If you've been hanging around IONiC for any period of time, you've probably heard one of us mention the idea of crowdsourcing assessment data... OK, it was probably me.  Well, I think 2016 is the year that we can make this idea a reality.  In October, we featured a new Laboratory experiment on silver cyanoximate compounds (https://www.ionicviper.org/lab-experiment/antibacterial-reactivity-agi-cyanoximate-complexes), developed by VIPEr users Kari Young, Laurel Habgood, Kristi Stensaas, Omar Villanueva and Willis Weigand at a small VIPEr workshop funded by the Associated Colleges of the South.  At the time, many users expressed interest in the new experiment.  We'd like to get this experiment published in JChemEd this year with crowdsourced data from the IONiC community to support it.

How does crowdsourcing help?

If you've ever published in J. Chem Ed, you know that they (quite reasonably) ask for a significant amount of testing to prove that an emperiment is likely to work in a classroom environment.  Unfortunately, for many authors at a small institution where inorganic lab may be taught only every other year and with only 6-10 students, amassing the n value that JChemEd would like to see can be a challenge.  However, if we leverage the power of our community, gathering this data should be a snap.

JChemEd also expects serious consideration of adaptability to environments with different numbers of students and different resources, a question that crowdsourcing the assessment data is perfect to answer.  

How does crowdsourcing work?

If you're interested in participating in this project, and are teaching an inorganic lab in either term of 2016, we'd like to form a working group.  I will lead periodic meetings, probably no more than once a month to discuss progress and ideas for implementation. At the end of the experiment, the authors of the original LO will publlish the experiment in JChemEd with an acknowlegement of your contributions to gathering the assessment data.  At the same time, IONiC will publish a white paper on the power of community in crowdsourcing assessment data.  

What's in it for you?

Well... mostly just a new well-designed lab experiment and the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from helping your colleagues in the broader community accomplish their goal to publish.  But the leadership of IONiC sees this as a new paradigm in helping each other in the comunity to achieve mutual goals. Maybe you've got a new idea percolating and you'd like to try this too?

If you're interested in getting involved, please contact me (sheila_at_ionicviper.org) by January 15, 2016.