ALEKS is an online learning and assessment platform for Math and Chemistry courses. Powered by AI, the instructor chooses the content, while ALEKS leverages over 25 years of real student data to measure where students have gaps and place them into personalized learning paths.
ALEKS uses an Evergreen delivery model to provide you with content currency, new tools, and the most updated accessibility standards. This release-centered approach makes incorporating the latest content easy and allows you to choose between adopting a new release or staying with your current version
Redesigned, More Accessible Student Pie
The ALEKS Student Pie has a fresh new look designed with accessibility in mind, with improved color contrast, textures, and labels. These updates support screen readers and won’t change how the Pie works within your student’s adaptive learning experience.
Evergreen: Full Content Release
New and updated content is now live for select titles, including revised ebooks, updated and new questions, plus more. You can now build or copy classes using these updated materials!
Updates to Student’s Failed Learning Walk
When students miss a topic in their Learning Path, they’ll now see a helpful explanation alongside their incorrect answer and can have another chance to try the same topic if they don’t want to move on to another one yet, boosting understanding and giving them more opportunities to succeed.
Redesigned Student Gradebook
The Student Gradebook has been redesigned to reflect the design of the instructor’s Assignment List and is more accessible for students using screen readers and navigating by keyboard.
New ALEKS Topic Explanation Videos
25 new videos are now available for key General Chemistry topics. These lecture-style videos offer clear, conceptual explanations for the concepts students struggle with most, helping them better understand and stay on track.
New Organic Chemistry Topics
ALEKS Organic now offers expanded spectroscopy coverage, from basic skills to structure determination using mass spec, IR, ¹H NMR, and ¹³C NMR. With 34 topics—29 new—it includes hundreds of problems, most featuring realistic simulated spectra not found elsewhere online.
Move Topics Between Modules More Easily
You can now seamlessly move topics between existing modules! With ‘Move Up,’ ‘Move Down,’ and ‘Move To’ options (familiar from the assignment list), you can quickly shift topics between modules or simply drag and drop them into a different module.
Try Integrated Excel in ALEKS!
The full set of Integrated Excel activities are now available and ready to use in your Stats and LAM/QR courses! You can access them easily by selecting “Excel Questions” from the “Add Questions From” dropdown menu.
New Targeted Feedback in ALEKS Organic Chemistry
When ALEKS detects a wrong answer in the organic structure, reaction, and mechanism drawing tools, your students will now receive more targeted, visual feedback to help them understand their mistake.
Assignment List Organization and Folders
You can now customize the order of your assignments and create folders in your assignment list! This will allow you to organize what the assignment list will look like for your students and will give you more tools to stay organized yourself.
New Student Exceptions: Additional Attempt & Earlier Start Date
More student exceptions! You can now allow a specific student(s) to receive additional assignment attempts and you can move the start date of an assignment up to allow students you identify to start earlier than the rest of your class. This can help you manage the needs of students without disrupting the flow of assignment dates and attempts for your whole class.
Scheduled Release of Test & Quiz Scores & Feedback
You now have more control over what information is provided to your students when they finish a test or quiz, including their final score and detailed reports on what they answered right and wrong. Greater control over when and how many times students can see information about their assessments will help you ensure academic integrity.
Improvements to LMS Syncing
We heard you! We’ve made improvements that allow for more control over syncing between your ALEKS and LMS gradebooks. You can now more quickly and easily understand the status of score syncing and you have more granular control over fixing them. Improvements include:
Add Multiple Pre-Requisites for One Assignment
You now have the ability to make more than one assignment a pre-requisite of another assignment in ALEKS. For example, you can now make Homework 1 and Homework 2 a prerequisite of Quiz 1, allowing students to work on assignments at their own pace while also completing all necessary work before beginning a Test or Quiz.
