Messages from Prof. Tyson
December 27th 2006 2:17 pm. Here is the situation as of 2:00 pm on December 27th. I have all the final reports from the groups. That's the good news.
Here is the not so good news. There are about 20 participants who have not either (a) submitted a report on their group members' contributions or (b) submitted a questionnaire (downloadable from the website) or (c) both.
My policy is to acknowledge every e-mail message of substance, so if you have submitted a report and/or a questionnaire and you did not get an acknowledgement, it means that either I have not recieved it, or I have misfiled it, or the spam filter got it. Please send again.
If you have not yet submitted a report on your group members' activities or a questionnaire, please do so as soon as possible. If either is missing by the time I submit the grades, you'll get an "incomplete" or a "not recorded."
I still have not received a description of a measurement technique from Group 3 or a proposal from Group 4. If these documents are not received in time for me to process the information to submit grades (due on Jan 2nd), everyone in the group(s) concerned will get an "incomplete."
Please make every effort to submit the missing material soon.
Thanks,
December 3rd 2006 10:00 pm. After some considerable delay, I have managed to get the e-mail lists updated by SPIRE, so if you are getting this message you are either on the mailing list for my research group or you are still registered for H07 or H03.
I updated the website some time ago with the information that you sent in about how to measure arsenic and your group's proposal. You'll notice that the material is incomplete. This may be because I have misfiled your e-mail attachment, so if you have a copy of one of the missing documents, please e-mail it to me. This is important, as missing documents will result in everyone in the group getting a grade of incomplete.
We meet as a group this coming Thursday (December 7th) at 4:40 pm in LGRT 321, when the agenda will be to receive oral reports from each group on the experiments so far.
The final report (in the form of journal article) is due on December 22nd. There are guidelines for creating such a document on the website. Reports from previous semesters may also be consulted as a guide. There are also details on the page with all the information about grading (click on guidelines for grading).
Each group submits one report. Each member of the group submits two additional reports: one on the contribution of all of the members of the group (including yourself) and the second is a questionnaire which you can download from the website.
I look forward to hearing, at the meeting on Thursday, how things have been going.
October 26th 6:55 am. The next project meeting is at 4:40 pm on Thursday November 2nd in LGRT 321 (same room as the first meeting). The agenda is to receive reports from each group on some aspects of the activities so far.
Each group should prepare a 5-6 minute presentation supported by some PowerPoint images. The content of the presentation is (a) the background topic that your group researched and (b) an explanation of what your group's research topic is about. The presenter(s) (it is fine to have more than one speaker) should be members of Chem 121 (Chem 315 students have other opportunities for oral presentations).
You should either bring your presentation on a USB flash drive or, preferably, e-mail it to me prior to the meeting. There is probabaly internet access in the room, but don't rely on it.
I'll bring a lap-top and projector.
After each presentation, there will be a few minutes for questions and discussion.
Oct 25th 1:50 pm This message is being sent to the e-mail lists for each of the H0 courses updated as of a few minutes ago (apologies if you have dropped, but are still listed). Also apologies to anyone in the Tyson/Uden group who does not need to see this.
Many thanks for the first reports on the various background topics. These are now all up on the website. As you will see, they are somewhat varied in relation to the activity of the links. I did nothing to the documents other than open them in Word and save them as a webpage, unless they were already in the form of a webpage (in which case I put them directly on the site). However, as always, they contain material of which I was not aware, and I am sure you will find them interesting reading.
This is a reminder that the next reporting stage is for each group to create something relating to a particular aspect of the measurement of arsenic and send it to me by midnight on Sunday (10/29).
In addition, as part of the gathering of data on participation I need to hear from everyone individually about the participation of the various group members. Please send an e-mail to me directly in which you briefly describe the contribution and participation of every member of the group, including yourself. Please put "arsenic fall 06 report" in the subject line and be sure to give the number of your group in your message. Just a few words against each peson's name is sufficient. The dealine for this is also midnight on 10/29.
Your group's research proposal is due on 11/12. I'll put some more information about this on the website shortly, and I will also send a message about what will happen at the project meeting on November 2nd.
Oct 12th 9:20 pm Just a reminder that the background paper from each group is due on Sunday (10/15) at midnight. I'm looking forward to reading these. I will be posting them on the website as soon as I can. The next step is to find out about how to measure arsenic, though I think a number of groups have already started on collecting relevant material for this. I have posted some further information about the measurement paper on the website, though it is very similar to what was available on the site for the spring semester. The deadline for information on how to measure arsenic is 10/29.
A former graduate student of mine now working at the NY State Health Dept in Albany tells me that he has been investigating poisonings due to contaminated ayurvedic medicines, some of which contain very high concentrations of arsenic, lead and mercury. Does anyone know anything about these materials? This is a new topic for me.
Sept 19th 9:42 pm. My apologies to those of you (some independent study students in my group) for whom this message is not relevant. For everyone else, this is a follow-up to my message of earlier in the week (to those of you who had registered for H03 and H07) by Sunday evening.
First item: the kick-off meeting on Thursday will be in LGRT 321 at 4:40 pm. Come if you can. This will be an opportunity to meet other members of your group and start planning for your next meeting.
Next item: As about 10 students have added the course in the last two days (some with requests to work with other students), there has been some reorganization of the groups. I apologise if your new assignment comes as a disappointment.
I have also fixed at least one duplicate entry.
The attached Excel file contains two work sheets, one is the composition of the groups and an indication of the proejct topic. The other is an outline of the activities for the semester. I'll talk more about the structure of the program on Thursday.
Eventually the website will be active for this semester (it will be at http://courses.umass.edu/chemh01/)
Looking forward to getting the project off the ground this semester.
Sept 18th 7:55 am. You are getting this email because you are either registered for Chem H07 or H03 or have asked to be added to the project. I have made the group assignments and while I am working on the schedule of activities and the website, I thought I would let you have the spread sheet with the information about the groups.
There will be more info coming shortly including the room for the meeting on Thursday (for those that can make it).