex.com

* Learn how to quickly locate information about previous research before you start your research project

* Find out how to stay current on competitor information with SciFinder’s Keep Me Posted feature

Developing STEM education research practices

Thursday 9 July 2009,
University of Birmingham

Register via the link below to attend this workshop.

http://www.engsc.ac.uk/nef/events/developing-stem-education-research-practices.asp

Impact Factors - 2008 data available

2008 data for Journal Citation Reports is now available on the Web of Knowledge platform.

Access on- and off-campus (and to help sheets etc) from:

Library's A-Z Databases webpage

Web of Science also provides h-index figures. More about that from its own help pages.

More about citation analysis at:
Citing References, Cited Reference Searching and Journal Impact Factors

Main Library - 1st and 3rd floor - stock moving

The current journals, newspapers, newspaper indexes and microfilms on the 1st floor of the Main Library in George Square are being moved to the 3rd floor between Monday 22nd June 2009 and Wednesday 24th June 2009.

However, it is expected, material will only be unavailable for the short time it is removed from the shelves, in transit between floors and re-shelved.

3rd European Variety in Chemistry Education with Variety in Chemistry Education

2nd – 4th September 2009,
University of Manchester

The European counterpart of the UK conference Variety in Chemistry Education, is devoted to practical aspects of chemical education at tertiary (university) level. It provides a forum for the:

·exchange of ideas related to teaching and learning chemistry at degree level
·sharing of good practice and innovation
·dissemination of outcomes of pedagogic research as it relates to chemistry at university level in Europe

The submission of abstracts is invited for workshops, oral communications, oral Bytes. The deadline for submissions is 30th June 2009.

Please see the website for details of how to submit an abstract and how to register for the conference:

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/eurovariety

Main Library - ground floor - café open soon

Part of the "new" ground floor of the Main Library, George Square will be open for use next week: The new Main Library Café will be open on Monday 15th June.

During June and July, it will be open Mon-Fri, 9am to 4pm. Until the 1st of July access to the café will be from outside using the new external café doors.

SciFinder e-seminar 8th July - Using SciFinder® to Your Competitive Advantage

Wednesday, July 8, 2009
2:00 – 3:00 PM (14:00–15:00) U.S. Eastern Standard Time (19:00-20:00 GMT)

Rebroadcast date and times for the e-Seminar will be:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 6:00 AM EST (11:00 GMT) and 9:00 AM EST (14:00 GMT)


* Learn how to quickly locate information about previous research before you start your research project

* Find out how to stay current on competitor information with SciFinder’s Keep Me Posted feature

* Hear how to browse the chemical space around molecules of interest with SubScape™, a visualization and analysis tool

To register, visit: http://casevents.webex.com

CrossFire downtime

Emergency Maintenance will affect most Mimas services including CrossFire from 10:00 BST (09:00 GMT) this Thursday, 11 June 2009. A short period of downtime is necessary to remedy a fault - MIMAS hopes no longer than 2 hours.

SciFinder Solutions webpage updated

Includes new content article about CAS’s expanded patent authority coverage and links to the latest podcast in the SciFinder series: Exploring New Methods of Fuel Production from Biomass.

Visit http:www.cas.org/support/scifi/sfsolutions/index.html

CDS petition for continued funding and Shibboleth access

CDS has an iPetition set up to help produce a Statement of Need (SoN) to ensure future EPSRC funding for a national chemical database facility.

http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/news/disp?ipetition

The deadline for production of the SoN is 12th June.


CDS latest newsletter can be found from http://cds.dl.ac.uk/newsletters

As well information about the available datasets, the summer newsletter mentions Shibboleth access to CDS. Using Shibboleth allows access to the CDS using your EASE login details (hover over the red square and choose "Institutional Login ('Shibboleth')."

RIN - advice on paying open access publication charges

Research Information Network and Universities UK have produced a new guide to provide advice on paying open access publication charges: that is, fees levied by some journals for the publication of scholarly articles so that they can be made available free of charge to readers, immediately upon publication.

Paying for open access publication charges: Guidance for higher education and research institutions, publishers and authors

The guide also sets out recommendations for universities and other research institutions, publishers, research funders, and authors.

JISC have also published a report on the economics of open access publishing:
Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models Exploring the costs and benefits

Measuring up - the evolution of impact metrics

15 June 2009, London

Information from the seminar webpages

Run by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, this seminar will explore the evolution of impact metrics.

Research will be presented from the group responsible for the bibliometrics behind HEFCE's Research Excellence Framework (REF) pilot, and will conclude with a consideration of what future metrics might look like, particularly in those areas not currently well served by existing ones.

poster competition for early-career researchers

Research Councils UK is running Perspectives - a poster competition for early-career researchers. Open to postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers funded by the UK Research Councils.

More information at www.britishscienceassociation.org/perspectives

Finalists display their posters at the British Science Festival in September, at the University of Surrey in Guildford.

Cash prizes are awarded by a panel of expert judges.

Deadline for applications is 8 May 2009.

Research Information Networks' briefing on scholarly journals in the current financial climate

An outline of three points of pressure on academic library's budgets and what they mean for a University's community are given in:
The Research Information Networks' briefing on scholarly journals in the current financial climate

For an Edinburgh University Library perspective, see Papers 3a and 3c of:
the Library Committee meeting on 11th February 2009.

