[LON-CAPA-users] Chem features

Mon, 23 May 2005 22:53:37 -0400

Mark,

You might add <organic structure>--ability to display a line structure,
including stereochemistry, without having to generate a gif file (or get
into the problem of correlating the name of the gif file with a question
without giving away the answer in the file name).  Also the <organic
response> allows a reaction as well as a structure to be required in the
answer.  I suspect the gnuplot function also has applications, but I haven't
seen many chemistry problems using it-does anyone else know of any?

I just finished about 130 problems (and eleven problem set sequences) for
our one-semester organic course this past spring.  They include use of JME
as well as JMOL for visualization.  There are a couple involving the
"chemparse" tag, but I didn't use that very heavily here.  I'm currently
working on a presentation to the "Visualization in Science and Education"
Gordon Conference to be held in Oxford the first week of July, and when I
get something put together I'll be glad to share it with you.  (The major
theme will be the "visualization" tools--i.e. use of JME and JMOL, and the
chemparse function.  )

Look under /res/fsu/OrganicChemistryLib/ for the problems, organized by
topics.  I hope the titles are explanatory enough.  The sequences are under
/res/fsu/OrganicChemistryLib/CHM2200CSequences.  These are pretty simple
problems, heavy on nomenclature as opposed to reactions and mechanism,
because the course is a low level.  But I think they illustrate what can be
done.  Jim Maxka has some more advanced problems, including some where the
JME editor is used to ask for reaction conditions and products, but some of
his have restricted access.

Your chemistry folks might also be interested in some stoichiometry problems
I wrote a couple of years ago, but haven't gotten back to refining them.
Check at /res/fsu/rlight/stoichiometry/  They select a reaction from a
library of over 50 reactions, then can ask one of several types of
stoichiometry questions, including limiting reagent problems.  There are
also a few "simple" versions of each question type where the numbers can be
worked without a calculator, and more calculation intensive questions with
versions that will show formula weights, or versions that don't and require
calculation of formula weights before the stoichiometry calculation is
tackled.
There is also an equation balancing problem involving the same equation
library at /res/fsu/rlight/balancing_equations/.

A year ago I taught a general chemistry course and have the sequences for
the problems in that course (the first semester)
at/res/fsu/rlight/chm1045_Lecture/  Most of those contain problems from
either Ray,s or Jim's site, a few from Paul Hunter.  There are  also few
problems from a Silberberg Library we have been converting from CAPA to
LON-CAPA, but they are restricted to our domain as the CAPA problems came
from McGraw Hill.  (If someone at your place can get McGraw Hill's okay, we
can open the library up to you).

And recently Ray did a good job of organizing much of the general chemistry
resources by putting problem sequences from sfu as well as other sources at
res/sfu/ChemistryTopics/GeneralChem/ and
/res/sfu/ChemistryTopics/IntroChem/, and he has written an intro to these at
/res/sfu/ChemistryTopics/index.html.

Hope this helps.  

Robley

*************************************************************
Robley J. Light                         Professor of Chemistry and
Biochemistry
Department of Chemistry          Phone:   (850) 644-3844 
   and Biochemistry                   Email:  rlight@chem.fsu.edu   
Florida State University             Fax:      (850) 644-8281
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390    Home Page:
http://chemweb.chem.fsu.edu/editors/rlight    

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lon-capa-users-admin@mail.lon-capa.org 
> [mailto:lon-capa-users-admin@mail.lon-capa.org] On Behalf Of 
> lucasm@ohiou.edu
> Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 9:47 PM
> To: LON-CAPA Users
> Subject: [LON-CAPA-users] Chem features
> 
> Hey you chemists out there (Ray, Jim, Guy, Robley?) -
> 
> I'm looking for one or two sentence descriptions of the 
> chemistry high points of LON-CAPA. Can anybody fill in some 
> of the blanks?
> 
> <chemresponse> - allows input and interpretation of chemical 
> nomenclature.?
> 
> <organicresponse> - allows graphical creation of 
> organicmolecules which then get entered into the answer box?
> 
> Any other special chem tags?
> 
> JME can be integrated into problems - on any server?
> 
> Any other things you'd mention?
> 
> I know that there are the standard pockets of chem problems - 
> Jim's, Ray's, MSUchem, Guy's?  Are there any particularly 
> good areas to look for 300-level organic chemistry problems? 
> Any textbook libraries online?
> 
> Thanks! (as you can tell, we're nearing a sales pitch to try 
> and get our chemist's to move from CAPA to LON-CAPA).
> 
> Mark
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> Mark Lucas					email: lucasm@ohiou.edu
> 252D Clippinger Lab  				phone: (740)597-2984
> Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
> Ohio University
> Athens, OH 45701
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
> LON-CAPA-users@mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
> 