ChemSpider FAQs
- What is ChemSpider? How many structures? Where from?
The best quick summary is on the About page, where there’s a useful introductory video to the data we hold. The Getting Started page also has useful pointers.
- Where is your mobile app?
ChemSpider Mobile is available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, giving a full structure search capability. There is an optimized view of the website via your phone browser – cs.m.chemspider.com, but the standard site works well on the iPad and Android tablets.
- How can I contact you?
Please email us at chemspider-at-rsc.org for advice, guidance, bug reports, and new feature requests. We also have a new forum which is hosted on MyRSC at http://my.rsc.org/forums/viewcategory/485.
- Can I reuse the ChemSpider data? How do I cite a ChemSpider record?
All data displayed onscreen can be reused in a publication or for other purposes. You can cite a ChemSpider compound record using the permalink based on the ChemSpider ID, e.g. http://www.chemspider.com/Chemical-Structure.1906.html
- Do I need to register?
You can search and access all the ChemSpider data without registration.
If you register you can sign up for the ChemSpider newsletter (you can also do this from the home page), and you can also request additional privileges for your account – to get a token to use the web services, or request privileges to be a Depositor (to upload structures or structure sets) or Curator (to make direct additions and amendments to the records on ChemSpider).
Registered users also have access to additional features, such as saving the results of a search as an sdf file, or access to the embed widget for embedding structures from ChemSpider onto a blogpost or webpage.
- I’ve found an error in a ChemSpider record, what should I do?
At the very least, please let us know by adding a comment. At the top right of the page, please click the Leave Feedback button and complete the details. The comments will be reviewed by another curator and we’ll update the record where appropriate.
- Why should I comment on bad data?
It’ll help your next search, and the searches of others. Comments and amendments will be reviewed by other curators as a check, but we need the knowledge and expertise of our users to clean up and validate errors. We perform many automated checks and validations when we load compound data into ChemSpider, but there are many errors and inconsistencies in the public chemistry data sets – for some examples of these, see Antony Williams’ presentations about ChemSpider.
- I would like to load a compound catalogue or other set of structures – how do I do it?
If you are a Chemical vendor with a large catalogue please email the ChemSpider team at chemspider-at-rsc.org for more details about depositing your catalogue.
You can load single structures or data sets yourself. You need to be a logged in as a registered user with Depositor privileges, and you can follow the clearance process simply use the outlined process and forms. Alternatively you can contact us and we’ll either help you through the process or load the structure set for you.
- Can I download the complete data set?
You can assemble a database of 5000 structures or less, and their associated properties, from our database without our permission. You can download up to 1000 structures per day from the website. If you want to do more than this, please contact us for help – we don’t make the entire set available for free download. Don’t forget we also have an extensive set of web services to connect to the ChemSpider database.
- Where can I buy compounds I find on ChemSpider?
We do not sell chemicals, but we have many vendors amongst our data sources. If you find the record for a compound in ChemSpider and then look for the ‘Chemical Vendors’ infobox, which lists known suppliers and the relevant calalogue code(s) and the link will take you through to their online catalogue. If the Chemical Vendors infobox is not present this means that we do not currently have a listed supplier for this compound, but do keep checking back with us as new suppliers are being added to the site on a regular basis.
- I have created a ChemSpider account but I cannot log in, what should I do?
When you create a ChemSpider account we send you a validation email, you need to click on the link in this email to validate your account before you can log in. The email should be sent to you within minutes of registering the account. If you have not received an email it is a good idea to check that it has not been caught by any spam filtering services that you may use. If you are unable to find the validation email please send an email (from the email account you used in the registration process) to chemspider-at-rsc.org telling us that you have not received the validation email and we will enable your account.