Analytical Chemistry
This course covers key topics in modern quantitative methods for chemical analysis, such as spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and separations in three, one-hour lectures per week. A weekly laboratory experiment highlights the practical implementation of principles covered in the lecture. Unlike other chemistry courses with an associated laboratory, an on-line, electronic laboratory notebook employing the Wiki and Resources tools in Sakai is used by students in this course to prepare analysis procedures, organize and record experimental data, and prepare detailed lab reports which summarize the findings of each experiment.
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Analytical Chemistry (CHM 326) is a core course in the chemistry program and has been taught for many years. The new development in this course is the combined use of the Sakai Wiki and Resources tools as an on-line, electronic laboratory notebook for use by students in their weekly laboratory experiments. This innovation has allowed the laboratory to become "paperless". No laboratory information is written or recorded on paper. Students use laptops as their recording medium and refer to experimental procedures they have composed on their Wiki page in performing experiments. One of the primary motivations for going in this direction is the experiences of one of the course instructors (E. Remsen) who worked for 25 years in industry. In the industrial world electronic data acquisition, analysis, and archiving are the norm. The use of the Wiki and Resources tools in Sakai as an electronic laboratory notebook for developing experimental procedures, recording experimental results, calculating final results, and reporting findings in a professional format is an excellent educational experience which will help prepare students for what they will encounter in science-based industrial jobs post-graduation.
Students use the Wiki tool to write their own experimental procedures, record their experimental data and summarize their results all on a single, comprehensive Wiki page for each laboratory experiment. The course instructors (E. Remsen and E. Flint) guide the students in crafting their Wiki page for an experiment so that it contains all the required elements of a coherently documented record of their work. The students use experiment guidelines and references posted by the instructors in the Resources folder on the Sakai site for the course to obtain the information they need to prepare their Wiki pages. The students have total ownership of their respective Wiki pages and they pride themselves on preparing a professional, complete document describing their work. They incorporate into their Wiki pages for specific laboratory experiments, linked documents (Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint figures, jpg and gif images of their experimental apparatus and color changes occurring during chemical reactions, etc.) as well as imbedded images and internal Wiki tables.
Students work individually on shorter laboratory experiments, and in teams of two and three on more complex laboratory experiments. Teams jointly prepare lab reports and/or presentations and uploaded them to the Wiki page for more complex experiments. Procedures, data and results are shared openly and communicated freely among the team members. Different teams form to work on different laboratory experiments. Later this semester, the students will also interact as an entire class team and will use the Wiki and Resources tools to pursue a complex analysis of potential environmental contaminants in organic vs. non-organic vegetables purchased at local grocery stores. The students will, thereby, experience a diversity of work styles and collaborative approaches in completing team-based laboratory experiments with the help of the Wiki and Resources tools in Sakai.
The students use information in the form of PowerPoint files, images, and text documents which are uploaded to the Resources and Wiki tools as they craft individual Wiki pages for upcoming laboratory class (see attached example Wiki page). Goals, expectations, and deliverables are formulated by the students into experimental procedures to be used in laboratory experiments.
Student enthusiasm for the Wiki tool as an electronic laboratory notebook is evidenced by the care and concern with which they prepare Wiki pages detailing all aspects of their laboratory experiments. The students are very comfortable in organizing all pertinent information for their laboratory experiments on a single Wiki page. The instructors provide feedback to the students in the form of a comments and critique write up for the Wiki page when it is completed. A marked improvement in the quality of the completed Wiki pages was noted this semester after only a few laboratory experiments were completed. This finding speaks to the enthusiasm and interest the students are experiencing in their use of the Wiki tool as their personal, on-line electronic laboratory notebook.
The students very easily navigate around the different Sakai sites of the course. The different folders in the Resources are well labeled. The students have commented that after a short testing period, they were able to use the Wiki and its associated folders in the Resources tool with no problems. Their level of comfort in the ease of use is evidenced by the continuous improvement in the quality and appearance of their Wiki pages. This continuous improvement is important for the students in that the grading rubric used to evaluate student work on the labs encompasses all sections of the Wiki page, including the organization of the information on the page, the writing quality, and the ease of navigation through the content on the page and all linked files in the Resources tool that are used in the page.
Students initially encountered problems with the permission structure associated with their Wiki pages. There was a problem with unintentional overwriting of one student's Wiki page with another student's Wiki page information. The students and instructors consulted with the university's Information Technology group and these issues were resolved.
There has been considerable interest for some time in the department to find a viable option for switching from paper laboratory notebooks to electronic, on-line notebooks. This interest has been motivated by a desire to expose students to a more real-world examples of planning experiments, recording data, and documenting scientific results. The use of the Wiki and Resources tools in Sakai allowed the implementation of this desired innovation at no new cost to the university or to the department.
The use of the Wiki captured the student's interest from the beginning of the course because of its novelty and the high level of comfort the students naturally have with on-line information exchange. These factors have translated to an improvement in the instructional process as evidenced by the continuous improvement of laboratory reports in the Wiki page that are more professional in appearance, contain fewer grammatical errors and misspellings, and are easier for the instructors to review and grade. It should also be pointed out that paper laboratory notebooks are notorious for the ease with which they are lost, misplaced, or accidently damaged by students. The use of Wiki has eliminated all of these negative features of paper laboratory notebooks. The associated user/date/time stamp in the history option of the Wiki has eliminated any questions or uncertainties regarding the on-time completion of the Wiki page for a specific laboratory.
Based on the positive experiences realized through using the Wiki tool as an on-line, electronic laboratory notebook, this innovation will be considered for implementation in other upper-division chemistry course with an associated laboratory.
The attached pdf of a student-generated Wiki page is comprised of a series a screenshots taken of a representative Wiki page from one student's electronic laboratory notebook. This page incorporates the student's experimental procedures (Section I), the collected experimental data, (Section II) and a laboratory report summarizing her results and conclusions (Section III).
Throughout the Wiki page are images, taken by the student during her laboratory class, of the experimental apparatus (Picture 1), and visual experimental data showing before (Picture 2) and after (Picture 3) images of a color change associated with a chemical reaction the students were studying in the laboratory experiment.
The Wiki page contains collected experimental data sets in the form of links to Excel spreadsheets (for example, "CHM326 - Volume of HCl Delivered Data") uploaded by the student to her folder in the Resources tool. Final results obtained from the analysis of the experimental data are incorporated into the Wiki page in the form of links to Excel spreadsheets (for example, "Link1 - Molarity and Uncertainty of THAM Solution") uploaded by the student to her folder in the Resources tool.
Also attached are the guidelines (CHM 326 Lab 1 Information. pdf and Absolute Uncertainty Calculations Guidelines.pdf) provided by the instructors for the student's use in preparing and completing the Wiki page. The Comments and Critique document provided to the student (Kelsey Smith.pdf) and used to evaluate the Wiki page for this experiment is also attached.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Representative Electronic Notebook Wiki page.pdf | 1.3 MB |
| CHM326 Lab 1 Information.pdf | 11.22 KB |
| Absolute Uncertainty Calculation Guidelines.pdf | 33.49 KB |
| Kelsey Smith.pdf | 14.18 KB |
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