Era 4: Section 2
1991-2002 Ever Broadening Scope and Influence
Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology
Tom Mayer resigned as Editor of JVST B in 1990 when he took a new position at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. Tom was replaced by Gary McGuire of the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. The most significant change in JVST during this period was recognition by the editors that nanoscience and technology would emerge as an important new research area, and that many aspects were synergistic with microelectronics. These ideas were implemented in a change in the subtitle of JVST B to Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures - Processing, Measurement and Phenomena. This has resulted in JVST B becoming among the preferred journals in the nanoscience and technology communities, with respect both to contributed papers and to conference and symposia proceedings and papers. This change to JVST B was taken, after much discussion, in preference to launching JVST C for papers on “nanometer science”.
In the mid-1980's, annual increases in the number of contributed and symposium papers projected that the total number of pages published in the JVST in the mid-1990's would approach, and possibly exceed, 8000 pages The editors constructed contingency plans to include a JVST C if and when JVST total pages exceeded 10,000. In the mid-1990's, however, total JVST pages began to decline, mainly due to a decrease in the number of pages dedicated to conference proceedings. The fractional decreases in pages published for the AVS Symposium were about the same as for other symposia but the drop was due in part to editorial policy. The Symposium had increased in size and was becoming a general meeting with an increasing number of parallel sessions. As such, a smaller fraction of the papers were appropriate for inclusion in an archival journal. Discussions of this situation came to a head in 1993, and a new editorial policy was announced in January, 1994. All papers in JVST A and JVST B would be subjected to the same review process, and there would no difference between the way contributed papers and Symposia papers would be reviewed. This policy decreased the fraction of published papers associated with the Symposium to about 25%. In addition, tighter controls were placed on guest editors of symposia to ensure that they adhered to the same standards as the JVST editors applied to contributed paper submissions. The JVST office took over the review process for all symposia papers as well as contributed papers. To highlight this change in policy, the cover pages of JVST A and JVST B now indicate that a particular issue contains papers from a particular conference or symposium, rather than stating that it includes the proceedings. This type of policy is now being subscribed to by other journals. The effect of this "tougher" review process is to eliminate papers that have marginal quality and/or archival value.
More importantly, the number of contributed pages published was still rising, with the number of contributed pages passing the number of symposium pages in 1999 and remaining higher in both 2000 and 2001. The rates of increase in JVST A and JVST B have been essentially the same for the past 15 years, with the exception of 2001. In 1996 Eric Kay became Associate Editor for Critical Reviews. During his first five years in this position, the average number of critical reviews for a five-year period increased from 6.25, for the period from 1976 to 1995, to 11 for the period between 1996 and 2001.
There are several other issues and advances that are unique to this era of broadening scope and influence: i) the introduction of the CD ROM format, ii) the internationalization of JVST, iii) the emergence of internet publishing and distribution, and iv) the page-charge issue. Steve Rossnagel initiated the electronic publishing of JVST, which was one of the first journals in the world to be made available in electronic form. He was the Publications Chair at the time and it may seem reasonable that someone from IBM would be responsible for going electronic! However, Steve became convinced that CD-ROMs were going to be viable when he ran into a CD-equipped computer in his son's kindergarten class in 1992! In the early 1990s, it became apparent that publishing was going to change due to the widespread usage of computers. CD-ROMs had become available and their use was growing as a means for storing large programs, games and datafiles. At the time, JVST was being published by AIP in a semi-computerized form: the manuscripts were manually re-typed (usually in a third-world country) into a computer file, and spaces were left in the printouts for the figures to be manually pasted in. The AVS Publication Committee asked AIP to consider a more sophisticated approach which would allow the output to be written to a CD-ROM. After considerable discussion (and persuasion), they agreed to try. After considerable additional discussion, they agreed to accept manuscripts from JVST authors on disks in a few specific software systems.
