Internet resources for chemistry

A common way to find information on the Internet is by browsing ( surfing ) the World Wide web (WWW). However, as this can be time consuming and wasteful, browsing should be focused on relevant sites. Many of the most useful websites are those providing detailed lists and hypertext links to other locations. A useful place to find out what the Internet offers the chemist can be found at the URL http //www.chemdex.org. 

Remember that the Internet should not be viewed as a substitute for your university library and other local resources, but should complement, rather than replace, more traditional printed texts and CD-ROM material. 

International Unionjof/Pure and Appli Chemistry (IUPACj http //iupac.chemsd c.otg 

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NISJ) Lafabratory 

Revisiting websites - bookmark sites of interest, so that you can return to them at a later date. Make a copy of your bookmark file occasionally, to avoid loss of relevant information. 

Using Internet addresses - note that the locations given in the chapter may change as sites are updated you can make a key-word search using a searching system or search engine to find a particular website if necessary. 

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) 

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Text extracts from the following databases Analytical Abstracts, Chemical Business NewsBase, Chemical Safety NewsBase, Mass Spectrometry Bulletin, Chemical Safety Data Sheets and Chromatography Abstracts in Chapter 36, Internet resources for chemistry , reproduced by kind permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry. 

Metasite for chemical information resources on the internet and elsewhere, originating from the Indiana University chemical information courses. Usage has increased from nearly 100,000 successful requests in 2000 to over a quarter of a million requests in 2006. The main information page currently available at Indiana is Selected internet Resources for Chemistry (SlRCh), which includes about 31 chemistry resource guides available on the internet (http //www.indiana.edu/ cheminfo/ca gcisd.html). The also includes a link to the Chemical Acronyms database (http //www.oscar.chem.indiana.edu/cfdocs/ libchem/acronyms/acronymsearch.html), which currently represents over 11,000 items linked to the full forms of the words. 

The RSC Learn Chemistry platform www.rsc.org/leam-chemistry. The Learn Chemistry website offers access to hundreds of resources for chemistry education in the Internet. 

The NIST Chemical Kinetics Model Database web site (http //kinetics.nist. gov/CKMech/) is a good resource for chemical kinetic models, thermochemical property data, and elementary rate coefficients. The book Gas-Phase Combustion Chemistry edited by W. C. Gardiner, Ir. (Springer-Verlag, NY, 1999) also lists many detailed mechanisms for different fuels that are available in technical papers and from the Internet. 

In addition to case studies, a course journal has also been an effective tool. Students were asked to complete problems related to basic chemistry topics and internet resources in the journal. For example, end-of-chapter problems in the textbook12 were often assigned and completed in the journal. Students were also asked to record comments and questions related to course materials and to maintain a project log. Specifically, journal entries included responses to and analysis of internet resources, responses to and analysis of lecture material, critical responses to periodical articles and government documents, project ideas, and project progress including data, interviews, and event logs. The journals were collected at least one time during the quarter and at the end of the quarter. 

While there has been a substantial increase in the number of commercial sites for chemistry since the last edition, there has not been the predicted shift in balance away from freely available resources. If anything there has been a surge in open resources, most notably in the open-access publishing movement (see later). There has also been the advent of certain forms of internet use which were not evident, or very substantially smaller in impact and not predicted to grow in the way they have done over the last 4 years. These include the introduction of the blog and the rise and rise of the wiki. 

Quality control is performed at the moment of data entry, in particular with respect to errors present in publications. Chemical structures are checked for structural consistency by matching the molecular weight (MW) and chemical formula with the ones available in the Experimental section and/or Supporting Information - whenever available, and by comparison to prior publications. Whenever in doubt, we also use other sources, such as the Merck Index [25] and free Internet resources. In the instances where external and literature data cannot be reconciled, SciFinder [1] is also used. The error rate so far in medicinal chemistry publications is not at all negligible We find an average of approximately two errors per publication in all the 6791 papers indexed in WOMBAT 2006.1. Given the median of 25 compounds per series, this implies an overall error rate of 8%. These errors are distributed as follows [26] ... 

The NIST/EPA/NIH Mass Spectral Library, another useful resource for mass spectral data. The 2005 version (NIST05) contains 190,825 spectra. A smaller collection can be accessed over the Internet (http //webbook.nist.gov/chemistry). 

The medium Internet is a medium created by hundreds of developments that mark our movement toward the new millennium (see Internet and Internet-based Computational Chemistry Tools). The number of Internet resources reached the mark of four million in 1995. According to an estimate of the Internet society the number of computers connected to the Internet will be around 120 million in the year 1999. World-wide commercial online services attracted seven million people world-wide in 1995. Internet has served an estimated 20 million people so far. Growth in usage for the commercial services is estimated to be about 40% through 1997. Internet growth is estimated at being roughly twice the rate of the commercial online services. ... 

The rapid development of the Internet (see Internet and Internet-based Computational Chemistry Tools) and its successor, the World Wide Web (WWW), has made the computer a valuable communications resource for both chemical educators and their students. One of the simplest uses is as an electronic office. This allows the faculty member and the student to communicate at times that are most convenient for each participant, largely eliminating the problem of trying to find the professor in his or her real office. Beyond that, using the computer for electronic communications allows the professor to post class announcements and assignments, offer helpful hints on the material, perform video conferencing for students, and even do testing. 

Much useful reading material about computational chemistry is available. Some self-help information can be found at various websites. These can be located with any of the common search engines (database retrieval systems) that are convenient for finding resources on the World Wide Web. Once an individual is connected to the Internet, the search engines are free. A particularly fast, up-to-date, and comprehensive search engine is at http //www.google.com/. Queries can be in the form of words or... 

Many web sites on the Internet provide chemical and physical data for tens of thousands of compounds. Print resources, such as The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, provide these data as well. 

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