Chemistry
New Organic Chemistry Coverage
In addition to the already available Topics for Organic Chemistry, we've released 21 new Topics covering key concepts such as Newman projections, conformational analysis, chair conformations and ring-flipping, chair nomenclature, basic NMR nomenclature, and how to identify the number of resonances that are expected in a 1H NMR spectrum. We have also added new nomenclature topics for alkynes, dienes, and enynes.
Remove Parts and Add Notes to ALEKS Textbook Questions
You will now be able to make customizations to ALEKS Textbook Questions! Include context, such as reminders to round or an explanation of a problem’s wording, to an existing textbook question in ALEKS by including an in-line, instructor-written note. You can also remove parts of a multi-part problem that aren’t relevant or are not at the difficulty level you prefer.
Apply the penalty to the entire assignment or to just the questions submitted after the due date. Deduct the penalty one time or by day. Choose between either point or percentage reductions. If using percentage reductions, apply the penalty to the total possible score or to the earned score.
New Late Submittal Settings
An added gradebook badge allows you to distinguish when students are getting zeros because they did not attempt their assignment. This will help you easily spot students who may need help and intervention.
Identify At-Risk Students with New Gradebook Badges
PPL
We have made improvements to areas of the platform, including the PPL survey, to ensure our user experiences are inclusive for all and to ensure ALEKS instructors feel supported in making changes to facilitate more diverse, equitable, and inclusive courses.
New Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Improvements
Chemistry
Test Bank questions from nine Chemistry textbooks will now be available to assign within your Homework, Tests, and Quizzes. Look for the new Test Banks within the textbook selection dropdown!
Additional Test Bank Questions Now Available
Chemistry
In addition to the already available topics for Organic Chemistry II, we’ve released new topics developed to provide coverage of Carbonyl and Nitrile Chemistry.
New Organic II Content
Chemistry
In our continued development of Virtual Labs for the Organic Chemistry sequence, Labs are now available using mini-scale and micro-scale synthesis.
Three New Organic Virtual Labs
New symbols have now been added to your My Questions palette. New symbols include: Prime ('), topping symbols (such as x-bar or p-hat), apostrophe (for use with complements), set for natural numbers (N), and Greek lowercase chi.
New Symbols for My Questions
ALEKS has updated your assignment creation flow, allowing you to more quickly view and preview all the Textbook Questions in a Chapter earlier in your assignment building process. You will no longer need to filter by Section, but you still can if you’d like!
View Textbook Questions At The Chapter Level
Assignment Direct Linking with your LMS
Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, and Moodle users can now embed links into the relevant unit or lesson group in their LMS that connect directly to an ALEKS assignment, Module, or scheduled Knowledge Check. Students will not need to launch the ALEKS dashboard and locate the assignment manually.
Note: To enable Direct Linking, copy or create a new class after June 1st!
New Grade Sync Options
Expanded controls over ALEKS Grade Sync include:
Sync on Assignment Submission: sends scores to the LMS Gradebook as your students complete their assignment
Sync on Due Date: sends scores to the LMS Gradebook on the due date or on your selected late submittal date
Using modules? Grades will now only sync to your LMS for modules that are available for your students to work on, which will help you quickly assess progress.
In-Progress Scores for Homework, Tests, & Quizzes
You can now more easily intervene and help students who need assistance on an active Homework, Test, or Quiz by viewing their progress and reviewing their question responses in real time.
Visit your Gradebook or your Assignment Report to view in-progress scores!
Custom Explanations for Question Authoring
When authoring questions, you can now also author an accompanying explanation in your own voice to guide your students’ learning.
You will have access to the same palette of advanced tools you are already familiar with including adding text, images, graphs, symbols, and more to create your explanations.
Time Recommendations for Homework, Tests, & Quizzes
ALEKS now provides an estimated completion time based on student data for each ALEKS Topics and Textbook Questions you use to build a Homework, Test, or Quiz. This new feature allows you to decide how much work is appropriate and decrease student frustration.