The first CD issues of the JVST were published in 1993, marking AVS and JVST leadership in a publication vehicle that has now become routine. The first CD issued in 1993 contained only the Symposium articles, but the second, issued in 1994, contained all papers published in JVST A and JVST B for the entire year, The initial trial, in 1993, used a relatively primitive software which copied each manually-prepared JVST page as a bitmap image; this allowed the pages to be reproduced exactly as in JVST. A second text-only datafile was included on the CD which could be indexed to search for words anywhere in the issue. The resultant CD was produced without any publicity, and simply mailed free to all AVS members in July 1993. Shortly thereafter, AVS membership renewal letters were sent out which announced the regular publication of JVST in electronic form, beginning in January, 1994. Nearly 20% of the membership immediately switched to the CD-ROM, and in the past 10 years, that percentage has grown. In 1998, there were still 2000 members receiving print copies but, by 2002, only 485 members were receiving the print version; a $50 surcharge for the print version encouraged many members to convert to the electronic versions. The CDs are produced quarterly during the year, and each issue contains all the articles to-date for that year. One CD is adequate for the entire year. In 1995, the underlying program was changed to a common Adobe (Acrobat) format, and this has remained unchanged, except for upgrades.
During this era Internet publishing has become a way of life, and current and past issues of the JVST are available on the Internet to AVS members and to current JVST subscribers. In 1995, the Long Range Planning Committee made a strong push to develop an on-line delivery capability for JVST and the project was undertaken by John and Mary Weaver at the University of Minnesota. Within a few months, JVST was available on-line, administered by the university’s computer center. Lancaster Press sent tapes of the papers to Mary in Minnesota and they were mounted on the web. The Jan/Feb issue was on-line by March, 1996 and the 1994 and 1995 volumes of JVST were added soon after that. There was free access to JVST-O during 1996 but this was restricted to members and subscribers from 1997. In 1997, advertisements were added to JVST-O. AIP assumed responsibility for JVST-O on July 1, 1997. By the end of 1998, all the issues from 1995-98 were on line and all back issues were on line in 2001; this involved the scanning of 90,000 pages.
The current publication process for JVST has developed into a fully-computerized sequence. Manuscripts can be accepted on disk in most formats and the figures are electronically included (usually scanned) on the computerized page. Full electronic submission of manuscripts was underway at a limited level. At the end of each month, AIP produces magnetic tapes of the issue which are then sent to the printer for paper copies, to the CD-ROM producer, and also to the web site. JVST was one of the first journals to develop this level of electronic sophistication, and has led the way for many of the science publishers. The availability of JVST on CD or on-line reduced the print run and the printing cost; a 63% reduction in the print run reduced the cost by 33%. However, hard copy versions of the JVST will no doubt be continued for many years.
During this period, the software used in the JVST Editorial Office was upgraded and made more functional and user-friendly by Paul Shapiro. The new software came on-line in 1997 and has made the paper-tracking mechanics and referee selection processes more effective. Becky York has provided inspirational leadership to the JVST Editorial staff in all aspects of the submission, review and publication processes.
The number of foreign papers published in JVST has continued to increase, a trend that has gained momentum since the mid-1980's. Between 1989 and 1991, 64% of the published papers were from the US. In the time period between 1995 and 1997, the number of US papers had dropped to 48%. In 2000, 463 (or ~39%) papers published were from the US, and 727 (or ~ 61 %) from outside the US. The internationalization led to changes in the review process. Papers are screened upon receipt in the JVST Editorial Office, and those requiring English editing are sent to a technical editor, and returned to the authors for resubmission. This process has been appreciated by foreign authors on the one hand, and, equally important, by reviewers, who no longer have to do significant rewriting and translation.
The page charge issue is a problem that has become more serious in recent years. There was a period when page charge payments had fallen, and when the AIP pursuit of accounts receivable was lax. When budgets became much tighter in the late 1990's, an attempt was made to capture a larger fraction of page charges. Authors were required to sign a page charge obligation form before papers were sent for review, although the Editor-in-Chief can waive charges on up to 25 % of the submitted papers. However, the requirement to pay the page charges may have alienated some contributors both in the US and abroad, especially since there are no page charges in the “for profit” journals which cover the same topical areas as JVST.
