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1. The Molecular Case Study Cycle

   Dutta, S. (December 2020, CCCE Newsletter)

   Jason Telford, Maryville University (Ed.)

   Molecular visualization and structure-function discussions present a valuable lens for research, practice, and education in chemistry and biology. Currently, molecular structural data, visualization tools and resources are underutilized by students and faculty. A new community, Molecular CaseNet, is engaging undergraduate educators in chemistry and biology to collaboratively develop case studies for interdisciplinary learning on real world topics. Use of molecular case studies will help biologists focus on chemical (covalent and non-covalent) interactions underlying biological processes/cellular events and help chemists consider biological contexts of chemical reactions. Experiences in developing and using molecular case studies will help uncover current challenges in discussing biological/chemical phenomena at the atomic level. These insights can guide future development of necessary scaffolds for exploring molecular structures and linked bioinformatics resources. 

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2. You Are What You Assess: The Case for Emphasizing Chemistry on Chemistry Assessments

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00532  

   Stowe, Ryan L.; Scharlott, Leah J.; Ralph, Vanessa R.; Becker, Nicole M.; Cooper, Melanie M. (July 2021, Journal of chemical education)

   null (Ed.)

   What we emphasize and reward on assessments signals to students what matters to us. Accordingly, a great deal of scholarship in chemistry education has focused on defining the sorts of performances worth assessing. Here, we unpack observations we made while analyzing what “success” meant across three large-enrollment general chemistry environments. We observed that students enrolled in two of the three environments could succeed without ever connecting atomic/molecular behavior to how and why phenomena happen. These environments, we argue, were not really “chemistry classes” but rather opportunities for students to gain proficiency with a jumble of skills and factual recall. However, one of the three environments dedicated 14–57% of points on exams to items with the potential to engage students in using core ideas (e.g., energy, bonding interactions) to predict, explain, or model observable events. This course, we argue, is more aligned with the intellectual work of the chemical sciences than the other two. If our courses assess solely (or largely) decontextualized skills and factual recall we risk (1) gating access to STEM careers on the basis of facility with skills most students will never use outside the classroom and (2) never allowing students to experience the tremendous predictive and explanatory power of atomic/molecular models. We implore the community to reflect on whether “what counts” in the courses we teach aligns with the performances we actually value. 

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3. Chemically identifying single adatoms with single-bond sensitivity during oxidation reactions of borophene

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29445-8  

   Li, Linfei; Schultz, Jeremy F.; Mahapatra, Sayantan; Lu, Zhongyi; Zhang, Xu; Jiang, Nan (December 2022, Nature Communications)

   Abstract The chemical interrogation of individual atomic adsorbates on a surface significantly contributes to understanding the atomic-scale processes behind on-surface reactions. However, it remains highly challenging for current imaging or spectroscopic methods to achieve such a high chemical spatial resolution. Here we show that single oxygen adatoms on a boron monolayer (i.e., borophene) can be identified and mapped via ultrahigh vacuum tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (UHV-TERS) with ~4.8 Å spatial resolution and single bond (B–O) sensitivity. With this capability, we realize the atomically defined, chemically homogeneous, and thermally reversible oxidation of borophene via atomic oxygen in UHV. Furthermore, we reveal the propensity of borophene towards molecular oxygen activation at room temperature and phase-dependent chemical properties. In addition to offering atomic-level insights into the oxidation of borophene, this work demonstrates UHV-TERS as a powerful tool to probe the local chemistry of surface adsorbates in the atomic regime with widespread utilities in heterogeneous catalysis, on-surface molecular engineering, and low-dimensional materials. 

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4. Exploring Research Metadata Governance with Design Thinking

   https://doi.org/10.13023/SY8G-R094  

   Woods, Scott; Simonson, Natalie (April 2024, University of Kentucky Libraries)

   If you want great research analytics, you’re going to need great data governance for your research metadata. That’s a tall order when the best information often spans incompatible systems, departments, policies, and mindsets. Research metadata governance is a great illustration of how research analytics is not just a technology problem. It happens at the intersection of technology, policy, process, and culture. Do any of us feel like our organization is “nailing” metadata governance? What level of research analytics could you achieve if there could be more alignment and cooperation around this kind of governance? In this session, you will join your fellow attendees in a facilitated design thinking workshop around the culture and organizational patterns of research metadata governance. We will explore the problem space and the solution space together. And we’ll highlight the group’s best findings. Whether you’re at the technical implementation level or the VP level, you will have seen and experienced good and bad patterns of how research metadata is being governed at your institution. These experiences are valuable to your fellow community members. Using design thinking, we will explore the collective intelligence on this complex topic, shoulder to shoulder. You’ll leave with a better understanding of how the patterns and struggles of data governance at your institution correlate with those of others. You’ll gain new ideas on how to address the hard cultural and organizational problems of governance. And you’ll meet new colleagues who you can stay connected with. Finally, you’ll gain an appreciation of how design thinking techniques themselves can be useful for these types of challenges at your own organization, and how they help to create understanding and alignment. 

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5. Electronic Chemical Sensors Based on Conductive Framework Materials

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.4c02522  

   Ambrogi, Emma K; Mirica, Katherine A (March 2025, Analytical Chemistry)

   The development of portable electronic chemical sensors is key to solving a number of challenges, including monitoring environmental and industrial hazards, as well as understanding and improving human health. Framework materials possess several desirable characteristics that make them well-suited for electroanalytical applications, including high surface area, atomically precise distribution of active sites, and tunable properties that can be leveraged through modular reticular chemistry. This review highlights the emergence of conductive framework materials as active components in electrically transduced chemical sensors, including the development of new materials for the detection of a wide variety of analytes in both gas and liquid phase. The efforts to gain fundamental understanding of the molecular interactions and sensing mechanisms between framework materials and analytes are described, along with applications of these materials on portable and flexible substrates. The review suggests areas for further study, including the study of material−analyte interactions at the molecular level and the continued development of scalable methods for the integration of framework materials into low-power, portable sensing devices. 

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