Teaching crystallography in the 21st Century

The pre-conference Workshop 'Teaching crystallography in the 21^st Century' took place on August, 23rd from 09.00 till 15.30. This Workshop has been organized by the Teaching Commission prior to the main IUCr Meeting, in addition to the three microsymposia (MS11, MS25 and MS44) specially dedicated to teaching. This was done in recognition of the importance of teaching crystallography for the research community, and responding to the large interest in the topics related to teaching.

Despite the early time the Workshop was very well attended. The topics covered included electronic and web-based tools for teaching the basics of crystallography and X-ray diffraction for students and for non-crystallographers from the pharmaceutical industry, distance learning, including distance training of synchrotron users from remote countries, teaching superspace crystallography, modulated structures, reciprocal space, crystal growth, teaching crystallography to geoscientists and biologists, advertising crystallography among a general audience and attracting children.

We enjoyed impressive presentations, animations and even real movies.

The list of speakers included Eckhard Hitzer from the Department of Applied Physics, University of Fukui, Japan (who made a contribution on behalf of himself and Christian Perwass, University of Kiel, Germany); Maureen Julian (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Tech., USA); Jordi Benet-Buchholz (Institut Català d'Investigació Química Avgda. Països Catalans S/N, Tarragona, Spain), on behalf of himself and Roland Boese, University Essen-Duisburg, Germany; Tim White (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore); Mois Aroyo (Department of Condensed Physics, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of  Bilbao, Spain), on behalf of a group of authors; John Helliwell (University of Manchester, UK), on behalf of a group of authors; Juan Manuel García Ruiz (Laboratory of Crystallographic Studies CSIC, Granada, Spain); Ivan Orlov (Laboratoire de Cristallographie, University of Lausanne, Switzerland), on behalf of himself and Gervais Chapuis; Jim Britten (MAX Diffraction Facility, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada); Valentina Degtyareva (Institute of Solid State Chemistry, Chernogolovka, Russia); Susan Schorr (Free University of Berlin, Germany); Claude Sauter (Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, Equipe Cristallogenèse, Strasbourg – France), on behalf of a team; Mariusz Jaskolski on behalf of himself and his students (Faculties of Chemistry and Biology, A. Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland; and Center for Biocrystallographic Research, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland); Cele Abad-Zapatero (Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA).

The Teaching Commission is planning to have the materials of the Workshop  disseminated through the Electronic Newsletters. Please contact Paola Spadon ([email protected]) and Elena Boldyreva ([email protected]).