In 2000, the JVST subscription fulfillment was transferred from Slack to AIP so that the print and on-line fulfillments were consolidated. In 2001, the member fulfillment was also moved from Slack to AIP in order to lower costs; the move from AIP to Slack ten years earlier had been made for the same reason! In 2002, it was decided to consolidate all the member activities with Convention Data Services (CDS) as of January, 2003.
When AVS hosted the IUVSTA Congress in 1986, the proceedings were published in JVST, but the page count was so much higher than normal that the subscription price had to be increased substantially to partially cover the much higher costs. In 1998, it was decided to avoid this problem for the 2001 Congress by proposing to IUVSTA that, instead of publishing the IVC-15 proceedings as a special issue of JVST, a “virtual proceedings” would be generated, with all the papers being listed, with links to the journals in which they were published; some of the papers would obviously be in JVST. “Virtual Proceedings” were first used for STM-99; the program and the papers published in JVST were mounted on the AVS web site but without links to JVST-O because of concerns that this would allow access without payment and also because links required a lot of effort. For IVC-15, links were established to the papers published in JVST, with access controlled through AIP.
Surface Science Spectra
The initiation of this new journal occurred at the end of Era Three. The first issue of SSS appeared in June, 1992; it contained only 20 papers and 125 pages, but it was considered imperative for building subscriptions that the first issue appear before the annual meeting of the Special Library Association. There had been delays due to difficulties in translating spectra obtained on different AES and XPS systems to a common base. The cover had been designed to be similar to JVST with green replacing the blue and crimson of JVST-A and B. The subscription rate had been set at $987, compared with the initial proposal of $750, because AIP’s marketing survey determined that the price difference would not be a problem for subscriptions. Although the editors forecast there would be no shortage of contributions, this turned out not to be the case and was attributed to the difficulty of meeting all the submission requirements for the spectra. This caused a further slip in the publications schedule with Issue 2 delayed till December; it contained 121 pages compared to the 400 originally planned for each issue. The Database Committee was confident that the operation would reach break even by the end of 1994, although there would be an accumulated deficit of $400,000 at that time. However, there were few contributions of spectra by the end of 1993, and a phone survey indicated that people did not see value in the journal.
By September 1992, there were only 55 subscribers, which the Committee attributed to poor marketing by Ubell Associates. Marketing was then contracted to TMP, which had better knowledge of the field; TMP indicated that, if marketing was not successful by mid-1993, there was unlikely to be a market for this type of journal. A market survey indicated that the inclusion of SIMS spectra would increase interest. In a Newsletter article in the May/June 1993 issue, Mike Hecht described the operation of the Data Translation Center, which was a vital part of the operation; to develop the software required, Wally Kalinowski was contracted for one year. In 1994, guest editors were used to generate papers in special materials and electronic submission of papers started. Although the ASSD expressed continued support of the project, the Board set some new criteria which were to be met to continue the journal; Volume 3 was to be completed by December 1, 1995 and there had to be more than 60 subscribers for Volume 4 by the same date.. There were further delays and revenue for 1996 was only 24% of the operating cost.
The Committee felt that it would return to the planned schedule in 1997 and both SIMS and EELS spectra would add to the perceived value of the journal. The first SIMS data appeared in Vol. 4, Issue 2 in December, 1997, almost two years behind schedule; HREELS and XPD data were added in 1999, and dynamic SIMS, synchrotron PE and spin-resolved PE in 2001. In 1997, responsibility for managing SSS was transferred to the Publications Committee and, as a result, the Database Committee became defunct. An on-line version, SSS-O, was planned for January, 1998 but it actually started in November, 1997. The back issues were on-line by mid-1999. The member subscription rate for the on-line version was set at $100 in 1998. During marketing visits to libraries in 1999, AIP determined that many were totally unaware of SSS and a number of free copies were distributed as a result. By the end of 2001, the net accumulated loss since start up was about $700,000, or about $1000 per data record published. There were 85 subscribers, 37 of whom were AVS members. An option to cease publication and publish a book containing all the accumulated data was discussed but the Publications Committee instead undertook to increase subscriptions by better marketing. The number of members who subscribed to SSS-O did increase to 64 in 2002. The first two issues of Volume 8 were published by June, 2002 and the subscription price was increased for the second time in two years to increase revenue.
