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Re: Resource Faculty for Junior-Senior Physics Courses -Reply



Dear Dan,

I participate actively in phys-l, a service, I think, to the community of
physics teachers at large. I don't know how old you are, but it is likely
that I've been a member of AAPT longer than you have, and I'm a Past
President of the B.C. Section and have contributed at National meetings
in the past. (My dues are delinquent just now, something I will remedy
soon.) You shouldn't characterize my attitude as scroogery. I give my time
freely and joyously to phys-l and physhare. I can only conclude that you
did not understand what I wrote, since you have always been a voice of
reason in my past experience. Please reconsider it from the point of view
of a disinterested party. Your response to me is indicative of a "Not
Invented Here" bias totally inappropriate to an academic physicist. I see
what was proposed as greatly overlapping phys-l. If I were not involved
with phys-l I would gladly join your efforts; I'm not at all stingy with
my time, as you seem to believe.

"Back off and give us a chance" sounds quite tendentious and competitive,
don't you think? Is that what you meant to convey?

Leigh

Leigh,

Your view is not shared by all AAPT members (are you a member?); I am one of
several people who have been working very hard to enact the PSRC goals
and recommendations of several committees. For instance, right now the PSRC
is funding my coding of more AJP and TPT issues into an online web database to
be mirrored at AAPT HQ and at UCDavis. PSRC funds have just started to
make this a real possibility, and we hope to have progress over the summer.
There are other worthy PSRC goals, most of which are exclusive of Phys-L and
Physshare intents. Some of these new electronic services will almost
certainly be restricted to AAPT members (like membership data), others will
be held private to varying degrees never present on PHYS-L and physshare,
as Warren has already indicated. There is no intent to clone PHYS-L and
PHYSHARE.

I'd suggest that if the new PSRC web resources waste your time, ignore them.
While your scroogery has no deterrence on my enthusiastic participation in
the PSRC activities, it would be nice to attract additional participation by
other willing members and not cast aspersions on endeavours before they have
a chance to materialize in even prototype form. Back off and give us a
chance.

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu http://www.phy.nau.edu/~danmac/homepage.html

In my view the proposal recommends a redundant resource. (I've
always been better at alliteration than poetry).

One would think that AAPT members, coming as they do from the
culture of academia, would know better than to act immediately on
the recommendation of a committee. Let the idea percolate in the
community for a while. If enthusiasm builds, do it. I have a
thing about the simultaneous existence of phys-l and physhare,
the readerships of which must overlap strongly. It is a waste of
my time to look at cross-posted items in these groups. Adding yet
another near clone will not improve communication; it will hinder
it. Consider the example provided by the proliferation of print
journals in physics. With all the increased bandwidth in that
medium I've seen over my four plus decades as a physicist I have
seen *no* increase in the effectiveness of scientific
communication. If you would like a reality check on what dilution
does, leaf through a Phys Rev of fifty years ago.

Leigh Hunt Palmer