Virtual Computational Chemistry Teaching Laboratories-Hands-On at a Distance

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted chemistry teaching practices globally as many courses were forced online, necessitating adaptation to the digital platform. The biggest impact was to the practical component of the chemistry curriculum-the so-called wet lab. Naively, it would be thought that computer-based teaching laboratories would have little problem in making the move. However, this is not the case as there are many unrecognized differences between delivering computer-based teaching in-person and virtually: software issues, technology, and classroom management. Consequently, relatively few "hands-on" computational chemistry teaching laboratories are delivered online. In this paper, we describe these issues in more detail and how they can be addressed, drawing on our experience in delivering a third-year computational chemistry course as well as remote hands-on workshops for the Virtual Winter School on Computational Chemistry and the European BIG-MAP project.