Steve Gaarenstroom replaced Gary McGuire as co-editor on January 1, 1995 and R. Vasquez became co-editor in 1999.
Newsletter
In 1991, the Newsletter went from a black and white format to the use of limited color and more photos. The objective was to increase the attractiveness and readability. The co-editors, Donna Bakale-Sherwin and J Lyn Provo, were listed on the masthead. Since then, the format has changed slightly with the same goal. Each year was identified by a different color, starting with red in 1991. Since 1997, the front page has carried a photograph as a background in the color of the year. The modified AVS logo with the “Science and Technology” at the bottom of the logo was used for the first time in 2001.
The managing editor in 1991 was Shawn Lynch, of TMP, the graphic designer was Ann Hyde, and the Division Chairs were contributing editors. When TMP terminated its contract, publication of the Newsletter became an AVS function with Della Miller, at AVS West, as the editor; Della had been responsible for managing the publication when it was contracted to TMP and she took over as managing editor with the July/August issue in 1999. John Crowell succeeded Donna Bakale as Editor in 2001.
In 1991, the issues typically had 24 pages and was sent by first class mail. Later, the number of pages was reduced to reduce mailing costs. In 2000, the publication frequency was reduced from six to four issues per year, again to reduce costs. It would, of course, have been much cheaper to post the news on the web site, but it was felt important to provide information to the members who still favored a printed Newsletter. However, the change to an electronic Newsletter was made in 2003 and all the Newsletters dating from 1990 are available on the web site.
The Buyers Guide
The Buyers Guide actually evolved from a Web site which was set up in 1994; called “The Market Place”, it listed nearly 25 companies who were JVST advertisers. This was developed by Peter Sheldon in an attempt to maintain advertising revenue as JVST distribution moved from print to electronic, which reduced the value to many vendors of advertising in JVST. Discussions on developing a “Buyers Guide” began in early 1997 when a number of other organizations were in the process of developing on-line guides and it was clear that AVS needed to act soon or lose an important opportunity. In July, following a Long-Range Planning Committee meeting, the President, Jerry Woodall, set up a committee to develop an on-line buyers guide and he set a target date of September 1! The committee, composed of Peter Sheldon, Howard Patton, Bill Rogers, and Rey Whetten, set a revised date of October 1; they had to design, implement, and beta-test a new site with more than 200 vendor listings and a fully functional reference guide.
The Committee contracted with the American Institute of Physics Internet Publishing Group and quickly began designing the Buyers Guide to meet a number of criteria; it would be the best source of vacuum-related information and provide a value-added service to AVS exhibitors and JVST advertisers; it would integrate JVST advertising and marketing of the Exhibit; it would be financially self supporting. AVS helped AIP to develop a user interface to make the Guide simple to use and developed an interactive, on-line reference guide in less than one month, using the reference guide from the Vendor Directory which had been published by The Northern California Chapter for many years. A vendor which exhibited at the Symposium, or advertised in JVST, was listed in the Guide, with a link to the company site. Other vendors had to pay for a web listing and link to their company web site.
On September 12, 1997, a beta-version of the Buyers Guide was launched for testing. The site had two major components: a “Buyers Guide” and a “Reference Guide.” The Buyers Guide was a fully searchable database of vendor products and services which could be sorted by product category or keyword. It provides a year round showcase for vendors and a resource to vacuum technologists. The Reference Guide was an interactive on-line resource for the vacuum technologist, providing a full range of tools, including conversion calculators, vapor-pressure tables, optical emission spectra, working-pressure ranges of vacuum pumps and gauges, and a glossary. On October 1, 1997, the site went live with more than 250 vendors listed. In the first month, the site had 274 visitors, which grew to almost 1700 within three months. By January of 1998, vendors were paying for additional value added services and the guide had recovered 87% of the initial development costs; it was self supporting within the first 18 months of operation.
Over the following two years, there were two major updates in an effort to keep the Guide dynamic and to increase its value to vendors and users. For example, the Reference Guide was expanded, and several new products were added to the Buyers Guide, including a “Featured Product” option and banner advertising. By December of 2000, the Buyers Guide was attracting nearly 7000 visits per month. In early 2001, the Buyers Guide was transferred from the direction of the Publication Committee to the Exhibitors and Manufacturers Committee.
