Welcome to ChemVantage

ChemVantage
An Open Education Resource for General Chemistry


Let's face it. Chemistry is hard.

But with commitment and lots of practice, almost anyone can master it. ChemVantage was founded in 2010 on the idea that the most effective learning takes place during repeated intermittent engagement with the subject material. By offering several kinds of online assignments, we help you challenge students to

• prepare themselves in advance for class discussions
• engage with in-class polls using their own phones or laptops (no clickers required)
• apply their new knowledge to solving computer-graded homework problems and get immediate feedback
• work in teams to promote collaborative learning and peer instruction

... all at about 1/10 the cost of our nearest competitor.

ChemVantage is proud to partner with OpenStax, the largest provider of OER textbooks for General Chemistry. We provide tools that are aligned with the OpenStax Chemistry/2e and Chemistry: Atoms First/2e texts, including a new SmartText app that combines reading assignments with adaptive questions covering key concepts in each chapter. This ensures that your students are reading and understanding the content in a timely way.

ChemVantage works with your learning management system using LTI

You create ChemVantage assignments in your LMS, and the scores are posted automatically to the LMS grade book. No student personal identifiable information (PII) is stored on ChemVantage servers, so your data are always secure.

Start with a placement exam

Getting students into the right course at the right time is essential. The ChemVantage placement exam assesses

• knowledge of basic chemistry
• essential math skills
• ability to interpret word problems

to predict success in General Chemistry with up to 74% accuracy! This allows you to take the right mitigation steps, such as advising some students to take an appropriate prep course or to provide them with supplemental instruction to ensure their success.

Then create ChemVantage assignments for your students

With a few clicks in your LMS, you can assign students to watch instructional videos with embedded questions, take short quizzes on the reading assignment, use in-class polls, work homework problems, and complete practice exams to validate their learning. ChemVantage makes it easy.

Explore the ChemVantage Item Bank

As part of our commitment to being an Open Educational Resource, ChemVantage makes its item bank of quiz, homework and practice exam questions available to both teachers and learners. The item bank contains more than 5000 General Chemistry questions. Most of these are parameterized, so they provide millions of different versions of the question items. Chemistry instructors can even apply for access to the solutions. This makes it easy to incorporate ChemVantage questions into your assignments and exams.

ChemVantage is designed to be very low cost

Our open source software is deployed on Google App Engine servers, which provide massive scaling at extremely low cost. The services are heavily text-based with no fancy widgets. We own all our content, so we don't pay royalties to publishers. We pass these savings on to our users, and for many students and institutions, ChemVantage is completely free.

So what are you waiting for?

When used in combination with an open source textbook, ChemVantage can help you make your General Chemistry class more affordable, more accessible, and help your students be more successful. Studies conducted at a large public research university showed that students who earned at least 50% credit on ChemVantage assignments passed the course with a grade of C- or better 95% of the time. Wow.


ChemVantage has scored millions of quiz and homework questions for students since 2010. You owe it to yourself and your students to find out more about ChemVantage and the advantages of open source learning solutions. Contact Chuck Wight at admin@chemvantage.org with your questions.