CAS e-seminar - Finding “greener” research processes

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
19:00-20:00 GMT

May 19, 2009
11:00-12:00 GMT
14:00-15:00 GMT

To register, visit: http://casevents.webex.com

*Effectively search the scientific literature for green chemistry technologies
*Explore novel green discoveries in patents
*Find syntheses using green reagents and solvents
*Create alerts to inform you of green findings

Poster Design

ISiskills directs you to a couple of courses and leaflet about poster creation. Search for poster.

Books exist in the library on scientific writing and communication and include poster creation. Some classmark areas which would be good places to browse:
QA1778, Q222, Q223, T11 [PE1408]

See also Flora Grabowska's, a librarian at US's Vassar College:
list of poster design sites
look to the left menu

Third Science Learning and Teaching Conference (SLTC)

16-17th June 2009,
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

The aim of this national conference is to bring together practitioners in the teaching of science disciplines in HE to share their experiences, identify common challenges and an opportunity to share effective practice. The conference programme will include keynote lectures; short oral presentations; hands on workshops; posters and exhibitions.

Early bird registration deadline is 31st March 2009.

for more information at http://www.sltc.info/

CDS - Upgrades for the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database software

Recent updates to the ICSD-WWW software have been implemented which brings the CDS implementation fully in line with the ILL master server at Grenoble.

These updates bring various improvements. In particular a number of users of Internet Explorer may have previously experienced difficulties with the Jmol display where thermal ellipsoids were not accessible and various tick boxes were not displayed. These problems have now been fixed.

details from http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/news/disp?icsd

History of the Book seminar - John Murray's Travel Books

Barbara Schaff (University of Goettingen)
Friday March 27 (1-2pm)
5th Floor seminar room,
Edinburgh University Library

In the course of the nineteenth century, the Murray Handbooks were embraced by the British middle classes as exemplary manuals model for tourists, thereby helping to normalise a certain kind of cultured and educated travel practice. Amongst other things, the seminar on Friday will discuss John Murray's invention of the new format of the tourist guidebook and its long lasting cultural relevance. It will also address Murray's competition with Baedeker.

Barbara Schaff is Professor of English Literature and Cultural Studies at Göttingen University. In 2006-07 she held a Caledonian Research Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh at the Centre for the History of the Book for her research on the John Murray Handbooks.

Main Library will be closed on Saturday 28th March

This closure is necessary due to essential work to the Appleton Tower server room which will result in the loss of the network to the Main Library building.

Other Libraries (Darwin, Robertson, Law & Europa, Moray House) and Open Access Labs will be operating as usual on Saturday 28th March.

Information on opening hours of Site Libraries
Information on Open Access Labs

The Main Library will open with full services as usual at 12 noon on Sunday 29th March.

3rd European Variety in Chemistry Education with Variety in Chemistry Education

3rd European Variety in Chemistry Education with Variety in Chemistry Education,
2nd – 4th September 2009,
University of Manchester

This conference, which is a European counterpart of the UK conference Variety in Chemistry Education, is devoted to practical aspects of chemical education at tertiary (university) level. It provides a forum for the:

*exchange of ideas related to teaching and learning chemistry at degree level
*sharing of good practice and innovation
*dissemination of outcomes of pedagogic research as it relates to chemistry at university level in Europe

The submission of abstracts is invited for workshops, oral communications, oral Bytes. The deadline for submissions and early bird registration is June 30th 2009. Please see the website for details:

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/eurovariety

US EPA database on Environmental Chemicals

ACToR (Aggregated Computational Toxicology Resource)
A collection of databases collated or developed by the US EPA National Center for Computational Toxicology (NCCT). More than 200 sources of publicly available data on environmental chemicals have been brought together and made searchable by chemical name and other identifiers, and by chemical structure. Data includes chemical structure, physico-chemical values, in vitro assay data and in vivo toxicology data. Chemicals include, but are not limited to, high and medium production volume industrial chemicals, pesticides (active and inert ingredients), and potential ground and drinking water contaminants.

Talbot Rice Gallery - Wednesday Walkabouts at One

Desire Lines - Art on Campus
Wednesday Walkabouts at One
Next tour Wednesday 25 March at 1pm

Join a member of the Talbot Rice Gallery staff on a guided tour of the Desire Lines Art on Campus projects, and hear how each artist came to be located in their unique site.

These tours will run fortnightly throughout the exhibition starting on 25 February finishing on 17 June. Meet at the Information Hub at the entrance to Talbot Rice Gallery. The tour will take around 45 minutes. Bring appropriate clothing, as some of the tour will be outside. No need to book, just turn up on the day.

RSC - enhancement to online journal articles

RSC have released a few new features based around the RSC Prospect project to enhance their articles. Some of these features are cosmetic and improve the look and feel, and some are deeply semantic and a bit specialist.

mouseover popups of chemical structures,
improved subject pages and compound pages,
compound link through to ChemSpider,
better toolbar and page layout.

An example is at http://tinyurl.com/dba3mv - [compounds in the title show the structure when you put your mouse over them].

As part of our work in expanding the set of open subject classifications in our subject area, we're also making available the first three of a set of open chemistry ontologies:

Name Reaction Ontology (RXN),
Chemical Methods Ontology (CMO)
Molecular Processes Ontology (MOP).

These are all available from http://www.rsc.org/ontologies.