Other Publications
The AIP/AVS Conference Series had essentially ceased to be published by 1992, when there were only 120 orders for the series. One problem was that the camera ready copy format did not represent a quality publication. AIP declined a request to change to typeset and accept electronic files because it was too expensive. However, the Technical Director had already arranged for the 1994 8th Latin American Conference on Surface Science to be published in the AIP/AVS series and AIP had actually collected $9,500 for orders. By early 1996, no papers from the conference had been submitted and there had been no contact with the conference chair. The only option seemed to be to refund the money when, in March, Angus Rockett, who was the AVS co-editor, was informed that the papers were being revised for AIP. They were ready for publication in June although they had completely by-passed Angus!
In the vacuum field, as in most other technical areas, there are a frustrating number of books, long out-of-print, which remain of enduring value. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the Society embarked upon the production of reproductions entitled the “AVS Classic Series in Vacuum Science and Technology.” Fred Dylla was the series editor and they were published by AIP Press. The price to members was $24.
The Education Committee continued to support numerous outreach activities aimed at teacher enhancement and student science awareness and education. Through these various outreach programs, the AVS is able to share the collective and individual expertise of its members with schools, teachers and students.
One such program is the fully accredited, two-day Science Educators’ Workshop, which has been held annually at the Symposium since 1990. After the initial Workshop in Toronto, Chapters were asked to sponsor teachers to attend the second Workshop in Seattle; nine did so and nineteen teachers attended. Individual teachers are sponsored by AVS Chapters with all travel expenses paid by the sponsoring Chapter. The Workshop instructor team is made up of Society members having a broad experience in science and engineering as related to low pressure environments and technologies. The teachers attending the 1992 Workshop requested that accreditation be obtained and Jim Solomon arranged this through the University of Dayton; 1.5 Continuing Education Units were awarded initially and the number of units has increased since then. Jim Solomon planned to demonstrate the Workshop at the 1993 National Science Teachers Association meeting, but only 20 of 72 demonstration projects were accepted and this was not one of them. However, since then, the Education Committee has been invited to present its outreach programs in conjunction with outreach programs conducted by the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association of Physics Teachers. An article by Art Nelson on the development of the Workshop was published in the Jul/Aug 1996 issue of the Newsletter.
The schools from which the teachers come can obtain an equipment kit for the experiments; the pumps and belljars are provided by suppliers at reduced cost and these costs are borne by AVS. Over the first ten years of the Workshop, 203 vacuum kits were provided to schools in 24 states. A survey in 2000 of the teachers who attended the 1998 workshop showed that 159 teachers had actually become involved through the 26 attendees; over 1000 teachers had been involved over the ten years of the program. In 1994, a book “Low Pressure Experiments & Modelling for High School Science Curricula” was published for the Workshop; it is updated each year and given to each attendee. All Workshop demonstrations and experiments are available at http://www.avs.org/education.workshop.demo.aspx. The vacuum equipment used in the Workshop is available on loan to AVS members and Chapters for individual or Chapter sponsored outreach programs. Each unit comes with lesson plans and complete instructions for setting up and performing the demonstrations. Several teachers have held “mini workshops” in their districts and students have used the pump and bell jar in science fair competitions. What started out as a modest attempt by the AVS to help with secondary science education has proven to be a highly successful outreach program. At the 1995 Symposium, an outreach session organized by Pat Thiel was well attended by children from schools in the Philadelphia area. A video, showing visual demonstrations of vacuum, surface science and materials, was sold for $50, together with a monograph.
In 1997, Normandale College in Bloomington, MN began to offer a vacuum technology course as an option in a two year mechanical technician course. In 1999, the Workshop material produced by the AVS was used by a community college in Pueblo, CO to start a vacuum technology course and by Hillsborough Community College to develop a web based course which was funded by NSF.
