Open Educational Resources and Chemistry

This collection was curated by an ASCCC OERI discipline lead. A comprehensive list of current discipline leads is available.

 The curated collection of resource shared here have been organized into three categories:

• OER textbooks for the course
• Other OER for the course
• Free, but copyright-protected resources for the course

Within each of these three categories, resources are listed from most relevant to least relevant for each course. When two items have similar relevance for the course, the more recent resource is listed first.

Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Open Educational Resources

• MyOpenMath Homework System (GPL + CC-BY)
  MyOpenMath is an online course management and assessment system for mathematics and other quantitative fields. MyOpenMath’s focus is providing rich algorithmically generated assessments to support the use of free, open textbooks. There are currently 5389 homework problems listed under Chemistry.
• Adapt Homework System from LibreTexts (Open Source + CC-BY)
  Adapt is an online homework system that exists within the LibreTexts platform. Instructors can create courses and assignments for students. Course shells for preparatory chemistry, general chemistry, analytical chemistry, and organic chemistry are available in the commons area.
• Selected PhET interactive simulations (University of Colorado – Boulder); PhET interactive simulations in Chemistry LibreTexts (CC BY)
• Selected ChemCollective Virtual lab activities, tutorials, and scenario-based activities; Selected ChemCollective Virtual lab activities in Chemistry LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
  These activities can be used to supplement a lecture text by giving the students an interactive learning experience. For virtual labs, a goal is introduced in a one paragraph description.

Free Copyright-protected Resources

Selected activities from Chem Ed Xchange

The Division of Chemical Education, Inc. of the American Chemical Society holds the copyright for all content on the Chem Ed X website. Instructors are allowed to use the activities for their classrooms. The activities can be used to supplement a text with specific concepts. Several activities adapted for remote classrooms are available.

Chemistry 100 – Chemistry and Society (C-ID CHEM 100)

OER Textbooks for Chemistry 100

• Chemistry and Global Awareness (Gordon, 2019) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  This text covers underlying chemistry for topical subjects in society.

Additional OER for Chemistry 100

See Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Free Copyright-protected Resources for Chemistry 100

• See Resources for all Chemistry Courses
• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science holds the copyright for all material but allows instructors to use and modify the activities to fit their classroom. See The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science Permitted Uses page for more information. The case studies can be used to supplement a text with specific case study examples. Collection can be searched by topic, type of activity, and date. For access to answer keys, instructors must purchase access ($25 per year in 2021). Sharing or posting answer keys is prohibited.
• Introductory Chemistry Online! (Young, 2012);  Introductory Chemistry Online! (Young, 2012) in LibreTexts The text is accompanied by lecture slides, exam review slides, and algorithmic tutorials. Text at the first link provides traditional format (including figures that accompany and expand upon text). LibreTexts link provides access to the openly-licensed text.

Chemistry 101 – Introduction to Chemistry (C-ID CHEM 101)

OER Textbooks for Chemistry 101

• Beginning Chemistry v 1.0 (Ball, 2011) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  Beginning Chemistry v 1.0 (Ball, 2011) (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  This text includes content for preparatory chemistry courses. Version 2 of the text is available commercially.

• Introduction to Chemistry: General, Organic, and Biological v 1.0. (Ball, al.; 2012) (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  Introduction to Chemistry: General, Organic, and Biological v 1.0. (Ball, al.; 2012) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  This text includes content for both the Chemistry 101 and Chemistry 102 C-ID descriptors. The text provides end-of-chapter problems.

Additional OER for Chemistry 101

• Chemistry 10 Lab Manual (Santa Monica College; 2021) in LibreTexts (CC BY-NC) This lab manual includes a semester-long set of wet chemistry experiments designed for a preparatory chemistry course. It is continually maintained by faculty at Santa Monica College.
• See Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Free Copyright-protected Resources for Chemistry 101

• An Introduction to Chemistry (Bishop, 2019)
  Copyright held by Mark Bishop and Chiral Publishing Company. The content is freely available, but the website asks (but does not require) that repeat users pay $20 for the use of the text. This text is accompanied by end-of-chapter problems, PowerPoint presentations, animations, and tutorials. There is also an “atoms-first” version of the text.
• Introductory Chemistry Online! (Young, 2012);  Introductory Chemistry Online! (Young, 2012) in LibreTexts The text is accompanied by lecture slides, exam review slides, and algorithmic tutorials. Text at the first link provides traditional format (including figures that accompany and expand upon text). LibreTexts link provides access to the openly-licensed text.
• See Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Chemistry 102 – Introduction to Organic and Biological Chemistry (C-ID CHEM 102)

OER Textbooks for Chemistry 102

• Introduction to Chemistry: General, Organic, and Biological v 1.0. (Ball, al.; 2012) (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  Introduction to Chemistry: General, Organic, and Biological v 1.0. (Ball, al.; 2012) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  This text includes content for both the Chemistry 101 and Chemistry 102 C-ID descriptors. The text provides end-of-chapter problems.

