QR CODES IN THE ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY LAB

Smartphones and tablets are devices that present high possibilities in different fields that, at least at the beginning, could not be related with. "Smart" devices can offer the student a way to obtain supplementary information about the theoretical and laboratory practical section of the subject. For this purpose, and with the objective of making the search as easy and quick as possible, we propose the use of Quick Response codes (QR code)[1]. These codes are a particular case of bar code that can codify different kind of information as diverse as website directions or GPS coordinates of a determinate location. Therefore, applications of these codes are very different and varied, and their size or structure depends on the coded information. Focused on teaching field and, particularly, in the practical session of a subject, QR codes can be used to supply information related to the laboratory tasks that students must perform, but with no need to provide them a huge and complicated laboratory guide note. In this way, the laboratory notebook can contain the basic details to understand and perform the laboratory task in a simple and clear way, but including other related information that can complement their formation. We propose the use of QR codes to give information about health and safety in the laboratory, work procedures and complementary bibliographic references. Information about health and safety in the laboratory will make the student aware of the risk of a laboratory work, showing him the personal prospective equipment that he must use when reagents are manipulated or the protocol that must be followed in order to discard the wastes generated during the work.