The provision of the equipment kits to schools did, however, cause some heartache. Because of concerns about legal liability, the Education Committee developed a procedure to ensure that AVS was not in the “chain of title” and the Board required that the same procedure be used for any equipment donation programs by Chapters. Some Chapters had been arranging for equipment transfer for years without such a procedure and considered this requirement would hinder their outreach programs. The policy was published in the Nov/Dec 1994 issue of the Newsletter. It was also pointed out that schools could obtain equipment through a not-for-profit “Gift-in-Kind Clearing House” but this required an annual payment of $975.
High school science teachers are also encouraged to develop their own experiments through the John L. Vossen Memorial Award, which has been presented annually since 1997 when R. Shaner demonstrated an experiment on “Examining Water Vapor Pressure as a Function of Temperature” to 60 people during the Symposium. An Undergraduate Student Research Project Award was initiated for 2001 with the intent that five students would be given up to $1000 each to develop a demonstration experiment.
AVS has continued to provide some financial support to the US team at the annual Physics Olympiad for high school students. In 1991, AVS provided $5500 for support, out of a total budget of just over $100,000 and offered to host a visit by the team at an AVS symposium, but this has not happened. In fact, feedback from AIP on the program has sometimes been hard to come by! In 1993, the Olympiad was held in the USA, at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, with 200 students representing 40 countries.
The production of educational material for technologists and scientists has continued. In 1991, a revised version of the monograph “The Fundamentals of Vacuum Technology” was released. The first of a new instructional series “A Primer on Capture, Sorb and Cryopumping” was released in 1992. Harland Tompkins was a very pro-active editor of this series from 1996 through 2002, as well as a prolific author. In 1991, he authored “Pumps Used in Vacuum Technology” and was the author of the first hard cover book in 2001. Although authors receive an honorarium for a new monograph or revision of an old one, the hourly rate would be well below the minimum wage! Monographs are mainly purchased by people working in industry; some monographs have sold as many as 250 copies in a year. Since 1992, the monographs have been captured in electronic format and desk-top publishing has reduced publication costs. The price of monographs was increased to $15 in 1996 and to $25 in 1998 and they are still a bargain! Graphics from the monographs were collected in 1994 and stored on a CD-ROM which was then available to AVS members who required graphics of vacuum equipment, etc.
New approaches to educational material have also been explored. In 1991, a tutorial video “Hydrogen Collision Dynamics on a Rough Nickel Surface” made by David Ruzic was sold, In 1994, a Hypercard version of Basic Vacuum Technology was developed by Art Nelson; it allowed one to “flip through the cards” and watch a vacuum pump operate, for example. In 1997, a hypertext set of modules on “Introduction to Surface Science” was available on CD. An electronic version of the History Timeline produced for the 1993 History Exhibit was made available to Chapters in 2000 and then was on the web site in 2001.
As well as the monograph “A History of AVS” published for the 40th anniversary, video tapes of the History Exhibit and the Thin Film History session at that Symposium were made. The audio portion of the History Exhibit video was missing and had to be dubbed by Jack Singleton in 1994. In 1993, a video of the “Capture Pumping” course by Jack Singleton, was completed, However, sales of video tapes were never very high and the videos have a short lifetime, especially tapes of technical sessions at conferences.
In 1997, Edit Suites was contracted to produce a twenty minute long remake of the “Vacuum Leak Detection” video using the characters “Prof Vic Torr and Dr. Mille Pascal”; although the original 1960 version was still being sold, it was visually dated!. The new video was available as a DVD at the 1998 symposium. However, the cost of these video productions is very high and several hundred must be sold to recover the production cost.
The Education Committee operates an “Education Center” at the annual Symposium where attendees can preview and purchase the educational materials. For those who want to take something home besides the scientific knowledge they acquired during the symposium, the center has complimentary mementos, such as wall charts of vapor pressure curves and sputter yield curves in 1992 and 1993, as well as AVS shirts and other items for sale! For the 40th anniversary in 1993, the shirts had historical scenes, as shown in the Sep/Oct, 1992 Newsletter. The “net tee-shirts” in 1994 had a spider’s web. However, the “no vacuum cleaner” shirts were probably still the most popular. A 40th anniversary calendar with photographs of equipment and events was popular, as well as a “vacuum” crossword puzzle which was developed by Anne Testoni and later printed in the Jan/Feb 1994 issue of the Newsletter.
