Although electronic information methodology
is gratifying in its application, it remains to be seen whether
the quality of the result either equals that obtained from
traditional approaches or substantiates the time required
to reach satisfactory conclusions. Specifically, electronic information
management is highly open-ended. Since information is available
in great quantities, time/ problem scope management issues become
dominant.
Because a goal of undergraduate chemistry education
is to hone intellectual capacity, Project UCAIR faces a special
challenge. Especially with regards to Internet resources, efficient
"mining" vs "surfing" the Net requires dedication
to developing "refining" as well as "navigational"
skills. Consequently, a developing focus for UCAIR is to interface
information retrieval with "value-added" intellectual
processing in multiple phases within the undergraduate
chemistry curriculum.