Call for submissions on: The teacher’s role, identity and presence in game-based learning

Mini Track at the 3rd European Conference on Game Based Learning,
FH JOANNEUM University of Applied Sciences,
Graz,
Austria,
12-13 October 2009

Mini track on: The teacher’s role, identity and presence in game-based learning
Track chair: Hamish Macleod, University of Edinburgh, UK

Game-based and game-informed approaches to learning are often seen as powerful examples of student-centred and experiential learning. While this is an important emphasis, there appears a need to clarify the task of the teacher within such settings...

This call for papers and full details of the conference at http://www.academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2009/ecgbl09-home.htm

Free events on sustainable laboratories - Edinburgh date 1st May

Free events on sustainable laboratories have been organised for academics, managers and technicians in laboratories. All feature Allen Doyle, founder of the award winning LabRATS initiative in the University of California, and have been organised by the HEFCE-funded HEEPI project.

Bookings can be made at http://www.eventlink.org.uk.

They are being held at the Royal Society of Chemistry, London (27/04/09), the University of Bradford (28/04/09) and the University of Edinburgh (01/05/09).

The London event focuses on laboratory operation, and deals with topics such as energy efficiency, green IT and waste management.

The Bradford event is mainly aimed at academics and focuses on using laboratory operations as a mechanism for teaching and learning about sustainability (e.g. HVAC systems as engineering case studies; experimental chemicals as a route into teaching green chemistry and life cycle assessment).

The Edinburgh event combines both.

Student Voice conference

Gerry Czerniawski and colleagues at UEL are putting on a conference on April 22nd at the Docklands campus on student voice. Guest speakers include Michael Fielding, Gill Mullis, Mick Waters, Pippa Lord and the event is being chaired by Wes Streeting (President of the NUS).
More information from http://www.uel.ac.uk/listeningtolearners/

Beilstein content update

The latest update of the Beilstein database, 2009/01, was made available on Tuesday 17th March.

Statistics for the new Beilstein database are as follows:

Number of compounds: 10,978,219
Number of citations: 2,218,503
Number of reactions: 22,528,937

Chemistry databases

NeSC - Workshop on Use Cases for Provenance

Workshop on Use Cases for Provenance
April 20, 2009 http://wiki.esi.ac.uk/UseCasesForProvenanceWorkshop
e-Science Institute
15 South College Street, Edinburgh

Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) - Spring 2009 CDK workshop

The Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) team is glad to announce the Spring 2009 CDK workshop
held at the
European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI).

So far, 23 participants from Industry and Academia are registered. There is a capacity of 40.

One day of tutorials on how to use CDK and talks on research using the CDK. Free-form developers workshop for the rest of the second day. Both the evening of the 20th and the 21st will be opportunities for enjoying refreshments.

Small nominal registration fee of 50 Pounds.

6th annual Problem Based Learning (PBL) summer workshop

The workshop is run every year by academic staff from the University of Leicester. This year it is being hosted by Dundalk Institute of Technology in Ireland and delivered by the team from the University of Leicester on 13th- 15th July 2009.

The PBL summer workshop is not discipline-specific covering arts and social sciences disciplines along side sciences, engineering, mathematics, IT, medical and health care fields. In recent years this event has welcomed participants from across the globe and across the disciplines.

More information from http://www.dkit.ie/leap

Art Collective artsci series - first event

Art Collective has its first 'artsci' series event at the Edinburgh College of Art this afternoon (Mon 16th Mar)

The event is open to anyone and will be followed by a talk by conceptual artist, Joseph Kosuth, at the National Gallery (starting at 6).

Also.... The Place Project schedule is now available.

CrossFire - both logins working

CrossFire service is running normally again (as of Saturday 14th Mar) and logins via both IP and web authentication are possible. MIMAS believes the service is now stable, but members of the University of Edinburgh please report any problems to your liaison librarian or directly to CrossFire staff at crossfire--at-mimas.ac.uk.

CrossFire is running again for IP access

Fri 13 Mar 09 pm - CrossFire is running again following the disk controller replacement and firmware upgrade on an essential Mimas file system this morning, and logins via IP authentication are now possible. Unfortunately, web authentication via Shibboleth is not yet possible due to problems with an Oracle database; MIMAS staff are working on this now.

UoEd Open Access computing labs/CrossFire packaged for desktop all have to use IP authentication.

CrossFire - MIMAS downtime

The unavailability of Mimas services including CrossFire continues . Engineers were unable to download the necessary firmware for transfer to one of the disk controllers yesterday and this task was resumed today (13th Mar09) at 9 a.m.

CrystalWeb data update and improved searching

CDS Homepage is at: http://cds.dl.ac.uk

The latest ICSD update is now available via CrystalWeb and ICSD-WWW. Also the coordination search facility within CrystalWeb has been restored.

The latest version of the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD 2008/2) has been added to CrystalWeb.

Coordination searching has been restored to the CrystalWeb Formula and Coordination Search Form. Coordination searching is available for all component databases except the NIST Crystal Data Identification File. The maximum coordination limit has been removed.

Crstalweb information at http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/news/disp?crystalweb
Inorganic Crystal Structure Database information at http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/news/disp?icsd

eCheminfo Community of Practice Drug Discovery Meeting

eCheminfo Community of Practice Drug Discovery Meeting
Bryn Mawr College,
Philadelphia,
13-16 October 2009

Information on the program at http://echeminfo.com/COMTY_conferences

Includes:
Invitation for contributed papers from members of academic, government research and commercial organizations on areas of new research and innovation involving drug discovery research informatics.