The number of course offerings and programs initially increased during this era but decreased in the last few years as the microelectronics industry suffered another downturn. The number of students followed the same trend. A number of new courses were also introduced; there were five at the 1991 Symposium and a 4-day course on Surface Analysis was introduced at the 1992 Symposium; nine new courses were added in 1994. In 1993, there were five short course programs and two on-site offerings. By 1994, registrations had grown to 2,838 with programs at thirteen different sites and six on-site offerings. In 1995, 148 courses were given and were attended by 2750 students; there were 43 courses at the 1995 Symposium and one course was given at IVC-13 in Japan. Since then, the attendance has oscillated quite a lot, falling to 1,427 in 1999, increasing to 2,205 in 2000 and then decreasing as the industry downturn progressed. There were 315 students at on-site courses in 2001 but this was mainly before the technology melt-down after the first quarter!
With the increasing size of the program, more effective tracking and reporting was required and, in 1994, Paul Shapiro was contracted to provide a customized Access-based program, which has been in use since then.
Courses were given in conjunction with Chapter meetings and at other meetings. The program held jointly with the Northern California Chapter has been the largest. However, not all locations for programs have been successful. Course programs were held in Austin, TX, for several years from 1995; although there were a number of semiconductor operations in Austin, attendance was poor and the program ceased after 1998.
The Northern California program was managed for several years by Virginia Brunner, who ran the Chapter office, but, with the increasing size of the program, management was transferred in 1994 to the New York Office; Margaret Stringer handled the course registration. In 1996, she also assumed responsibility for scheduling the instructors for each site, a function previously handled by a SCEC member. Virginia had also copied all the course notes for ten years but, in 1996, Cathy Sheldon took over as Notes Coordinator. On April 9, 1998, at a special dinner meeting of the Northern California Chapter to honor Bill and Virginia Brunner for their efforts on behalf of the Chapter, Howard Patton presented Bill Brunner with a plaque reading “in recognition of the contributions as a founding member of the AVS’s Short Course program and teaching from 1970 to 1997” and Virginia also received a plaque in recognition of her efforts in supporting the course programs.
Margaret managed to maintain registrations for programs at the 2001 Symposium, and a Pacific Northwest Chapter symposium in Portland, in the aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001 events because she was, fortunately, working from home while was on maternity leave. In fact, her leave was extremely timely. First, if she had been at work, her daily train would have arrived at the World Trade Center just as the first crash occurred; second, because she was working from home, the files were not lost in the aftermath. The Portland meeting went ahead at the end of September but attendance at the 2001 Symposium in San Francisco was seriously affected with only 199 registrants!
With the large growth in the program, the quality of the courses was maintained, as judged by the evaluations by the registrants. There has always been a strong emphasis on quality of both courses and course material. In 1991, Chuck Peden joined the SCEC to monitor the quality of notes and, in 1995, the courses were audited by Susan Burkett; both Chuck and Susan later became the SCEC Chair. Of course, the evaluation forms which are completed by the students at the end of every course also provide feedback. The course notes have also been reviewed and improvements made in response to student comments. The appearance of the course notes changed as PowerPoint presentations replaced “cut and paste” versions, which were even sometimes handwritten with the diagrams drawn by hand. By the end of the decade, PowerPoint versions became standard and attendees even started to request color versions of the notes! The single instance of a bad course being presented at an AVS meeting was in 1994, when a new courses, on “Physics, Chemistry and Mechanics of Adhesion” started off so badly that the students revolted and demanded their money back.
In 1997, a request for certification of the vacuum technology course was discussed. A sub-committee, headed by Dick Gilbert, defined courses which would be required to qualify a Certified Vacuum Technician and the procedure required to obtain college credits. However, there was no agreement on a suitable process for examining course attendees.
The course fees, which had not been increased since 1990, were set in 1996 at $475, 695, 895, 995 and 1150 for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 day courses respectively with an additional $100 if a text book was provided.
