About ChemVantage
About us
ChemVantage LLC was founded in 2010 to provide Open Education Resources for teaching and learning General Chemistry. The founder and chief software architect of ChemVantage is Chuck Wight, who has taught General Chemistry since 1984 at the University of Utah, Weber State University and now Salisbury University.
Chemistry is usually taught from a problem-solving approach, and students need lots of practice to build a solid foundation for solving scientific problems. We create web sites that provide immediate feedback so that students can learn problem-solving skills without having to wait for their assignments to be graded by a human instructor.
Web sites with dynamic content like this one are best used as learning tools, not assessment or testing tools. For this reason, we have configured the assignments to allow unlimited submissions so students may improve their scores. However, instructors have the option of restricting the number of submissions to ChemVantage or the number of graded submissions (using the options in the LMS) or both.
Textbook Alignment
Most modern General Chemistry textbooks follow a similar method of organizing the course content, although the depth of coverage may vary. ChemVantage offers assignments in 44 different topic areas, so it's easy to find a set that matches the organization of nearly any textbook. Furthermore, the instructor can select quiz/homework/exam questions that have the appropriate level of difficulty for the class being offered.
The default set of ChemVantage topics is designed to match the OpenStax OER textbooks, Chemistry 2e or Chemistry: Atoms First 2e.
Assignments
ChemVantage offers several different types of assignments:
- Placement Exam - provides an advising tool for each student entering General Chemistry
- Video Lectures - supplement the textbook, especially for visual learners
- Quizzes - ensure that students are prepared for class discussions and activities
- In-class Polls - all the functionality and value of clickers without the added cost
- Homework - teaches students to apply their knowledge to solving chemical problems
- Practice Exams - help to prepare students to take your in-class exams
Pricing
- LTI registration and instructor accounts are free.
- Each student account costs only $2.00 USD per month for an all-access subscription.
- Institutions have the option of purchasing student licenses in bulk at deeply discounted rates.
Powered by Google Cloud
ChemVantage is hosted by Google App Engine and Google Cloud Firestore, so we are able to provide high quality, reliable
and massively scalable service at very low cost.
Instructors
ChemVantage is a great resource for teachers and professors because it leverages your institution's learning management system (e.g., Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, Desire2Learn or Sakai) using the LTI standard. This allows your LMS to handle all passwords, role assignments and security. To connect your LMS to ChemVantage, please visit our LTI registration page. After registration, instructors can customize quiz and homework assignments for their classes using the instructor tools in each assignment.
Teaching Assistants
An instructor may assign any LMS user to be a teaching assistant. This role is recognized by ChemVantage. Teaching assistants may view solutions to homework exercises to provide guidance to students on some of the more challenging problems.
Authors
Any instructor wishing to contribute question items for quiz or homework assignments may do this using the instructor tools accessible in the assignments. A ChemVantage editor will review and edit them before including it in the database. The copyrights to all question items at this site are owned entirely by ChemVantage LLC. The only way that we can keep costs low enough to offer free services to both students and instructors is to avoid paying royalties. Therefore, we ask all contributors of ChemVantage question items to certify that all contributed items are original works, and that the author assigns the copyrights to ChemVantage LLC to be shared freely under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Any instructor wishing to contribute question items for quiz or homework assignments may do this using the instructor tools accessible in the assignments. A ChemVantage editor will review and edit them before including it in the database. The copyrights to all question items at this site are owned entirely by ChemVantage LLC. The only way that we can keep costs low enough to offer free services to both students and instructors is to avoid paying royalties. Therefore, we ask all contributors of ChemVantage question items to certify that all contributed items are original works, and that the author assigns the copyrights to ChemVantage LLC to be shared freely under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Learning Management System Integration
ChemVantage is certified by 1EdTech to be
conformant with the LTI Advantage Complete standard for learning tools interoperability.
You can find
the current 1EdTech certification document here. The certification ensures that you can configure
compatible learning management systems with an LTI link to ChemVantage. This allows your LMS to establish a trusted
relationship with ChemVantage without having to maintain any usernames and passwords. ChemVantage reports the assignment scores
back to the LMS grade book automatically. Your LMS administrator can register your LMS with ChemVantage at
our LTI registration page.
Web Site Accessibility
ChemVantage is committed to providing accessible content for its users. The site is in substantial compliance with The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as measured by Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which is our target level of compliance. If you experience difficulty accessing any ChemVantage resource, or if you have questions or suggestions regarding accessibility of our site, please let us know through the ChemVantage Feedback Page or by using the contact information at the bottom of this page.
Copyright © 2007-2023 ChemVantage LLC
Except where otherwise noted, the copyright to all content displayed on this site is owned by ChemVantage LLC, and is
licensed freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License.
Any use of this content must acknowledge ownership by ChemVantage LLC and must contain appropriate notice of this CC BY license.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by contacting admin@chemvantage.org
DMCA Notice
ChemVantage respects the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that your copyrighted work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement and is accessible on this site, you may notify our copyright agent, as set forth in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). For your complaint to be valid under the DMCA, you must provide the following information when providing notice of the claimed copyright infringement:
- A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner
- Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed
- Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of the infringing activity and that is to be removed
- Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address
- A statement that the complaining party believes in good faith that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or law
- A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and that under penalty of perjury, the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed
WE CAUTION YOU THAT UNDER FEDERAL LAW, IF YOU KNOWINGLY MISREPRESENT THAT ONLINE MATERIAL IS INFRINGING, YOU MAY BE SUBJECT TO HEAVY CIVIL PENALTIES. THESE INCLUDE MONETARY DAMAGES, COURT COSTS, AND ATTORNEYS' FEES INCURRED BY US, BY ANY COPYRIGHT OWNER, OR BY ANY COPYRIGHT OWNER'S LICENSEE THAT IS INJURED AS A RESULT OF OUR RELYING UPON YOUR MISREPRESENTATION. YOU MAY ALSO BE SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL PROSECUTION FOR PERJURY.
