[ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 08:01:03 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Short Questions for Paper 10 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal Re: SHORT QUESTIONS FOR PAPER 10 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Friday, March 20 During the next 24 hours you may send SHORT QUESTIONS about Paper 10 - ON-LINE EXERCISES AND PUBLIC DOMAIN DATABASES IN CHEMISTRY (Parts I and II) by George Wiger and Oliver Seely to the authors and the conference participants. SHORT QUESTIONS are sent to clarify aspects of the paper, obtain more information from the authors and/or conference participants and help to promote subsequent discussion. Answers to SHORT QUESTIONS will be sent at the beginning of the discussion on Monday, March 23. DISCUSSION of Paper 10 will begin on Monday, March 23 and continue ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ through Thursday, March 26. The paper can be retrieved from the Conference World Wide Web Site: http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Chemistry/ChemConference/ChemConf98/ Short Questions should be sent to CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU Please include the PAPER NUMBER, YOUR INITIALS AND THE TOPIC IN THE SUBJECT LINE, e.g. "Paper 10 - ST: How to use on-line exercises and databases These messages will be received by the author AND the conference registrants. Please send ASCII only messages with no more than 72 characters per ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ line and no attachments. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To send comments or questions privately to the author of the paper, send your message to the author's e-mail address given in the paper. Reports of typographical errors, spelling or grammatical errors should be sent directly to the author and not to CHEMCONF. PAPER 11 ^^^^^^^^ Note that according to the schedule there is a two week break between the end of discussion of Paper 10 and the beginning of consideration of Paper 11 on April 10. This means that CHEMCONF will not conflict with the ACS meeting in Dallas. Paper 11 is NOT presently available on the CHEMCONF website. IT WILL BE AVAILABLE BY APRIL 1. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -- Vic Bendall Eastern Kentucky Univ. [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 16:54:30 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 10 - DR: Some Short Questions SOME SHORT QUESTIONS FOR PAPER 10 Part 1 1. I tried and enjoyed some of the interactive materials in your WWW Applications software. Wouldn't it be useful to include answers to the questions which users could obtain by clicking on an icon? Knowing that an answer is wrong is useful, but could be confusing and frustrating if you dont know what the correct answer is. For example, in the math review section if the correct answer to a problem is -1.23 and the student provides an answer of 1.23, -1.2, -1.234 or -45. It would be useful for him to know whether the error is due to forgetting to include the minus sign, significant figures or just being wrong. Perhaps he would then have more success with the next problem. Another example, if asked to name As2 O3 - a student might give arsenic oxide, arsenic trioxide, arsenic(III) oxide, diarsenic trioxide arsene oxygen, etc. - the student would learn something by knowing what the correct answer is. Would it be useful to be able to have an opportunity to provide a second or third answer to a problem if the first answer is incorrect? 2. You mention the advantage of having your own server. Some servers appear to be very very slow. Do you have any recommendations about what the specifications for a server should be? How expensive would such a server be? Have you had problems with down time? 3. In your paper you state that "We have been able to reinstitute homework as a significant aspect of our courses . . ." I assume this is because of record keeping capabilities. Can you tell us more about the "computer managed" aspect of the software, i.e. record keeping? Is information available about the amount of time spent, number of times software is used, performance, etc? Part 2 4. In your section entitled "What Can We Use Without Asking Anyone's Permision" - Section 3 - Discovery (or fact) - you present a table like that in the CRC. Is it legal and appropriate for me to make copies of portions of the CRC tables and distribute them to my students? What if I use a scanner to enter the table in a computer data bank? 5. What about the data bank of test questions which you have collected? Are these questions in the public domain? Where are they available? [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 14:44:07 -0500 From: Oliver Seely Subject: Re: Paper 10 - DR: Some Short Questions Answers to Donald Rosenthal's questions on Part II of Paper 10. >4. In your section entitled "What Can We Use Without Asking Anyone's > Permision" - Section 3 - Discovery (or fact) - you present a table > like that in the CRC. Is it legal and appropriate for me to make > copies of portions of the CRC tables and distribute them to my students? > What if I use a scanner to enter the table in a computer data bank? My understanding of the 1978 Copyright Act as currently amended is that the information is in the public domain. The PRESENTATION may not be. I say "may", because in the Supreme Court case to which I refer, the majority opinion written by Sandra Day O'Conner said that the arrangement of the public domain material being considered (people's names and addresses in a telephone directory) was not original in any way and could not be copyrightable. I think that the same case could be made for the arrangement of properties of elements and compounds. Particularly today with the capability of changing the arrangement (switching columns) with a few keystrokes. My guess is that today, with that ruling, neither the data nor the arrangement of those data is copyrightable. That is, even a photocopy of the table would not be an infringement. That is not to say that CRC might not decide to make life difficult for some individual who makes that broad interpretation and gets slapped with an infringement suit, even if ultimately CRC were to lose the suit. One sure way around that is, as part of the "new world order", collectively to make our own electronic copy and to declare it either to be in the public domain or to be available for unlimited copying for non-profit educational purposes. To be self-perpetuating, however, such a strategy requires an orginizational structure of volunteers, like the ACS Testing Program to maintain currency of the table. >5. What about the data bank of test questions which you have collected? > Are these questions in the public domain? Where are they available? An interesting point. Those questions are available in a file on my Web page. Scroll down my Web page (http://chemistry.csudh.edu/oliver/oliver.htm) to the SOCRATES materials. The chemistry test item bank, the SOCRATES manual, all programs both in .EXE and .BAS text format, plus some utility programs will be found there. The questions came from about 40 sources. Those sources are actually identified -- hang on, they are identified by four- digit numbers which one then has to cross check against the list in the category index of the test item bank. It is there also, down several lines with the chemistry test item bank and in Word Perfect 5.1 format. One of the sources was ETS which gave us 1200 starter items to get the program going. The other sources were copyrighted, but as I've learned in writing this paper, a copyright owner is not obligated to state up front just what it is that is being copyrighted. So the law addresses the "whole" work as being copyrighted, even though, as O'Conner pointed out in her opinion, within a "whole" copyrighted work there may be a sizeable amount of material in the public domain. It is quite probable that a large number of the items in our sources were so closely copied from earlier sources that they wouldn't stand up in an infringement suit. It DOES present something of a dilemma, however, as it was for Alice: "Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said: `one CAN'T believe impossible things.' `I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." It reminds me of when I took quantum mechanics! Oliver [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 17:37:09 -0500 From: Bert Ramsay Subject: Re: Paper 10 - BR: A Question about DR's question [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ---------- Donald Rosenthal asks: "It would be useful for him to know whether the error > is due to forgetting to include the minus sign, significant figures or > just being wrong. Perhaps he would then have more success with the > next problem.== ---- Are you aware that the Personal Tutor component of my chemistry calculation software, does provide specific feedback on the types of errors that a student might make in solving a problem, without showing you where the error was made? (E.g. message might be: "I think your answer is too high because of a decimal point error.) The Personal Tutor also keeps track of the number and types (including anticipated incorrect answers) of incorrect answers. Bert Ramsay [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 18:07:13 -0500 From: Bert Ramsay Subject: Paper #10 (part II): A question [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] My software program can use the problems in a textbook to prepare a tutorial to help students learn how to solve them. (See my earlier question). My question: would the "copying" of the problems constitute a violation of the copyright on the textbook if the source of the problems was provided? Mind you, the problems would be part of a "commercial" software package. It would not include copying the solution to the problem that might be available in a Study or Solutions Guide that came with the textbook. Bert Ramsay [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 15:20:40 -0500 From: Oliver Seely Subject: Paper 10, part 2, Addendum to answers to short questions As a serious addendum to my whimsy about what the White Queen said to Alice about believing six impossible things before breakfast every morning, the problem as I see it as an educator is that a copyright owner need not declare which parts of his/her work are copyrightable. The Copyright Act offers a bit of salvation in declaring that 11 categories of material are not copyrightable. One of those categories is "discoveries," sometimes referred to as "facts." So there is no doubt about the data in the table of Properties of Inorganic Compounds. Those data are. . .