A new “tutorial course” was given on the Sunday before the 1992 Symposium; “Recent Advances in Surface Science Techniques ”consisted of seven 1-hour tutorials by different speakers. Although the fee was only $100, it was not well attended These tutorials are intended for scientists whereas the usual course attendees are looking for “how to” information to assist them in their jobs, which are predominantly in industry. In 1994, two half-day “mini-courses” on “Biomaterials and Surfaces” and “A Guideline to Total Quality Management, ISO 9000” were given on the Sunday, and a special one-day course on “Nano-structures; Fabrication and Characterization” was given because of the NANO-3 conference being held in conjunction with the Symposium.
Courses have been given in Europe but with limited success. Joe Greene taught two courses in Sweden but the attendance was poor and the arrangements were difficult; no information was provided on the registration. As a result, the SCEC decided that courses outside North America must either be totally run through the AVS office or the foreign organization had to be responsible for all the arrangements and payments. Courses were again to be given in Salamanca, Spain in 1996 and again there was a lack of information on arrangements. Two courses were given by John Coburn and Bill Westwood in 2000 at the Institute of Physics conference in Manchester, England, but were poorly attended.
In 2002, discussions were held with SemiZone on a partnership for web delivery of AVS courses. SemiZone’s courses were certified by the Stanford Learning Center; at that time, they had 60 courses on-line and planned to have 100 by the end of the year. Silicon Valley companies were a major customer; they expected to have 60% of their employee education provided through the web by 2005. An agreement with SemiZone was concluded on May 1, 2002. One of the long time AVS instructors, Abe Ghanbari, had already gone through the process of recording a course. The procedure was, in fact, very similar to that used twenty years earlier to video tape AVS courses at LLNL. There is no audience and the instructor speaks to the camera while sitting in one position and trying to point to PowerPoint charts on his lap top using the mouse! The presentation is, naturally, rather unnatural!
The Recommended Practices Committee activities have periodic highs and lows as sub-committees are formed to consider new areas, explore the different views and finally reach consensus on a new Recommended Practice. However, there was limited activity during this Era. Cathy Stupak had succeeded John Sullivan as chair of the Recommended Practices Committee in 1988 and Robert Ellefson took over from her in 1991. In 1990, Cathy had reported that the standards in the booklet “Standards of AVS”, which was no longer available, would be updated and replaced by the output from new sub-committees. The activities of these sub-committees at the 1991 Symposium were summarized in a Nov/Dec 1991 Newsletter article; the past and present activities of the Committee had been covered in an earlier Newsletter (May/June 1991) and updated in a later article (May/June 1994). The “AVS Recommended Practices on Vacuum Measurement and Techniques,” a collection of six articles which had been published in JVST, was sold for $2 in 1993.
It was decided in 1991 to access ANSI through ASTM rather than through AIP because ASTM already had procedures in place and AVS had a solid basis for interaction through the E-42 committee. ASTM were happy to reciprocate for the help from AVS in E-42. A new committee, E-42.13, on Vacuum Standards, was established by ASTM in 1991. Dana Hauschulz and Mars Hablanian attended the ISO/TC 112 committee on vacuum standards in Moscow. It had been chaired by Prof Rakhovsky since 1989 and there was concern that it would approve standards which were incompatible with US products, but the resulting ISO standard 9803 on “Vacuum Techniques-Pipeline Fittings-Mounting Dimensions” published in 1993 was fully compatible. Dana Hauschulz described the re-internationalization of the ISO/TC 112 committee in the Jan/Feb 1995 issue of the Newsletter. In 1994, ASTM offered to allow AVS to publish ASTM standards for a payment of $8,000 but this was declined because the cost could not be recovered and because AVS members had already made significant contributions to the standards!
In 1992 a new ISO Committee TC-201 was formed, with Cedric Powell as chair, and ANSI formed a TAG with three sub-committees, whose chairs were drawn from the ASTM E-42 committee and were active AVS members; Martin Seah, Steve Gaarenstroom and John Grant. ANSI requested that ISO consider the ASTM E-42 Surface Chemical Analysis Standards for ratification. AVS hosted ISO TC-201 meetings in Golden, CO in 1995 and again in 1997 in San Jose.
