ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Board of Trustees, Spring 2025

Consent Agenda published Feb 21 2025 by Matt Mio
Report Period
-
Introduction
The Board of Trustees (BoT) is charged with fiduciary oversight of the ACS Examinations Institute. The Board serves the Division by providing advice and consent on large scale
projects and budgetary matters of the Institute and serves as a sounding board for the Director of the Institute on legal matters that may affect the finances of the Institute.
Information Since Last Report
Over the last two (2) years the Institute has released new exams both for organic and general chemistry. The Institute expects to be back on regular release cycles for these levels, with full-year and single semester exams for each. Additionally, there are a number of exams in trial phase; including General Chemistry Full Year, Instrumental Analysis, General/Organic/Biochemistry (condensed GOB) exam, and Polymer Chemistry.
 

Due to the continued submission of user data, the Institute is expected to publish final norms for OR21F and GC22S in spring/summer 2025.  The Institute continues to evaluate all collected data for publishing preliminary and final norms. In addition, the Institute has developed a tool in response to requests to be able to generate norms for a reduced set of items for general and organic ACS exams.

 

As has been previously announced, the Institute is now able to produce a custom exam that fits specific testing needs either based on content, timing, or both.

 
The Institute is always expanding the materials it offers for test preparation. In addition to the Study Guides that are sold in general, organic and physical chemistry, the Institute is in the editing phase for a biochemistry exam Study Guide. A full suite of review materials is now available to any user who has purchased the applicable general or organic test.  These review materials are ACS exam-type items for exam reviews to help students prepare for an ACS exam.
 
The Institute has been providing workshops at regular conferences and meetings for greater than 10 years. The Institute is very excited to announce that starting in 2025, travel to institutions to provide onsite workshops is possible. These workshops could be done with groups of faculty both in chemistry/biochemistry departments as well as more broadly through teaching and learning centers.
 
Our online presence continues to grow as the Institute develops new study materials, its own e-commerce site, and a sales site on Amazon.
Future Plans

As previously stated, the Institute continues to expand its portfolio of study materials for students based upon the feedback from requests in our community. Additionally, the Institute is developing better methods for norming exams to help faculty users in better understanding the outcomes of student performance. The new norming methods also help in the further development of other testing products that are on the horizon. 

Did your committee request funding from DivCHED in the past budget year?
No
NO: add comments here.

None needed

View all reports