Potentially useful crystallographic data not was not easily accessible. The project that the IUPUI team took on was to make the data from an old german text more accessible.
The responsibilities were split between the four group members. The first resource used when sorting through the wealth of information was a German to English chemical dictionary. Microsoft excel as well as a JME Applet to convert molecular structures to their corresponding SMILES notation were highly relied upon.
My role in the project was to determine the SMILES notation for each compound included in the database. My time spent on the project can be accounted for in three ways: time spent translating the german chemical names to English as well as the german molecular formulas to the corresponding English, drawing molecular structures for the compounds and determining SMILES notation and finally inputting the data into excel.
The results from individuals were pooled to establish a database, which included molecular formula (English and german), German and English chemical names of the compounds as well as SMILES notation. Not all compounds have the all associated data.
Conclusions
Group work in this instance was a major source of ‘extra’ work. Overlapping of responsibilities as well as lack of communication were issues. Not all group members worked on the same compounds – 2 different volumes were utilized without total group knowledge. Future groups should recheck data entry for accuracy.