(sound of trumpets, lightning flash, roll of thunder, hand of God welcoming us. . .) in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. But there is doubt about the questions in the SOCRATES chemistry test item bank. Most of them are used verbatim from their original sources. Y'all better git 'em quick before they disappear! 8-) Damn! This addendum was supposed to be serious. The one saving grace about all those questions is that the textbooks attached to the instructor manuals from which the questions came are long out of print and the possibility that our use of those items would somehow affect sales of those textbooks is not now nor ever was an issue. The books were out of print when we first assembled the items. That might not keep a publisher from bringing an infringement suit as the result of a realization of some broader issue which escaped us, like, for example, the recent infringement suit brought by the U.S. shampoo manufacturer whose product was being exported at a lower price than its wholesale price in the U.S., but was being bought AS AN EXPORTED ITEM by a retailer in the U.S. and resold in the U.S. at a price less than that offered by the manufacturer. In that case the manufacturer lost, but was supported by the motion picture industry which filed a brief on behalf of the manufacturer. Reason? All those wonderful videotapes that are sold so cheaply abroad but at a much higher price in the U.S. Oliver [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 14:59:34 -0800 From: George Wiger Subject: Re: Paper 10 - DR: Some Short Questions At 04:54 PM 3/20/98 EST, you wrote: >SOME SHORT QUESTIONS FOR PAPER 10 > >Part 1 > >1. I tried and enjoyed some of the interactive materials in your WWW > Applications software. > > Wouldn't it be useful to include answers to the questions which users > could obtain by clicking on an icon? > Knowing that an answer is wrong is useful, but could be confusing and > frustrating if you dont know what the correct answer is. > For example, in the math review section if the correct answer to a > problem is -1.23 and the student provides an answer of 1.23, -1.2, > -1.234 or -45. It would be useful for him to know whether the error > is due to forgetting to include the minus sign, significant figures or > just being wrong. Perhaps he would then have more success with the > next problem. > Another example, if asked to name As2 O3 - a student might give > arsenic oxide, arsenic trioxide, arsenic(III) oxide, diarsenic trioxide > arsene oxygen, etc. - the student would learn something by knowing > what the correct answer is. I've struggled with this issue a lot. I decided not to have the answers available for numerous reasons: a. Though it may seem harsh, I think a student needs to keep at it and find the error on his or her own. b. What's to keep the student from just getting the answer first? c. I have gotten a lot of really quality discussions from students in both my office and in class, when they bring a question they can't solve and we work on it together. I think I'd lose a lot of that. > > Would it be useful to be able to have an opportunity to provide a > second or third answer to a problem if the first answer is incorrect? They can do that, each answer is an attempt. I'm not sure if that's really the question > >2. You mention the advantage of having your own server. Some servers > appear to be very very slow. Do you have any recommendations about > what the specifications for a server should be? How expensive would such a > server be? Have you had problems with down time? There's a link on my top page chemistry.csudh.edu in the left frame which gives a brief description of our server. Unless the server is really underfire, internet bandwidth rather than server speed causes most of the problems. SInce my files are nearly all text, the largest is only about 20K. They move very quickly. My server (knock on wood) has been in continuous operation for two years without a moment of downtime. I'm buying two more. I've chosen, on the basis of some advice from experts, 200MHz pentiums with fast SCSI drives and lots of memory. I intend to run Linux, again based on advice. > >3. In your paper you state that "We have been able to reinstitute homework > as a significant aspect of our courses . . ." > I assume this is because of record keeping capabilities. > Can you tell us more about the "computer managed" aspect of the software, > i.e. record keeping? Is information available about the amount of time > spent, number of times software is used, performance, etc? It's not only because of record keeping. It's mainly because of the individualized nature of the assignments. I have a fairly high degree of confidence that the students have to do their own work. As far as the actual record keeping. Once a week, I download the datafiles from the server (ASCII text). Sort them using WPerfect. Manually enter the grades into a Quattro Pro file. On the average, i will have about 200-300 records a week. The above takes about 15 minutes. I've thought about really automating it with a couple of macros. What I get is a fairly complete picture of the students' work. How many attempts, how many right, how much time spent,etc. The real nice aspect of the CGI script I'm using (written by Selena Sol) is that you can collect a lot of info, if you wish. > Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 