You’ll also be able to assess at a high level how difficult a question is by reviewing how much time a student will need to answer it.
Respondus Lockdown Browser now supported for Chromebooks!
Respondus Lockdown Browser and Monitor within ALEKS now provides support for students using Chromebooks. Students can download the LockDown Browser for ALEKS in the Chrome Web Store and use it to complete proctored assignments in their Math or Chemistry class and/or ALEKS PPL assessments.
Assignment Direct Linking with your LMS
Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, and Moodle users can now embed links into the relevant unit or lesson group in their LMS that connect directly to an ALEKS assignment, Module, or scheduled Knowledge Check. Students will not need to launch the ALEKS dashboard and locate the assignment manually.
Note: To enable Direct Linking, copy or create a new class after June 1st!
New Grade Sync Options
Expanded controls over ALEKS Grade Sync include:
Sync on Assignment Submission: sends scores to the LMS Gradebook as your students complete their assignment
Sync on Due Date: sends scores to the LMS Gradebook on the due date or on your selected late submittal date
Using modules? Grades will now only sync to your LMS for modules that are available for your students to work on, which will help you quickly assess progress.
In-Progress Scores for Homework, Tests, & Quizzes
You can now more easily intervene and help students who need assistance on an active Homework, Test, or Quiz by viewing their progress and reviewing their question responses in real time.
Visit your Gradebook or your Assignment Report to view in-progress scores!
Custom Explanations for Question Authoring
When authoring questions, you can now also author an accompanying explanation in your own voice to guide your students’ learning.
You will have access to the same palette of advanced tools you are already familiar with including adding text, images, graphs, symbols, and more to create your explanations.
Time Recommendations for Homework, Tests, & Quizzes
ALEKS now provides an estimated completion time based on student data for each ALEKS Topics and Textbook Questions you use to build a Homework, Test, or Quiz. This new feature allows you to decide how much work is appropriate and decrease student frustration.
You’ll also be able to assess at a high level how difficult a question is by reviewing how much time a student will need to answer it.
Respondus Lockdown Browser now supported for Chromebooks!
Respondus Lockdown Browser and Monitor within ALEKS now provides support for students using Chromebooks. Students can download the LockDown Browser for ALEKS in the Chrome Web Store and use it to complete proctored assignments in their Math or Chemistry class and/or ALEKS PPL assessments.
New Organic Chemistry Coverage
In addition to the 243 available topics for Organic Chemistry, we’ve released 43 new items developed to provide coverage of key concepts such as radical reactions, conjugated pi systems, and carbonyl chemistry.
You can now attach files to a Textbook question and ALEKS Topics, include links in your assignments to outside resources, and even create your own resources from scratch to provide alternative explanations, show worked problems, and more!
You can now see the median time it may take a student to complete any topic in ALEKS Learning Mode and the Total Estimated Time for all the topics you’ve added. This will allow you to ensure an appropriate amount of work has been assigned when building your course.
Students can now upload a variety of file types to their Homework, Test, and Quiz assignments, allowing you to easily assign group work, have students submit their worked out problems, and more!
If there’s more than one correct solution to your custom authored question, you can now accept alternative answers to numeric value and formula questions.
The new “Use Existing” feature allows you to easily copy your existing LMS course and keep your Gradebook column customizations intact when pairing an ALEKS class.
Note: This feature can be enabled by ALEKS Customer Support upon request and is only available for institutions with LMS integrations configured with LTI Advantage.
The “My Questions” tool allows you to author your own questions that can be assigned in a Homework, Test, or Quiz alongside other content types and is designed to be easy to use. It also includes customizable folder options so you can stay organized across all your courses and quickly select your questions!
Updates to the Class Content Customization process will make it easier to select your content, and the updated Prerequisite Recommendations tool will provide suggestions on where prerequisite topics could be incorporated into your course based on the content you select. You can also now copy Modules or combine multiple Modules into one!
