2 April 2020
eLabJournal Case Study Featured in GEN Podcast
The podcast Navigating Your Lab through a Digital Transformation reveals in an honest and open interview how Wageningen University has improved many aspects of its bioscience laboratory operations by installing eLabJournal. The system has proved highly effective and completely reliable, secure, and essentially disaster-proof, and the primary challenges remaining are in overcoming human resistance to change.
Katharina Hanika of the Department of Plant Breeding at Wageningen University has been responsible, since 2016, for the progressive transition to an electronic lab notebook system—-eLabJournal from eLabNext – a brand of Bio-ITech BV, part of Eppendorf group. She is interviewed in this podcast, along with Erwin Seinen, Founder, and CEO of Bio-ITech, who is himself a bioscientist, and a seasoned information technology expert. eLabNext is a brand of Bio-ITech BV, part of Eppendorf group.Together, they give a fascinating account of the many improvements that eLab has brought to research operations at Wageningen, including much better organisation of the work, improved data management, easier and more effective collaboration, secure and reliable record-keeping, the security of GMO samples, and single-source availability to all scientists and technicians of all research data and information, and even who gets to see what. Katherina talks too about the process of introducing the systems and training people in their use. She has learned to overcome the resistance of some recalcitrant scientists who like old ways, or see no reason to learn new ones, regardless of the benefits they bring. She is enthusiastic about the ever-improving eLab capabilities and technology that Erwin and his team have developed, but her challenges are now more rooted in human nature than bioscience or technology.
It’s compelling listening. Don’t miss it!
