Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Belford <rebelford**At_Symbol_Here**UALR.EDU>

Subject: IOT chemical education and CV19

Date: March 18, 2020 at 9:04:37 PM EDT

To: CONFCHEM**At_Symbol_Here**LISTS.UALR.EDU

Reply-To: CONFCHEM <CONFCHEM**At_Symbol_Here**LISTS.UALR.EDU>

Hi All,

I have run the ConfChem list since Don Rosenthal died in 2006 and have never sent a message to the list that did not deal with a ConfChem conference or a CCCE Newsletter.  Our colleges and universities are in crisis mode, and I am breaking the rules.  I am also sending this to the CINF and CER lists, and will shortly ditto this to the ChemEd-L list (but need to use another email).

I think IOT can help us on some of the most critical challenges facing our schools (and chemical education), and I am hoping to attract people to help fight this crisis. 

I think we need to set up a task group to tackle the role IOT can play in this unfolding disaster.  If you are interested, please indicate so on this doodle, or communicate in another way.  And maybe we can come up with an action plan.

https://doodle.com/poll/mhyk4wiuax5zcq65

I see two instant projects for chemists, (1)  IOT enabled exam proctors and (2) IOT enabled chemistry labs.  If you are interested, please fill out the Doodle so we can find a decent time, and please feel free to forward this email. 

I already have a web site we can use,  https://ioct.tech/edu/ (Internet of Chemistry Things), which we can rebuild to reflect the evolving mission, or use another site, but it has a nice domain name.  I also suggest we develop a GitHub for sharing code (or use an existing one, if one is available, or another alternative, let's just do something).  Our goal would be to create a collection of IOT enabled labs that could then be used by schools across the world.  Now realize the purpose of the Zoom meeting is to bring together people and see if we can come up with something, but here are some ideas, I am sure there are better ones..

(1) IOT-Exam-Proctor: Develop an instructor dashboard that connects the student's monitor being used during an exam to the video and audio feeds of the testing environment, with some of the video feeds doing preprogrammed sweeps of the room, or moving at the command of the instructor.  It would be nice if we could use a lock-down browser for the exam that is outside of an LMS.  I am envisioning these being developed with Raspberry Pis, but we need to be open to all options.  I think with the global response to COVID-19 this is our most urgent task, that is, most schools across the globe are now online, and have no way to proctor exams.  This is an education crisis. I think all the code and technology must be open access, so any school could use it, but I could see companies could evolve out of it, as someone has to build these things.

(2) Using the same basic setup as (1) but now adding data streams from chemical and physical sensors and then developing a suite of experiments and putting them into an OER.  These must be open source and open access, so any school can come, see what options are available, and adapt them to their needs.  The lab manual could also be integrated into the pi, in fact all the texts of the course could be integrated into the pi. This is the goal of this project, but item (1) must be knocked out first.  I mean schools across the globe do not know how to proctor exams, and this is a solution.

OK, I could write on, but I think you can see what we are thinking and trying to do.

Please join us if you can, and feel free to pass this along, especially if you know someone who could contribute to this endeavor.

I do hope you are all well, and please understand, I am exhausted, and hope my message is clear.

Cheers,

Bob

--

Dr. Robert E. Belford
Professor
UALR Department of Chemistry
501 569-8824

https://ioct.tech