Bursary Awards
Bursary Awards will be used to support the attendance of a selection of academic investigators at the meeting and workshops.

On Trial - Chinese databases from Taiwan

EUL staff have arranged a free trial of two Chinese databases from Taiwan.

The trail period provides time for readers and library staff to assess the products. Please send feedback via Electronic Information Service Trials webpage where these services should soon appear. Or to your Liaison Librarian.

1. Taiwan Electronic Periodical Services (TEPS) http://www.airiti.com/teps/ec_en This is an on-line database offering the full-text of more than 700 Taiwan periodicals of different subjects in Arts, Humanities, Social Science. Science and Medicine. Interface in both Chinese and English.

Trial period: Mar 10 2009 ~ Apr 09 2009

2. National Palace Museum Online (NPM Online) http://www.airiti.com/npmoln/
An image database of Chinese Art. Interface in both Chinese and English.

Trial period: Mar 10 2009 ~ Apr 09 2009

History of the Book seminar

Friday 13th Mar09
13:00-14:00
CRC seminar room
Main Library, 5th floor.

Dr. Paul Barnaby
"The Corson Collection: Edinburgh University Library's Scott Monument."

More information at http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb/ebhs08_09.htm

CrossFire down time

All Mimas services including CrossFire will be taken down at 11:15 today, 12th Mar09,in order to replace the faulty disk controller. We anticipate that the work will take around 2 hours. Apologies once again for the disruption.

Tthis is for an engineer to replace the faulty disk controller to solve the continued unavailability of CrossFire logins via web authentication (logins via IP have been possible).

e-Science Institute public lecture - Adding Semantics to Geographic Data Models

Adding Semantics to Geographic Data Models by Dr Femke Reitsma (Geography Department, Canterbury University) is open to all interested parties in academia and industry.

More about the lecture from http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/981

Date and Time: 16:00, 7 April 2009 (tea and coffee at 17:00)

Place: Newhaven Lecture Theatre
e-Science Institute
15 South College Street (Edinburgh)

Note that there is no need to register for this event - just turn up.

Cambridge Healthcare Institute's Structure-Based Drug Design Conference

June 4-5 2009,
Cambridge, Mass., USA

Register by March 13th for early bird discount.

Conference information at http://www.healthtech.com/SBD/overview.aspx

Topics include:

Target Structure-Guided Drug Discovery.
Feeding SBDD with Biochemical and Biophysical Information.
Ligand-Based Predictions Applied to Drug Design.
SBDD and Computational Chemistry Methods: A Marriage of Innovation.
SBDD of Pharmacological Chaperons.

Pre-Conference Workshop: Wednesday, June 3:
Designing Kinase Inhibitors

MRC's research portfolio online

The UK Medical Research Council's database is available online as a searchable database

All funded projects and intramural programmes are in the database, each with a lay summary and scientific abstract.

Search the database, or browse by broad disease area, research type, location, organisation, MRC Board or grant category.

The portfolio has been online in a couple of previous incarnations, once via Community of Science and once on the MRC's own website, but both were withdrawn for a mixture of reasons.

EPSRC agree continued ACD/Labs I-Lab Funding

EPSRC has agreed continued funding of I-Lab for the full three years.

Details of the I-Lab system and the EPSRC decision

CDS users are encouraged to carry on making full use of the I-lab system and all CDS components to help ensure their continued availability beyond 2011.

ACD/Labs Online (I-Lab) is an Internet-based service that allows instant access to spectroscopy information, compound name generation and property prediction programs.

All registered CDS users are eligible to access the system. The service is mounted on a server operated by the CDS.

UK academics can register to use the CDS.
Definition of UK Academic

£50 Amazon Voucher - Intute - survey

PRIZE DRAW: A £50 Amazon Voucher will be awarded each week throughout March.

Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners.

Ensure it meets your needs by completing this short online survey. It only takes about 5 minutes to complete.

http://feedback.intute.ac.uk/userfeedback

More free web-based resources for Chemists

Research-Teaching Links in the Physical Sciences: Politics and Practice

Wednesday 18th March 2009,
The Reinvention Centre,
University of Warwick

Undergraduate Research and the Research Teaching Link are currently hot topics. Autumn 2008 saw the publication of three major reports, from the Scottish QAA and from Professors Nigel Thrift and Paul Ramsden to the Minister, John Denham, that provide a clear political framework for 2009 onwards.

Lynda Thrift will introduce the event and Paul Taylor will talk about the work of the reinvention Centre at the University of Warwick. Tina Overton, Physical Sciences Centre, Ros Roke, University of Warwick and Simon Bates, University of Edinburgh, will discuss the impact of these reports.

The full programme is available on the website: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2009/rtl_mar_2009

There is no registration fee for this meeting for those working in UK HE and lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Case studies will be presented that highlight what is actually happening in Physical Science Departments around the country. If you would like to contribute a 10 minute case study presentation to the workshop, please contact Ruth Wellock, r.wellock -at- hull.ac.uk, with details of what you would like to present.

SciFinder e-seminar - Energizing your chemical synthesis research

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
2:00 – 3:00 PM U.S. Eastern Standard Time

For other broadcast dates and to register visit: http://casevents.webex.com

SciFinder provides access to synthetic methods from 1840 to the present, from journals, patents, and evaluated reference works.

