We don’t anticipate that you will need to purchase any special software for CHEM 300. Everything you need to do for this course can be done with software you need to use for other courses (e.g. a word processor of some sort and presentation software) or using software that is free or for which a free version exists.
People have software preferences. While the CHEM 300 team has some experience with most of the software mentioned below, we can not offer support in all of them. We are not endorsing any of the software listed below, but making you aware of the options available. If there is software you particularly like, let us know and we’ll add it to the list.
Assignments will be submitted to Canvas and/or Turnitin, so make sure whatever software you use is an acceptable format for these platforms.
Document creation
MS Word (part of the MS Office package; available free to UBC students
Pages (not free, student pricing available, part of iWork, for Mac)
Open Office (free, allows you to save files in a variety of formats)
Google Docs (free, web-based, many applications, one of which is for creating documents)
Presentation
PowerPoint (part of the MS Office package; available free to UBC students
Keynote (part of iWork, for Mac)
Google Docs (many applications, one of which is for creating presentations)
Image editing
Picasa (from Google; free; photo editing and organizing software you download to your computer; online version available)
Irfanview (a fairly basic yet powerful photo editor; free)
iPhoto (on Mac, part of iLife, which is most likely already on your machine)
Photoshop (probably the best, but also expensive; student pricing available)
Photo slideshows
PhotoPeach (free)
Picasa (from Google; free; lets you create movies and slideshows from your photos and even add music)
Audio editing
Audacity (free; for both Mac or PC)
Garage Band (on Mac, part of iLife, which is most likely already on your machine)
Video editing
Camtasia; a full-featured video editor available free to UBC students
Windows Movie Maker (most likely already on your PC machine, but if not it’s a free download or your can use it online)
iMovie (on Mac, part of iLife, which is most likely already on your machine)
Statistics
Students may use whatever software they wish for statistical work in the course.
R: This free software is commonly used by professional and academic statisticians. A useful add-on package is R Commander (Rcmdr) which provides graphical interface for easier command entry and data editing.
Excel Analysis Toolpak (Although not dedicated statistical software, this add-on to Microsoft Excel has recently been used in STAT 200. It would appear this “toolpak” may no longer be supported by Microsoft.)
Minitab (This specialist software is less powerful than R but more user-friendly, and will reliably perform any analysis that may be required in the course. The student edition suffices, and this may be rented directly from Minitab.)