The Basics of General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry
This book is very comprehensive and covers the basics of GOB Chemistry for one or two semesters GOB course. The material is feasible for students without and prerequisite knowledge of the subject but students who are already familiar with the basic parts of GOB Chemistry can also benefit from this textbook. The authors added multiple high quality activities (such as audio-video resources, checklists, MCQs) that make the material more interesting and reinforce the learning, comprehension and understanding via critical thinking. The text also provides many examples with step-by-step solutions in order to answer 'HOW?' and 'WHY?' question and gain a solid understanding of the subject matter. The book is divided into inorganic, organic and biochemistry parts with some aspects of analytical and physical chemistry as well.
The text is accurate. However, some of the hotlinks to additional material do not work and need to be updated.
The material is written in a long-lasting way, i.e. the main scientific information will not change very fast. Some links need to be updated but it should be relatively easy with the online textbook format. Relevance of the material with biomedical research and human health is a nice addition to the text.
The textbook is well written, the material is clear and well explained. Applications of multiple graphs and diagrams add to clarify the concepts. The great advantage of this material is the writing style using the basic vocabulary and informal style. Also 'End-of-Chapter Material' is written in a 'Study Guide' style.
The textbook is very consistent in uniform writing style, presentation of the material and interface as well. Each chapter is presented in the same order (i.e. Opening Essay, Learning Objectives, Examples, skill-building Exercises with the solution, concept review Exercises, Key Takeaway). Also, all important vocabulary is presented in bolded style.
The textbook layout is modular with each chapter divided into smaller but complete sub-chapters, clearly separated by topics and activities. All subtitles are uniform through the text and clearly labeled. The length and depth of each subsection is consistent, creating a relative easy online reading, however the navigation to each section might be more difficult for some students to move around in the text.
The textbook is organized in a typical format with initial more general topics, followed by organic and then biochemistry relevant topics. The final chapter provides the connections between previous parts as the book overview.
The layout and a PDF text format is accessible via multiple browsers and operating systems. But based on the font size some of the references posted on the bottom of the page are located differently since some parts are divided by page-beaks.
There are virtually no grammatical errors in the text. I found only a few typos that could be easily corrected.
The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive at all. However, it is focused on US students using typical US culture that might be foreign to students outside US.
This book is an excellent addition to existing Open Education Resources (OER) with a high-quality supplements for instructors, such as Instructor Manual, PPT Lecture Notes, Solution Manual, and TestBank Import for any LMS. I highly recommend it.