You can now select a group of questions into a pool, and ALEKS will randomly present questions from that pool on each student’s assignment. The following question types can be pooled: ALEKS topics, textbook questions, and custom authored questions.
Have a question you no longer want in an active Homework, Test, or Quiz assignment? You can now delete the question, even if students are already working.
Students can now access their previously completed assignments without impacting their grade, meaning they can use them as study materials and practice tests. NOTE: Turn Review Mode on in your Assignment Settings!
Math Experience
Chem Experience
You can now assign questions from ALEKS topics, textbook questions, and videos into a single assignment. By combining sources, you have more flexibility in your assignment builds, and students are able to demonstrate content mastery in fewer assignments.
Math Experience
Chem Experience
The new tiles and corresponding reports are available at the institution level and provide a high-level view of student progress, learning and activity in ALEKS. This on-demand student data allows administrators to identify and report out actionable insights, ensuring no students are being left behind.
Math Experience
Incorporate even more assignment types into your course design with Video Assignments. Your students can learn material through videos that correlate to your Chapter or Sections from your own textbook as well as other books in Math and you’ll have access to video assignment reporting.
Math Experience
Chem Experience
Exceptions (such as edits to due date, time limit, and proctoring) can now be given to multiple students or the entire class right from your Gradebook. The Gradebook Exception badge is also now clickable for all assignments, including Objectives, to provide details about the indicated exception.
Your Instructor Assignment List has a newly streamlined design and features to improve efficiency including a search bar, the ability to filter by assignment type, and quick access to assignment creation and adjustments such as Copy, Quick Edit, Preview, and Shift Dates.
The look and experience of the eBook has been improved and now includes accessibility features such as a read-aloud feature. It also includes embedded videos and interactive widgets to create a modern, intuitive experience.
Intuitive updates to the Assignment Creation process have been made and new options are available, including an “Assign To” option to allocate the assignment to specific students or groups of students and an updated grading scale feature.
Chemistry-Specific:
Virtual Labs is a fully online, realistic lab solution that can be used to bridge the gap between lab and lecture. Assigning Chemistry Virtual Labs in ALEKS means your students can be better prepared for lab, more efficient, and retain more of the fundamental skills necessary for a successful laboratory experience.
ALEKS Virtual Labs
You will be able to assign 64 new topics in ALEKS Objectives, Homework, Tests, and Quizzes. These add healthcare-oriented topics to general chemistry, improve on coverage for organic chemistry and biomolecules, and introduce new coverage of metabolism in 24 new items.
Math-Specific:
The new and updated topics greatly expand coverage of key content areas such as confidence intervals and hypothesis testing, as well as conceptual skills such as identifying bias and understanding how graphs can be misleading. Many new topics include the interactive tools that were released in December (Simulate/Compute Tool, Confidence Interval Tool, Hypothesis Tool) as well as a tool that is new with this release (Multiple Confidence Interval Tool, Box-and-Whisker tool).
Let's talk about the Translation Tool, Venn Diagram Tool, and Hypothesis Testing Tool! Unlike traditional homework systems that test concept comprehension with multiple-choice questions, ALEKS allows students to get hands-on and really interact with those concepts. They’re a game-changer, especially for students that have difficulty visualizing concepts.
ALEKS Interactive Tools for Math
New Gradebook badge indicates assignments not assigned to a student and new student display options allow them to filter out assignments not given to them. These options are especially helpful for students who need unique accommodations or for grouped corequisite classes.
You now have more control over Objectives with shared start and end dates. They will appear to you and your students as separate assignments and will no longer merge as a single entry in your gradebook.
Create homework, tests, or quizzes with questions directly aligned to: Overby/Chang: Chemistry, 13e, Sobecki: Math in Our World: A Quantitative Reasoning Approach, 2e, or Sobecki: Math in Our World: A Corequisite Approach, 2e. This option will be available in your usual assignment creation process.
Chemistry Experience
Additional Resources