In this session, you will learn how to:

* Explore CAS reaction content
* Sort and analysis features that can help with more precise reaction searching
* Conduct effective product yield searches
* Plus, tips for exploring SciFinder's reaction content

More about SciFinder Scholar at UoEdinburgh

Create books from almost any MediaWiki wiki

PediaPress is a German company which for a cost will print in book format material sourced from wikis using MediaWiki software.

See their webpages for the widget and more information

eCheminfo drug discovery workshop week

Oxford University
20 - 24 July 2009

Workshop groups will study problems with hands-on examples using computational drug discovery methods and discuss issues highlighted by examples and Case Studies presented by instructors. A Case Study set with a focus on Kinases will be used to link all workshop activities throughout the week.

More information on program can be found at:

Blog: http://barryhardy.blogs.com/cheminfostream/

Web: http://echeminfo.com/comty_oxfordworkshop09

A Bursary Award will be used to support the attendance of a selection of academic participants, who may be working in any area of research related to drug discovery. To apply for the bursary please send an email with
a) description of your research (ca. 500 words);
b) your training needs (ca. 500 words),
c) your CV
to echeminfo -[at]- douglasconnect.com by 27 February 2009.

Online Game for Students to Learn Spectroscopy

With the intention of helping students to learn spectroscopy, an open access online game has been developed. It is presently in beta-form but already has 100s of spectra, mostly NMR, to challenge and stimulate.

The game is described in the following blog posts

http://usefulchem.blogspot.com/2009/02/web-based-spectra-game.html and http://www.chemspider.com/blog/the-spectral-game-as-an-educational-tool.
html


The game can be found at this url for the time being:
http://lxsrv7.oru.edu/~alang/ and there is a prize now announced:
http://usefulchem.blogspot.com/2009/02/prize-for-spectra-game.html


ChemSpider is looking for additional spectral data to be added to the game. The data must be "Open Data". The spectral data will be deposited to ChemSpider for hosting and the spectral game will draw on both the structures and the spectra from ChemSpider in order to run.

SciFinder eSeminars

To register, visit: http://casevents.webex.com where you will also see rebroadcast times.

1) Energizing your chemical synthesis research
March 11, 2009
2:00 – 3:00 PM U.S. Eastern Standard Time

* Explore CAS reaction content
* Find reaction information from the Wiley collections
* Sort and analysis features that can help with more precise reaction searching
* Conduct effective product yield searches


2) Finding “greener” research processes
May 13, 2009
2:00 – 3:00 PM U.S. Eastern Standard Time


* Effectively search the scientific literature for green chemistry technologies
* Explore novel green discoveries in patents
* Find syntheses using green reagents and solvents
* Create alerts to inform you of green findings

Open Access Publications Policy through Senate

Open Access Publications Policy was agreed through the electronic Senate, and the minutes of the e-Senate were accepted 18th Feb 2009.

The Policy does not become mandatory until 1 Jan 2010. For this year, there is strong encouragement to deposit items.

The policy is available at
http://www.acaffairs.ed.ac.uk/Committees/Senate/Meetings/200809/20090127/C4-OpenAccess.pdf

The Influence and Impact of Web 2.0 on e-Research Infrastructure, Applications and Users

Five-day workshop 23Mar09 09:30 - 27Mar09 17:00 at the
e-Science Institute,
15 South College Street,
Edinburgh.

Day 1 - Web 2.0 technologies
Day 2 - Clouds
Day 3 - User/usability
Day 4 - User Applications
Day 5 - Tutorials and panels

See this link for the schedule and details of the event and how to apply to attend - http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/968/

Ebook survey - Amazon vouchers

JISC is conducting a major national survey to find out what students and staff think about electronic books. The "JISC User Exit Survey 2009" is now live.

The survey takes 10-12 minutes to do and all completed surveys will go into a draw to win £200 worth of Amazon vouchers !

The online survey is accessible to students at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/ciber/observatory/students/

The survey is accessible to staff at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/ciber/observatory/faculty/

There are links to ebooks from library catalogue records.
There is a subset of some of the available chemistry ones at http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/resbysub/chem.shtml#chemebks including a link to the RSC ebook collection.

Re the survey, you need to know the following:

"You are under no obligation whatsoever to take part in the survey. Any information you give will be held securely and any findings will under no circumstances be revealed other than at a highly aggregated level. Data is being collected through a third-party, Survey Monkey, the privacy policy for which can be read at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/Monkey_Privacy.aspx"

Crossing The Line - UG chemist's art exhibition

Thursday 19th February, 5.15-7.00pm
Joseph Black building foyer
(Refreshments provided)

http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/artcollective/

Crossing the Line is a collection of recent work by undergraduate chemistry student Laura Cocker. It is a combination of installation, photography and text exploring the nature and isolation of scientific knowledge and touching upon the artist's relationship with the invisible realm which the molecular state occupies.

The artworks will be displayed in the foyer of the Joseph Black chemistry building... After the event there will be an Edinburgh Interdisciplinary Discussions Art/Science discussion at the Bowery

NeSC newsletter - January/February 2009

In this month's newsletter includes pieces on saving lives with the Semantic Web, the new e-Science MSc, new eSI themes, a review of e-Science...

http://www.nesc.ac.uk/news/newsletter/NeSC_news_Jan_Feb_09.pdf

increase the creative problem solving skills of science students

Wednesday 29 April 2009
Hugh Fraser Seminar Room, Wolfson Medical Building, University of Glasgow

To increase the creative problem solving skills of science students attending university, the Centre for Bioscience has organised a day around the theme of creativity in the sciences in collaboration with other STEM Subject Centres (Engineering, Physical Science, ICS, Maths Stats & OR, and Materials).