14:41:56 -0500 From: Bert Ramsay Subject: An apology My apologies to all of you who thought my comments that spoke about my chemical calculator were designed as a sales "plug". My intention was to point out how my "invention" could be used as a problem solving tool. I only referenced my web site so that you could see how it worked. I tried to avoid any statements that would be viewed as an overt sales pitch - but since my e-mail name end with a ...COM, the perception was that I could have nothing to contribute as a chemistry educator. As many of you know, I retired from teaching chemistry at Eastern Michigan University. Since I believe my invention will have its greatest impact when properly commercialized, I have taken steps to protect my intellectual property and distribute the software via my company. I have not been as fortunate as some in the academic world who have been able to later transfer the results of their technology to the commercial world. Bert Ramsay, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Eastern Michigan University; and Inventor; and novice entrepreneur. [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 08:11:49 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: BEGIN DISCUSSION OF PAPER 10 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Re: BEGIN DISCUSSION OF PAPER 10 It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Monday, March 23 The next 96 hours will be devoted to discussion of Paper 10 - ON-LINE EXERCISES AND PUBLIC DOMAIN DATABASES IN CHEMISTRY (Parts I and II) by George Wiger and Oliver Seely The paper can be retrieved from the Conference World Wide Web Site: http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Chemistry/ChemConference/ChemConf98/ Messages should be sent to CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU Please include: the PAPER NUMBER, YOUR INITIALS AND THE TOPIC IN THE SUBJECT LINE, e.g. "Paper 10 - ST: How to Use On-Line Exercises and Databases" These messages will be received by the author AND the conference registrants. Please send ASCII only messages with no more than 72 characters per ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ line and no attachments. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Appropriately labelled subject lines will be useful in sorting out the various discussion threads. Only discussion which is sent from the SAME MAIL ADDRESS from which you subscribed will be accepted and distributed to participants. Place your name, affiliation and e-mail address at the end of your message. Remember that messages sent to CHEMCONF will be distributed to all participants. As a courtesy to other participants, please keep your messages concise and avoid irrelevant, redundant, and personal comments ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ which are not of general interest. A very helpful technique is to quote a small passage from that paper or message in your response and to place a ">" character at the beginning of each quoted line, e.g.: > We used the....so-and-so...in order to.... We tried that too, but we found that.... 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If you need HELP, please send an e-mail message to: Tom O'Haver at to2@umail.umd.edu and NOT TO CHEMCONF ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ======================================================================= [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 08:42:19 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: DR: Paper 10 - DR: Answers to On-Line Questions Re: Paper 10 - DR: Some Short Questions 3-20-98 16:54 EST In answer to my question: >> Wouldn't it be useful to include answers to the questions which users >> could obtain by clicking on an icon?, you stated 3-20-98: > b. What's to keep the student from just getting the answer first? The program could be written so that answers can only be obtained from the computer after an incorrect answer had been entered by the user. --------------- > c. . . . when they bring a question they can't solve and we work on it > together. It does seem to me your software would be more palatable to the student and play a more important role in the learning process if the correct answer were provided upon request AFTER an incorrect answer is given. I'm not necessarily suggesting that the computer provide a detailed explanation about how the correct answer is obtained. It takes effort and there is a time delay if a student must find you in your office or in class or wait for an e-mail response from you. In the numerical example I gave, the student who gives an answer of 1.23, -1.2 or -1.234 to a problem where the correct answer is -1.23 may be able to figure out what he did wrong when he knows what the correct answer is. The student who gives an answer of -45 can try and re-work the problem by himself and may be able to discover his mistake. If not, (s)he can come to you for help. --------------------- I asked: >> Would it be useful to be able to have an opportunity to provide a >> second or third answer to a problem if the first answer is incorrect? Suppose the question is what is the correct name for As2 O3 and I provide an incorrect answer. Your program tells me that the answer is incorrect but I do not have an opportunity to guess again. All I can do is go on to the next problem which may be "What is the correct name