What is ChemInteractive?

ChemInteractive is a free online resource for students of organic chemistry.  It provides learners with a large selection of problems on organic structure, nomenclature and reaction mechanisms so that they can test their knowledge, and hone their skills, in those areas.

It provides extensive help, and detailed feedback on user's solutions, to guide them and help them learn how to solve problems in core aspects of organic chemistry.

Question text

Problem solving is key to understanding, and ChemInteractive acts like an online tutor, helping learners to solve problems as a human tutor would, but available to help anywhere, anytime and at 'anypace'.

It is much more than just an online problem bank, it mimics some key aspects of human tutoring, as illustrated in the screenshots below:

Screenshots

  • Problem solving in an authentic way:  Learners draw structures and mechanisms, rather than answering multiple choice questions.
  • Extensive help and learning resources (including links to other sites) are provided.
Screenshots

  • Solutions submitted by users are analysed in a 'chemically-intelligent' manner and detailed feedback is provided.
  • ChemInteractive is (somewhat) adaptive; as learners improve it will gradually increase the difficulty of the problems that it presents.
Screenshots

  • Learners have fine-grained control over the types and difficulty of the problems.
  • Learners can monitor their mastery and the data are stored if they register (free) and login.

Who is ChemInteractive for?

Get started

To try ChemInteractive problems, use the Structure, Mechanism or Nomenclature items in the menu at the top of the page.

What's New

If you have used ChemInteractive before, you will notice that this new version is a major upgrade from the previous one (2016).  It has a totally new design that is more user-friendly, and is better adapted to modern computers and tablets.  It retains the Nomenclature and Mechanism problems but the analysis of learners' responses to the Mechanism problems is much more detailed and 'intelligent' than before.

Future plans:  ChemInteractive is a work in progress, it is not complete.  Structure, nomenclature and mechanism problems are included in the current release (regular upgrades during 2024).  It is hoped that problems on other topics will be added regularly.

Updates are listed at News, some of the most recent changes are listed below.

Dec 2024
Structure problems: Two new problem types, "Add lone pairs" and "Assign charges".
Nov 2024
Nomenclature problems: Learning resources for name to structure problems, including the first "ChemInteractive Guide", added.
Oct 2024
Nomenclature problems: MAJOR UPGRADE: Much more detailed feedback is now provided.
Sep 2024
Mechanism problems: Pericyclic (Diels-Alder, etc.) mechanisms, and polar cyclic mechanisms, are now inlcuded
Jul 2024
MAJOR NEW FEATURE Structure problems: problems involving interconversion between Lewis and line structures

If you have any comments or suggestions, please submit them using the Comments page.

Technical requirements:  No downloads or plugins are required.  ChemInteractive should work on computers with any operating system as long as a modern browser is used; the only requirement is that JavaScript must be enabled.  It should work OK on tablets too, but is very difficult to use on very small screens.  Some features will work on phones (iOS & Android) but others will not.  Only a few devices have been tested - if you find bugs or experience difficulties please report them here.


Privacy:  No personal information is recorded (even for registration).  The development of ChemInteractive is done on a voluntary basis, with support from UCD School of Chemistry, so it is entirely free and there are no ads, and no cookies or trackers are used.  Statistics are collected using Google Analytics, but only non-specific information about users' broad locations and engagement with the site is collected.  If you wish to leave a comment in the Contact page, your username will be shown on the comment, and you will have options to provide an email address and your location (town/city).

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