Through a series of interactive and creative workshop sessions as well as swapshop presentations to share examples of good practice, participants will learn more about the creative process, how to facilitate creativity in your teaching, and understand the importance of creativity as an employability trait for your students.

For more information about the speakers, the event and how to register, please visit: http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/events/glasgow290409.aspx

SPRESI Molecule and Reaction Database

SPRESI database is "the world's 3rd largest structure and reaction database" and available to the academic community for evaluation on the Daresbury Chemical Database Service.

SPRESIWeb is started from the usual RED SQUARE menu on the CDS main web page.

After logging on to the CDS site, users will be automatically redirected to the SPRESI site.

For more information see:-
http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cds/datasets/orgchem/spresi/spresi.html

Research-Teaching Links in the Physical Sciences: Politics and Practice

Wednesday 18th March 2009, The Reinvention Centre, University of Warwick

Undergraduate Research and the Research Teaching Link are currently hot topics. Autumn 2008 saw the publication of three major reports, from the Scottish QAA and from Professors Nigel Thrift and Paul Ramsden to the Minister, John Denham, that provide a clear political framework for 2009 onwards.

The purpose of this workshop will be to explore what this proposed framework means for practitioners in the Physical Sciences in UK Higher Education through case studies that highlight what is actually happening in Physical Science Departments around the country, brief presentations around the Reports and plenty of opportunity for discussion.

To contribute a 10 minute case study presentation to the workshop, please contact Ruth Wellock, r.wellock -at- hull.ac.uk, with details of what you would like to present.

There is no registration fee for this meeting for those working in UK HE and lunch and refreshments will be provided. For more details and to register online:

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2009/rtl_mar_2009

Open Access Research Repository - What's in it for you?

13th February 2009 - University of Stirling Management Centre

Information and booking at www.research.stir.ac.uk/OpenAccessResearchRepository.php

The University of Stirling and Universities Scotland are hosting a Scottish-wide event, which will focus on the strategic importance of Open Access Research Repositories for Universities and staff actively involved in research.

Who should attend?

* Research Managers/Directors/Coordinators
* Research Fellows
* Academic Staff involved in research
* Research Administrators
* Research Assistants

This event will provides an opportunity to explore the benefits of institutional research repositories and to share best practice. There will be an opportunity to discuss:

* Why are institutional repositories important for Scottish researchers?
* Populating the Repository
* Copyright and Open Access publishing
* Bibliometrics and Research Assessment

Academic Communication Survey - Amazon vouchers

on behalf of Publishing Directions (UK) Ltd and JISC.

Dear Chemistry Researcher,

We would like to ask for your help - we need your input and perspective as a researcher in order to better understand how you communicate with your academic colleagues, particularly in using digital methods. We would like to understand more about how you locate, evaluate, organise, manage, transform, communicate and re-use research information in your field.

We would like to ask you to take 15 minutes to fill in a brief online survey.

Your input will provide vital insight into understanding methods of scholarly communications in the fields of chemistry and will help us to plan advocacy programmes to encourage the take up of new methodologies and technologies to improve the access to, use and re-use of content by UK academics in this field.

The survey is part of a study project undertaken by Publishing Directions (UK) Ltd (www.publishingdirections.co.uk) on behalf of JISC, the Joint Information Systems Committee (www.jisc.ac.uk).

WHERE IS THE SURVEY?:
The survey will be live online from 30th January - 13th February. You can access it here (www.rsc.org/advocacy), which redirects to a survey on http://www.surveymonkey.com/. Any answers you provide will be treated as strictly confidential and shared only with JISC in an aggregated format.

In order to thank you for your time, you will be given the opportunity to enter a Prize Draw, with prizes of 5 £40 Amazon vouchers to be won.

If you have any queries about the survey, please do not hesitate to contact me.

With thanks,
Dr William Town.
bill.town --at-- kilmorie.com

Physical Sciences Centre Bulletin

February Bulletin from the Physical Sciences Centre; information about forthcoming Centre events, news and developments from the Centre and any other related news, every month. available on the website:
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/publications/ebulletin

Contents include:
1.iii) Higher Education Academy Scotland travel fund for academic staff: call for applications
2. Higher Education Academy Student Competition
3. Publication of the latest New Directions
and various calls for papers.

Two seminars in the University of Glasgow's Learning & Teaching Centre seminar series

1) Accessibility - attitude of mind or adaptive computing?
Presented by Alan Crombie, Open University
Friday 13th February 2009, 14:00-16:00

2) The nature of student engagement and why it matters so much
Presented by Colin Bryson, Newcastle University
Wednesday 4th March 2009, 12:00-14:00

The seminars are being held at the
Learning & Teaching Centre,
Southpark House,
64 Southpark Avenue,
Glasgow G12 8LB

For more information, abstracts and speaker biographies, please go to:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/learningteaching/seminarsworkshopsandsymposia/seminarsworkshopsforstaff/

Seminars are free of charge and open to all.

Predictive ADME and Toxicology workshop week

Predictive ADME and Toxicology workshop week at Oxford University 27 – 31 July 2009. A hands-on case study approach using a variety of methods applied to ADME and Tox datasets and endpoints.