for MgO"? Personally, I find this frustrating. I would prefer to have another chance to name As2 O3. Perhaps, by trial and error I could arrive at the correct answer. If later on I am asked to name As2 O5, I could probably do this if I figured out or were given the name for As2 O3. ---------------------- I suppose it depends on what role you want the computer to play in the educational process. My ideal scenario is different from yours. [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 09:59:26 -0500 From: Blake Subject: REB: Paper 10 - Pulling out all the stops I'm very curious about your source for the "learning pyramid". It is known that lecture is known to be among the least effective tools for learning? In my personal experience, I have found a good lecture to be an effective combination of integrated seeing and hearing experiences (both of which are rated higher on your learning pyramid). For each hour lecture that I missed, I would estimate that I needed to spend between 3 and 5 hours of reading and independent work to make up for what I missed. Can you provide some good references for the lack of effectiveness of lectures? I will admit that there's nothing worse than a bad lecture, but a good lecture is a very useful learning tool. Bob Bob Blake (317) 274-6856 402 N. Blackford St. Department of Chemistry IUPUI Indianapolis, IN 46202-3274 [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 07:06:31 -0600 From: Oliver Seely Subject: Final addendum to short questions, Paper 10, Part 2 Don Rosenthal's question about where the SOCRATES test item bank fits into the discussion of public domain materials and fair use of copyrighted materials was not answered by me as fully as it should have been. The SOCRATES questions, as I indicated, came from a variety of copyrighted sources. Whether our recategorizing them, giving each 3 keyword references and using only those questions from each source which were not textbook-specific was on the one hand enough to call our use of them "fair" and on the other to represent modification sufficient to get around the copyright infringement problem completely is anybody's guess. One never knows for sure without being dragged through an infringement suit and coming out victorious or defeated. Our attitude was pretty much, "one never makes progress without taking a chance," and the chance we took was pretty small. The questions themselves have little intrinsic value, particularly after the book which they accompanied was out of print. Moreover, we weren't marketing the bank, so no money was being made. Don's question is a good one because the lingering uncertainty about the copyright infringement status of the SOCRATES Chemistry test item bank fits in well with the theme of Part 2 of paper 10. That's one of the reasons I rather beat to death the 11 public domain categories offered by the U.S. Copyright Act. These are categories that at this moment in time seem to be inviolable. They are in the public domain, no doubt about it. Following that, as I did, with my "revenge of the fair users" strategy (not named as such in the paper), that is, making sure that every creative work one puts on the Web is accompanied by a statement saying that this creative work may be copied without limit for non-profit educational purposes but that the author retains all rights to publication for profit goes a long way, in my opinion, toward removing all uncertainty about the copyright status as regards educational use. I'd like to see such a strategy enjoy some wider exposure, hence my contribution. Oliver [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 07:19:28 -0600 From: Oliver Seely Subject: Re: REB: Paper 10 - Pulling out all the stops With reference to Bob Blake's query bout the "learning pyramid," I think that there may be a mix-up of papers. I can't find the word "pyramid" in either George's (Part I) or my (Part II) contribution. Oliver [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 07:21:08 -0600 From: Oliver Seely Subject: My apologies So sorry. "Pulling out all the stops" is Paper 9. Wouldn't hurt for me to read the list of titles from time to time. My apologies. Oliver [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:35:05 -0500 From: Blake Subject: Re: REB: Paper 10 (oops, 9)- Pulling out all the stops Sorry. Oliver, you are correct. I accidentally stapled papers 10 and 9 together. Forgive my mistake and I apologize for asking a question about paper 9 during the discussion of paper 10. Sincerely yours, Bob Blake P.S. I'm still interested in knowing the origin of the learning pyramid as presented in James Reeves' paper and would appreciate any answers that people could send me. blake@chem.iupui.edu [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 08:16:12 -0800 From: George Wiger Subject: Re: DR: Paper 10 - DR: Answers to On-Line Questions "I suppose it depends on what role you want the computer to play in the educational process. My ideal scenario is different from yours." A number of people have contacted me about various aspects of my applications and how they think the pages might be modified or improved. Every one of these comments has been exactly correct and also in line with the philosophy I'm trying to put forth. The quote above is exactly the type of interaction we need on the WWW in chemistry ed. The pages I've written are tailored