Anonymous usage statistics

What Chemistry Help counts

When aggregate statistics are enabled, Chemistry Help counts page views and broad interactions such as starting a game, opening a hint, checking an answer or completing a tool. For generated practice it can also count the question family or skill being used and a broad outcome such as correct first time, retry, clue or worked answer. While you are signed out, this browser can also keep an approximate practice-depth count so Chemistry Help can measure how many browser-days and browsers reach broad daily or lifetime milestones such as 25, 100 or 400 practice units before any future anonymous-use limit is considered. It may also count a broad device-size category, how far a page was scrolled, a broad visible-time band, whether a visit arrived directly or from search, whether a search landing became engaged or started practice on that page, which Chemistry Help page was viewed next, and aggregate teacher/student sharing actions or arrivals through a Chemistry Help share link. For the private admin graphs, the browser can also count itself at most once per local clock hour and once per browser-day when it first becomes engaged or starts practice; only the weekday/hour or broad stage is sent, not a timezone or visitor identifier. When you use the site search, a completed search term may be counted after a short pause so failed searches and missing vocabulary can be improved.

The same statistics choice also controls the small live visitor count shown only to the site administrator. While a page is visible, this browser can send a heartbeat about every 30 seconds using a random temporary presence token. The token is shared between tabs so one browser is counted once, rotates after no more than six hours, and is used only to count browsers active during roughly the previous 90 seconds. The heartbeat says only whether this browser currently appears signed in to My Chemistry or is a guest.

What Chemistry Help does not store

• No long-lived analytics cookie or visitor identifier is used. The live count is the narrow exception: it sends a random temporary presence token, and the server stores only a SHA-256 hash of that token with its last heartbeat time and My Chemistry/guest state. The active record falls out of the count after about 90 seconds; no page history is attached to it. Separate browser-count dates/periods, the last locally counted hour, broad browser-day stage flags and the local practice counter stay in this browser, with the server receiving only aggregate browser-count events, weekday/hour buckets, broad stage events, practice milestones and broad practice-depth buckets.
• No name, email address or typed chemistry answer is stored in anonymous analytics. Site-search terms are the exception: they are normalised and kept only as aggregate counts, with obvious email, URL and phone-like input discarded.
• No IP address is stored. The request IP can be checked transiently against a small administrator-exclusion list so the site owner's own browsing does not inflate the anonymous analytics or live count, then it is discarded. No full user-agent string, full referring URL or individual session replay is kept.
• No cross-site tracking, advertising profile or data sale.

Events are added to daily totals as they happen. The browser-counting dates/periods and practice-depth counter stay in this browser. The server receives aggregate day/week/month browser counts and, for signed-out practice, milestone events such as “reached 100 units today”. The separate live-presence store contains only currently active temporary token hashes; it does not record which pages a token visited. If a My Chemistry save-progress prompt is shown or clicked, or a first sign-in returns through Chemistry Help, the server may receive only a broad practice-depth bucket such as 10–24 or 100–199. Daily counts can distinguish a browser first seen on the site from one seen on an earlier day, but the server is not given an identifier that links those counts together. Page-to-page movement and search terms are also stored only as aggregate counts. The dashboard contains group totals and no individual browsing history.

Teacher feedback and wishlist

If you use the teacher feedback form, Chemistry Help sends the information you choose to provide to the private My Chemistry admin system so it can be reviewed. This can include the request type, board, year, topic, your message, whether you are interested in homework tools and an optional reply email. Please do not include student names or other pupil personal information.

Teacher feedback is used to correct problems and decide what to improve or build next. A reply email is used only if a response is useful; it is not added to a marketing list. See the My Chemistry privacy notice for the account service's wider data-protection information.

Reporting an issue

Interactive tools include a small “Report an issue” control. Clicking it immediately sends enough context to investigate the current activity, such as the tool, current question or generated state, site version, page and basic browser/display information. If an answer or worked solution is visible, that may be included so the problem can be reproduced. You can optionally add a category or note afterwards.

These reports are separate from the anonymous aggregate statistics above. If you are signed in to My Chemistry, a report may be associated with that account; otherwise it is treated as a guest report. Reports are used only to check and improve the learning content and site operation.

Saved My Chemistry results

If you are already signed in to My Chemistry, some games can save a completed result. The result is sent directly to members.chemistryhelp.co.uk and may include the activity mode, score, time, items missed and broad question-family or skill labels needed for progress and review. Checking your sign-in state may create or use a random Members session cookie, which is sent only to the Members subdomain. Chemistry Help does not receive your members sign-in details.

If you are not signed in, a result or personal best may be kept in this browser so that you can choose to save it later. When anonymous statistics are enabled, the separate local practice-depth counter described above can also be used to record only the broad depth bucket at which a save-progress prompt is viewed or clicked and, when sign-in returns through Chemistry Help, the broad bucket before that browser's first observed My Chemistry sign-in. Clearing this site's browser storage removes these local values.

Your choice

You can turn off anonymous usage events for this browser at any time. This also stops live-presence heartbeats, removes the temporary presence token from this browser, and clears the browser-counting dates/periods, local hour/stage counters and anonymous practice-depth analytics counter described above. Any active server presence entry then disappears immediately when the cleanup request succeeds, or automatically after about 90 seconds. It does not delete a separately queued My Chemistry result or local personal best. Chemistry Help remembers the off choice only on this device.

Contact

Use the feedback form if you have a question or objection.