More information on program can be found at:

Blog: http://barryhardy.blogs.com/cheminfostream/

Pdf: http://barryhardy.blogs.com/files/echeminfoadmetprogramoxford09-1.pdf

Web: http://echeminfo.com/COMTY_oxfordadmet09

A Bursary Award will be used to support the attendance of a selection of academic participants, who may be working in any area of research related to predictive ADME and toxicology.

To apply for the bursary please send, by 20th Feb 09, an email to echeminfo-[at]- douglasconnect.com with:
a) description of your research (ca. 500 words);
b) your training needs (ca. 500 words),
c) your CV

POSTED by Barry Hardy ON CHMINF-LIST

eCheminfo Community of Practice
Douglas Connect GmbH
Switzerland

CHMINF-L Archives (also to join or leave CHMINF-L, etc.) http://listserv.indiana.edu/archives/chminf-l.html

CrossFire downtime 17th February 07:00

The Mimas CrossFire service will not be available for a period of up to two hours from 7 a.m. GMT on Tuesday 17 February, because of required disk maintenance.

MIMAS would like to apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused.

Gmelin - content figures

The latest quarterly update to the Gmelin database, 2008/04, has now been loaded.

Statistics for the new Gmelin database are as follows:

Number of compounds: 2,641,161
Number of reactions: 2,012,733
Number of citations: 1,375,716

find out more at Databases relevant to Chemistry

IMPROVING STUDENT LEARNING FOR THE 21st CENTURY LEARNER

17th Improving Student Learning Symposium hosted by the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD)

7-9 September 2009, Imperial College, London

CALL FOR PAPERS

We hope that the theme for this symposium - 'for the 21st Century Learner' - will challenge contributors to consider the rapidly changing landscape of university education - technology, massification, increased diversity of students and globalisation etc.

Please submit your paper proposal online at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/isl/isl2009/callforpapers.html. The closing date for submissions is 28 February 2009, and authors will be notified by the end of March whether their paper has been selected for presentation.

Improving Student Learning symposium (ISL) is supported by the Higher Education Academy.

Screen-Capture Video & Self-Assessment Workshop on the Local Production of Effective Learning Resources

18th March 2009, University of the West of England

This workshop is being conducted as part of the Royal Society of Chemistry ‘Chemistry For Our Future’ project and being organised by Graham Currell and Dilys Thornton of the University of the West of England.

It is now possible, with very little effort and practice, to produce effective video-based learning materials that are extremely well received by the students. These can vary from little more than a video ‘email’ to a more sophisticated interactive learning package.

The fact that these materials can be produced quickly in-house can permit the development of many small learning objects, some of which could evolve to be extremely useful in building support (as per Lego) for learning in other institutions. It is also possible to produce these videos in a core format which can then be further edited by a recipient university to produce a locally customised version.

The aims of this workshop are to develop skills and consider mechanisms by which such locally produced learning objects can be shared more widely.

For more information see the website:
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2009/screen_capture_workshop

Edikt2009: Using Computing in your Research

29th April, 2009 09:30 - 17:00
WestPark Conference Centre, Dundee

Following the successful edikt2008 symposium, this year's event will bring together Scottish researchers who make heavy use of computer simulations, models or analysis to do research, allowing them to swap ideas and see how other scientists use the resources to maximum benefit. There is no similar activity in Scotland.

The day will be arranged into four sessions covering a wide range of computational research; including cell biology, computational chemistry, brain imaging and bioinformatics.

A poster session will also be held in the coffee and lunch breaks.

The symposium is free of charge and lunch is provided. Please register your interest by emailing Jon Hill (j.hill@ epcc.ed.ac.uk).

For more information on the edikt2 project or the symposium, please see the webpage (http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/research/activities/edikt/) or contact Jon Hill (j.hill@ epcc.ed.ac.uk).

CambridgeSoft Conference & User Meeting in London on March 9th, 2009

This free event will consist of customer presentations, product demonstrations and discussion of future product initiatives.

Monday, March 9th, 2009, at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, London, UK

http://www.cambridgesoft.com/direct/index.cfm?did=8355&userid=1483545

The conference will include presentations by well-known pharmaceutical companies and CambridgeSoft management and development staff.

There is also paid training on some of our most popular application on Tuesday, March 10th — taught by members of the CambridgeSoft Development Team. For more information on the training sessions, please click on the following links:

Inventory: http://www.cambridgesoft.com/direct/index.cfm?did=8356&userid=1483545
E-Notebook: http://www.cambridgesoft.com/direct/index.cfm?did=8357&userid=1483545
ChemBioViz: http://www.cambridgesoft.com/direct/index.cfm?did=8358&userid=1483545

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
Participation in the Conference & User Group Meeting is FREE, but you must REGISTER early as space is limited. You may register online at:
http://www.cambridgesoft.com/direct/index.cfm?did=8355&userid=1483545

Maximising the effectiveness of virtual worlds in teaching and learning

This joint event organised by JISC CETIS and Eduserv provided a range of perspectives on the use of virtual worlds in HE from experienced practitioners.