to my philosophy, my students and my program. If you like the idea, but want to modify the material, it's wide open for that. This is something you could never do, as far as I'm aware, with a commercial package. A number of people feel that having the answers available, either or request or after a certain number of errors, would be valuable. Now I disagree, but anyone who would like to use the materials can download them and I'll be happy to tell you how to add a "Show Answer" button. As a matter of fact, if there is enough interest, I'll be happy to set up a section with "Show Answer" buttons. Sorry for rambling, but I've been pained that none of us is using the potential of the WWW as a medium for cooperation in application development. Finally, as the result of a recent Dreyfus grant, I'll be setting up a server dedicated to use by others. If you'd like to get involved actively in this area, go to the Javascript Utilities page and join the Javascript mailing list. I appreciate all of the input George Wiger [ Part 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 09:29:52 -0500 From: Oliver Seely Subject: Re: Paper #10 (part II): A question Bert asks: >My software program can use the problems in a textbook to prepare a >tutorial to help students learn how to solve them. (See my earlier >question). > My question: would the "copying" of the problems constitute a violation >of the copyright on the textbook if the source of the problems was >provided? Mind you, the problems would be part of a "commercial" software >package. It would not include copying the solution to the problem that >might be available in a Study or Solutions Guide that came with the >textbook. > Bert Ramsay Sorry, Bert, that I didn't answer your question on Friday or during the weekend. I must have left the office before finally checking all incoming messages. The theme that I wanted to emphasize in Paper 10, Part 2 is that there are 11 categories which are not subject to copyright. Those categories at this moment in time are inviolable non-copyrightable categories. That section of the paper follows my observations on how uncertain everything is surrounding what constitutes "fair use" in the United States and how that uncertainty is an advantage to those who publish for profit. Moreover, I comment briefly on that uncertainty being of advantage to those who would just as soon keep people ignorant about what constitutes material in the public domain. All that leads up to my "revenge of the fair users" strategy (not called by that name in the paper, but the intent of which is unmistakable). As for your question, in view of that uncertainty, all of us are left with personal decisions about what to use and what not to use. For my taste I make almost the broadest interpretation of fair use. If there is a textbook which satisfies practically all of the material I cover in a course, I have the students buy it, but if not I find myself doing some rather copious copying from a variety of sources. I have in the past asked for copyright clearance on items with the understanding that a copyright fee will be paid. There have been occasions in which that has been refused, so I go ahead and use the material anyway, reasoning that the copyright owner had a chance to make some money on my use of his product and opted not to take advantage of my offer. That is exactly what happened in the case of Feist Publications Inc., vs. Rural Telephone Service Co. and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of those who went ahead and used the material without permission (but keep in mind the material they used was clearly in the public domain -- the issue finally rested on whether a format can be copyrighted and the majority opinion, written by Sandra Day O'Conner, said that such a format is NOT copyrightable). Until, and if, Representative Coble's bill becomes law (take a look at the U.S. Copyright Office link and follow it to bills under consideration) as long as I make no money on copyrighted material I use in the classroom, copyright owners are reticent to make an issue of it. But all this is my personal judgment. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that anyone else follow my lead, nor, horrors, of practicing copyright law without a license!! 8-) Oliver [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 07:59:09 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: LAST DAY FOR DISCUSSION OF PAPER 10 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Re: LAST DAY FOR DISCUSSION OF PAPER 10 It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Thursday, March 26. This is the last day for discussion of Paper 10. The Conference will be in recess next week because of the ACS Meeting in Dallas. A notice will be sent via CHEMCONF when Paper 11 is available on the Conference website. Consideration of Paper 11 will begin at 8 AM EST on Friday, April 10. --------------------------------------- SCHEDULE ^^^^^^^^ April 10 to 16 - Short Questions and Discussion of Paper 11 April 17 to 23 - Short Questions and Discussion of Paper 12 April 24 to May 15 - Evaluation and Discussion of Selected Topics If you need HELP, please send an e-mail message to: Tom O'Haver at to2@umail.umd.edu and NOT TO CHEMCONF ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ =======================================================================