Additional OER for Chemistry 102

See Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Free Copyright-protected Resources for Chemistry 102

See Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Resources for Environmental Chemistry (C-ID CHEM 105) and Environmental Chemistry with Lab (C-ID CHEM 106 B)

Resources for General Chemistry for Majors (C-ID CHEM 110 and 120 S)

Chemistry 140 – Survey of Chemistry and Physics (C-ID CHEM 140)

OER Textbooks for Chemistry 140

None identified. It may be possible to use resources listed under C-ID CHEM 100 and C-ID CHEM 101 for the course. But these resources do not cover some topics listed in the course description. Specifically, topics in “Motions, Forces, and Energy”, “Electricity and Magnetism”, and “Waves and Light” are not fully covered in these texts.

Additional OER for Chemistry 140

See Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Free Copyright-protected Resources for Chemistry 140

See Resources for all Chemistry Courses

Resources for Organic Chemistry for Majors (C-ID CHEM 150 and 160 S)

OER Textbooks for Chemistry 150 and 160 S

• Organic Chemistry: A Tenth Edition (McMurry, 2023) – OpenStax (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Organic Chemistry: A Tenth Edition, like previous editions, is intended for a two-semester introductory organic chemistry course. The tenth edition retains the functional group approach of prior editions and the table of contents is retained. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY NC-SA) license, which means that you can non-commercially distribute, remix, and build upon the content, as long as you provide attribution to OpenStax and its content contributors, under the same license.

• LibreTexts Organic Chemistry (LibreTexts, 2022) (CC BY-SA)

  Text covers all topics necessary for 1st and 2nd semesters of organic chemistry.

Additional OER for Chemistry 150 and 160 S

• OpenOChem Cloud Homework System (LeBlond, Muzyka, Bocholtz, Greeves, 2020) (CC0 – Public Domain)
  A freely available online homework system that allows users to create interactive questions, and then assemble them into activities such as sequential and adaptive quizzes and SlideDecks. This system uses LTI, so that students and faculty members access it through their home institutions learning management systems (e.g., Moodle and Canvas). The system allows for creation and sharing of content and questions for users in the OpenOChem community. There are currently +3,500 homework problems in the system.
• Spectral Database for Organic Compounds (National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, 1999-current) The copyright is owned by the National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, which provides free access of chemical spectra to the community and maintains the spectral database.
  SDBS is an integrated spectral database system for organic compounds, which includes 6 different types of spectra under a directory of the compounds. The six spectra are as follows, an electron impact Mass spectrum (EI-MS), a Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FT-IR), a 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum, a 13C NMR spectrum, a laser Raman spectrum, and an electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrum. The database contains +34,000 spectra.

Analytical Chemistry

• Analytical Chemistry 2.1 (David Harvey, 2016) (CC BY-NC-SA)
  Analytical Chemistry 2.1 is a reimagining of the print textbook Modern Analytical Chemistry (published in 1999 by McGraw-Hill) following the return to the author of the copyright. The textbook’s title is inspired by a system of software version numbering in which the sequence X.Y.Z identifies a major change in functionality (X), a minor change in functionality (Y), and small changes and/or corrections of errors that do not affect functionality (Z). In this scheme, Modern Analytical Chemistry is equivalent to Analytical Chemistry 1.0, with the transition from a print to a digital format representing a fundamental change in how a user experiences the textbook. A new edition of an existing textbook is more than a correction of errors and less than a fundamental change in how a user interacts with the textbook; thus, the initial edition of Analytical Chemistry 2.0, which was released in fall 2009, becomes Analytical Chemistry 2.1, which was released in summer 2016.
  The following resources provide additional perspectives on this project:
  • Analytical Chemistry 2.0-An Open-Access Digital Textbook,”” Harvey, D. T. J. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 2011, 399, 149-152 (DOI).
  • Analytical Chemistry 2.1: An Open-Access Digital Resource for Undergraduate Education in Analytical Chemistry,”” poster presented at the 2016 Pittcon Conference.
• All versions of Analytical Chemistry 2.X are released under a Creative Commons license that allows users to distribute these materials at no cost. Instructors adopting any version of Analytical Chemistry 2.X are free to download and host materials at their course website or through their institution’s course management system provided that a link back to this site is included. Instructors may arrange to make print copies available, either personally or through a campus bookstore, provided that the cover page and the copyright notice are included, and provided that the cost to students is limited to the cost of printing.
• Users may prepare non-commercial derivative works provided that the original source is acknowledged and that the derivative works are made available under the same license. “

Using an OER resource that is missing from the list above? If so, please let us know.

This page last updated May 1, 2024.