FERPA Compliance
The services provided by ChemVantage are fully compliant with all applicable provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. ยง 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99). We receive user data as a School Official under FERPA, either directly from students as a result of completing ChemVantage assignments or from the school or educational institution through the LTI connection to the school's learning management system (LMS). User data are processed solely for educational purposes and are shared back to the school LMS through the LTI connection. ChemVantage does not otherwise process, store, sell or share any student records or personally identifiable information.
Privacy Certification
ChemVantage has earned the
1EdTech Trusted App Data Privacy Certification
for its Privacy Policy and practices, which protect users' personally identifiable information (PII). The registration number is
IMSP1ce2023W1. Users connect to ChemVantage through your institution's LMS, and ChemVantage returns all user scores to the LMS,
so we don't store any user PII on our servers. That way, your information is 100% secure.
Privacy Policy
ChemVantage protects its users' privacy to the maximum extent that allows the site to function as designed.
- Personally identifiable information (PII) - Except for LMS administrators and people who contact ChemVantage directly (e.g., to establish an account, provide feedback or request access to the ChemVantage item bank), ChemVantage does not store any user PII. ChemVantage does not process, collect or store any user credit card or financial information whatsoever.
- Digital Tracking - ChemVantage does not use cookies, web analytics, web beacons, pixel tags or any other type of digital tracking devices. We do not store information about IP addresses, locations, or browser information of our users. We do not display any advertisements or enter into any service agreements with third party advertisers.
- User IDs - During each user's session, ChemVantage issues a secure token that is linked to an opaque user ID to ensure both privacy and security. For LTI users, this ID is provided by the learning management system (LMS). LTI is a secure messaging and communications standard developed by 1EdTech (formerly IMS Global Learning Solutions). LTI connects students and instructors with educational service providers. ChemVantage is a certified LTI provider. Users who enter ChemVantage through our home page are assigned a random ID number and are informed that they are participating as anonymous users.
- Data and Information Collected - ChemVantage collects and stores data and information about the quizzes, homework assignments and practice exams that are downloaded by our users, including customized assignments, individual responses to question items, assignment scores and timestamps. All data and information transmitted to or from ChemVantage are protected by TLS/SSL encryption while in transit, and are stored in encrypted form on Google Cloud Datastore servers while at rest. All user data are solely owned by the user and may be deleted upon request to admin@chemvantage.org.
- How We Use Data and Information that We Collect - For LTI users, individual user scores, data and information
are available to the user, the instructor (as identified by the LMS) and to the LMS administrators. User scores may be
reported by ChemVantage directly back to the LMS grade book via the LTI Outcomes Service if this service is supported
by the LMS.
For all users, including anonymous users entering the site through our home page, we use scores, responses and user comments/feedback to improve the quality of individual question items in the site as well as site navigation and user experience. We also use timestamps to automatically delete user data and LMS accounts after one year of inactivity. - Information That We Share - We will access, use, preserve, and/or disclose user information if we reasonably believe it necessary to satisfy a valid and legally enforceable warrant, subpoena, court order, law or regulation, or other judicial or administrative order. Otherwise, ChemVantage does not and will not share any user data or information with anyone except the user's LMS and with instructors and administrators who are identified by the LMS through the LTI interface.
- Google reCAPTCHA - ChemVantage uses the Google reCAPTCHA tool on its LTI registration page to detect bots and prevent spam and abuse. To register your LMS with ChemVantage you must accept the Google reCAPTCHA Terms of Service and the Google API Terms of service. This is not required of users who are accessing ChemVantage resources through the LTI interface (i.e., students and instructors) or users who enter ChemVantage through the home page anonymously.
ChemVantage Terms and Conditions of Use
- LIMITED LIABILITY.
CHEMVANTAGE LLC IS WITHOUT LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED OR ALLEGEDLY CAUSED BY ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE, ERROR, OMISSION, INTERRUPTION, DELETION, DEFECT, VIRUS, DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, INACCURATE INFORMATION, COMMUNICATIONS LINE FAILURE, THEFT OR DESTRUCTION OF OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO, ALTERATION OF, OR USE OF RECORDS, WHETHER FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORTUOUS BEHAVIOR, NEGLIGENCE, OR UNDER ANY OTHER CAUSE OF ACTION. - NO WARRANTEE
We are committed to providing the best possible online learning environment for General Chemistry. If you have a question or problem using the site, please let us know immediately, and we will do our best to correct any errors or software bugs. However, ChemVantage software as a service is provided without any warrantee whatsoever. All ChemVantage subscription fees are non-refundable. - GOVERNING LAW
These Terms and Conditions of Use and any dispute arising between ChemVantage and its users shall be governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, U.S.A. - YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS
By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this policy and terms of service. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our Site. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to this policy will be deemed your acceptance of those changes. - CONTACTING US
If you have any questions about these Terms and Conditions, our Privacy Policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this site, please contact us at:
Phone: +1 (801)243-8242
Email: admin@chemvantage.org - These terms and conditions were last updated on September 23, 2020.