More, including presentations from:

http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/CETIS-Eduserv-VW2009

Research-Teaching Links in the Physical Sciences: Politics and Practice, Wednesday 18th March 2009, The Reinvention Centre, University of Warwick

Undergraduate Research and the Research Teaching Link are currently hot topics. Autumn 2008 saw the publication of three major reports, from the Scottish QAA and from Professors Nigel Thrift and Paul Ramsden to the Minister, John Denham, that provide a clear political framework for 2009 onwards.

The purpose of this workshop will be to explore what this proposed framework means for practitioners in the Physical Sciences in UK Higher Education through case studies that highlight what is actually happening in Physical Science Departments around the country, brief presentations around the Reports and plenty of opportunity for discussion.

If you would like to contribute a 10 minute case study presentation to the workshop, please Ruth Wellock, r.wellock@hull.ac.uk, with details of what you would like to present.

There is no registration fee for this meeting for those working in UK HE and lunch and refreshments will be provided. For more details and to register online:

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2009/rtl_mar_2009

Discontinuation of SciFinder Scholar 2006

On 30th January, the following client desktop editions of SciFinder will stop working:

1) SciFinder Scholar 2006 for MicrosoftR Windows
2) SciFinder Scholar 2006 for MAC OS X

If you are using one of these, please upgrade. For information about downloading the 2007 version and about web access go to http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/resbysub/scifinder.shtml

The UoEdinburgh open access computer labs are running SciFinder Scholar 2007.

[To see which version you're using: select Help from the top menu then About SciFinder Scholar. The version is given just above the copyright notice on the box which displays.]

CAS registry numbers on "certain" Elsevier databases

From publisher, Elsevier's website at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_01105

Academic publishing company, Elsevier is providing enhanced electronic versions of its journal articles to CAS SciFinder publisher, and CAS in turn is helping Elsevier identify additional CAS Registry Numbers in certain of its databases.

The CAS Registry Number identification aspect of the agreement is being carried out periodically through an automated, first level, "machine comparison". That method is neither comprehensive nor detailed relative to many chemical structure conventions, and so this resulting addition of Registry numbers does not represent a complete comparison of Elsevier resources with the CAS Registry, the most comprehensive substance collection...From time to time more CAS Registry Numbers will be added.

2011 international year of chemistry

The 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution proclaiming 2011 as International Year of Chemistry, placing UNESCO and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) at the helm of the event.

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy amongst others

Physical Sciences Centre funding for learning and teaching projects

Each year the Physical Sciences Centre offers funding of up to £5000 for academics to carry out learning and teaching projects. The funding can be used to buy out staff time, to employ summer project students or part time staff, or to pay for expertise not immediately available.

The closing date for bidding is 31st March 2009. Applications should be made using the template provided on the website. Contact the Centre Director, Tina Overton, for an informal discussion of ideas for projects (01482 465453, t.l.overton@hull.ac.uk).

For further information, including criteria, previous projects and details of how to apply see: www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/home/projects/devprojects

RSC & ChemZoo developing tools to help chemists label compounds with standard tags

The information below is an edited version of the item from Knowledgespeak Newsletter

RSC news item Web chemistry progresses InChI by InChI in Chemistry World

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and ChemZoo, a US-based software firm, are developing tools to help chemists label their own compounds with a standard computer-readable tag. A beta form of the InchI resolver is expected to be on display in March.

The standard way to represent chemical structures using a string of text, the International Chemical Identifier (InChI), was developed several years ago but is unused, even unknown, by many chemists.

The free 'resolver' would turn any InChI into a shorter 25-letter code (the 'InChI key') seen to be friendlier to search engines.

There is disagreement over what impact the collaboration could have on current gold standards in managing chemical information, such as the ACS' subscription-only Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). The ACS service allots compounds a CAS number and catalogues them using its own proprietary informatics platform. CAS holds some 40 million organic and inorganic substances in its registry - roughly double ChemSpider's existing database.

A comment "Five Questions about the InChI Resolver" posted on the blog Depth-First: walking the web of chemical informatics.

SciFinder Scholar e-seminars

Two January seminars over the web. They will be repeated and they will also be recorded and posted on the website for viewing.

To register, visit: http://casevents.webex.com

After you register, you will receive an e-mail confirmation containing the teleconference phone numbers.

You can submit questions at any time during a live e-Seminar.
________________________________

1) SciFinder: Spectra and Properties

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 19:00-20:00 GMT
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 11:00 GMT & 14:00 GMT

In addition to the 2 billion predicted and experimental properties, spectra, and data tags already available in SciFinder, 23.8 million predicted proton NMR spectra have been added.

Nearly every organic substance in the CAS REGISTRYSM now has a proton NMR spectrum.

The e-Seminar will:

* Explore the collection of expanded property information
* Share how SciFinder adds value to spectral data
* Discuss how to locate the expanded property information in SciFinder

2) Exploring New Enhancements in the Web Version of SciFinder®!

January 23 - 13:30
February 3 - 18:00
February 17 - 13:30
February 24 - 20:00

The upcoming release of the web version of SciFinder extends functionality beyond the capabilities of all existing SciFinder products. In these sessions, CAS will:

* Explore existing features
* Introduce brand new features such as one click linking to your favorite SciFinder answers, new Keep Me Posted features, related references on key scientific concepts, and more . . .
* Unveil new content such as experimental and predicted properties and reaction data

Bursaries to attend conferences in the USA

The RSC Education Division is offering bursaries of up to £1500 for academics to attend a major US chemistry education conference in order to initiate collaboration and networking with those carrying out pedagogic research in chemistry.