Please give special attention to the Safety Requirements and Requirements for Credits sections.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: An independent research project in an area of chemistry under the direction of a chemistry faculty mentor. A Research Contract approved by the student and the faculty research mentor must be approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) in Chemistry. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 credits.
PREREQUISITES: Exceptions to the prerequisites below must be approved by the DUS.
- Declared Chemistry Major., GPA ≥ 3.0 in CHE courses, (CHE 111, 113, and 231), (CHE 232 or CHE 226)
ACTIVITIES: CHE 395 activities vary with mentor and project. These activities will be described collaboratively by the faculty member and the student and submitted to the DUS as the Research Contract.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: CHE 395 provides an understanding of research project development in the chemical sciences and an idea of the depth-to-breadth ratio required to do chemical research. CHE 395 ideally provides the opportunity to the student to contribute to knowledge in chemistry. After completing CHE 395:
- The student will be able to write within the current standards of the Chemical Sciences.
- The student will have deep knowledge about a narrow sub-field of chemistry.
- The student will know how this narrow knowledge fits into the broad field of chemistry.
- Particular learning outcomes in CHE 395 depend strongly on the subfield of chemistry of the research.
REQUIREMENTS FOR CREDIT:
- Progress Reports: Required to continue from one semester to the next with the same mentor and project. A referenced report in the style of a journal article appropriate to the area of research, describing the work performed to date.
- Check the ACS guidelines for the structure of a chemistry research report.
- Email the report (pdf or MSWord) to your mentor for approval.
- Remit the report to the CHE DUS and copy your CHE 395 mentor. The absolute remission deadline is the last day of the semester to add a class. This can be found in the academic calendar for the semester in question. However you need to give the DUS and your adviser enough time to read the report, so plan accordingly.
- Final Report: The progress report is edited after every semester resulting in this polished document that may take on the form of a journal article or an ACS-style report to be submitted by email, as a PDF or MSWord to the CHE DUS and copy your CHE 395 mentor. These reports should include primary references, background / introductions, results, graphs, figures, chemical structures, experimental and conclusion sections. The final report may require multiple revision cycles, so plan ahead and stay in communication with your mentor.
- Poster Presentation: A presentation at the department's undergraduate poster competition, which is typically held each spring semester. Rare exceptions to this requirement may be granted by the DUS.
- Course Materials: These will be provided or more information available from the mentor.
ACADEMIC CREDITS: Eligible students may register for 1-3 credits per semester or summer session of CHE 395. A maximum total of 12 credit hours may be taken of the student’s undergraduate career. A maximum of 9 credits may apply towards a chemistry major.
CHE 395 may not be taken for credit if the student is receiving a salary for the work; this does not apply to scholastic awards, scholarships, fellowships, or Federal Work Study positions in which the mentor does not provide the majority of salary/funding.
GRADING POLICIES: A letter grade is usually awarded at the end of each semester for which a Progress Report or Final Report and Presentation have been completed, approved by the CHE 395 mentor, and submitted to the Director of Undergraduate Studies – in that order. Failure to comply with all requirements listed above will result in a semester grade of UI (Unsatisfactory Incomplete). Once the course requirements are completed, then the semester grade can be changed to a letter grade. Note, all incomplete grades automatically revert to a failing grade after one year of its assignment.
- Grading policies are further specified by the CHE 395 mentor in the contract submitted to the DUS.
SAFETY REQUIREMENTS:
- Training classes are available through UK EHS.
- Defer to your mentor for lab specific training.
- 395 students are only permitted to work in a lab environment after hours (4:30 pm) if they,
- have prior written permission from their research mentor, which must be placed into the lab’s Chemical Hygiene binder.
- are working in hearing range (in person) of a more senior lab member. Within this context, senior lab member refers to a graduate student, technician with a bachelor’s degree, or faculty member.
All Chemistry lab personnel must take the following UK Safety classes.
- Chemical Hygiene Plan/Laboratory Safety – must be retaken annually
- Hazardous Waste Specific – must be retaken annually
- Fire Extinguisher Training – must be taken only once
- Chemical Fume Hood – must be taken only once
For the hazardous waste specific class you will need the following information if your lab is located in the Chemistry-Physics Building. Otherwise your numbers will be different.
- Chemistry Building: number 0055.
- Chemistry Department: number 8E030
- Lab room numbers and phone numbers
- For the “Need E-Trax waste pickup” question, answer YES to have access to Chematix.
EXCUSED ABSENCES: Students need to notify the professor of extended excusable absences prior to not showing up when possible. S.R. 5.2.4.2 defines the following as acceptable reasons for excused absences:
- serious illness
- illness or death of family member
- University-related trips
- major religious holidays
- other circumstances found to fit “reasonable cause for nonattendance” by the professor
Students are expected to withdraw from the class if more than 20% of the classes scheduled for the semester are missed (excused or unexcused) per university policy.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: Per university policy, students shall not plagiarize, cheat, or falsify or misuse academic records. Students are expected to adhere to University policy on cheating and plagiarism in all courses. The minimum penalty for a first offense is a zero on the assignment on which the offense occurred. If the offense is considered severe or the student has other academic offenses on their record, more serious penalties, up to suspension from the university may be imposed.
Plagiarism and cheating are serious breaches of academic conduct. Each student is advised to become familiar with the various forms of academic dishonesty as explained in the Ombud's Academic Integrity and Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities.
A plea of ignorance is not acceptable as a defense against the charge of academic dishonesty. It is important that you review this information as all ideas borrowed from others need to be properly credited.
All academic work, written or otherwise, submitted by students to their instructors or other academic supervisors, is expected to be the result of their own thought, research, or self-expression. In cases where students feel unsure about the question of plagiarism involving their own work, they are obliged to consult their instructors on the matter before submission.
When students submit work purporting to be their own, but which in any way borrows ideas, organization, wording or anything else from another source without appropriate acknowledgement of the fact, the students are guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism includes reproducing someone else’s work, whether it be a published article, chapter of a book, a paper from a friend or some file, or something similar to this. Plagiarism also includes the practice of employing or allowing another person to alter or revise the work which a student submits as his/her own, whoever that other person may be.
Please note: Any assignment or report you turn in may be submitted to an electronic database to check for plagiarism.
ACCOMMODATIONS DUE TO DISABILITY: If you have a documented disability that requires academic accommodations, please see me as soon as possible during scheduled office hours. In order to receive accommodations in this course, you must provide me with a Letter of Accommodation from the Disability Resource Center for coordination of campus disability services available to students with disabilities.
Your lab supervisor, professor or safety officer will provide you with lab specific training which must be documented in the lab’s safety binder. Personnel in labs that use autoclaves, pyrophoric reagents, lasers, biological reagents, radioactive materials, etc., are also required to take the relevant safety course. A hard copy of all certificates or the transcript must be stored in your lab’s safety binder. Note that some classes may require annual renewal.
FACULTY RESPONSIBILITIES:
- To oversee a safe environment for research activities in the chemical sciences. To plan and ensure that safety requirements have been met and documented in the laboratory’s safety binder before the student starts laboratory work.
- To provide the CHE 395 student with a challenging, but feasible, research project that can be addressed in the time the student expects to be enrolled in CHE 395.
- To discuss with the student the number of hours of work per week per credit hour that will be required and the relative importance of laboratory work required reports and presentations, and any other factors on the final grade.
- To advise the student throughout the research project.
- To oversee the student's research and review the student's Progress Report(s) and Final Report.
- To assign a course grade.
