How to start teaching online during COVID-19

The spread of COVID-19 is impacting instructors and students around the globe. Many institutions are moving classes online with little to no notice. Even with lots of time to prepare, planning quality online instruction is tricky.

In response, we’ve made LabArchives, our remote teaching and learning solution, completely FREE for instructors, TAs and students through July 31st. We’ve got the tools you need to teach remotely and are here to support your transition to online instruction.

Earlier today our Resident Professor, Natalie Stringer, hosted the first webinar in a series of four designed to help you make the switch sans stress. To register for an upcoming webinar follow these links:

Friday, March 20th, 2020 3:00pm Eastern Daylight Time / 12:00pm Pacific Daylight Time

Monday, March 23rd, 2020 12:00pm Eastern Daylight Time / 9:00am Pacific Daylight Time

Check out our webinar recap below:

Natalie Stringer, LabArchives Resident Professor, has real world experience teaching in the classroom and online. She knows how stressful teaching can be even without the interruption of a global pandemic. A snapshot of her experience:

In this webinar, Natalie discussed tips and tricks from her own online teaching experiences. She also introduced LabArchives and Lab Builder, our library of ready made course content.

Natalie has used technology to engage students in the distance classroom with great success. Her method?

Define your goal
Learn by building
Have fun
Repeat, repeat, repeat

DEFINE YOUR GOAL

What knowledge do you want students to come away with? It’s a simple question and one that’s very important to answer before you begin building a lesson. Once you’ve defined your goal, all you need is a bit of creativity to modify in-person instruction for the online classroom.

A great place to start? Lab Builder, LabArchives library of ready made course content (see below).

Lab Builder is organized into three main content areas – labs, protocols and course packs. The search bar along the top makes it easy to search for content that relates to your course.

When you click into a folder, sub-folders will drop down. These list different disciplines. Click into one and you’ll see sub-disciplines. Click once more and you’ll find content related to each sub-discipline.

All labs, for example, consist of five pages – details, introduction, pre-lab assignment, procedure and post-lab assignment.

If you want to search for labs that have already been adapted for online instruction, simply enter ‘online’ in the search bar. Keep in mind that labs not already modified for online instruction can be modified.

To get started with online instruction, define your goal and then browse Lab Builder to see what content might serve your purpose. You can modify existing content for your unique teaching goals and add your own content to your LabArchives course – we’ll come back to all that later, though.

LEARN BY BUILDING (and have fun, too!)

Natalie found that learning by building was crucial for success especially when her students weren’t right in front of her. Learning by building can happen in many different ways.

Let’s say you want to teach students about stoichiometry online. You’ve found a lab in Lab Builder which is already adapted for online instruction. The learning objectives/goals are defined on the introduction page:

The supplies needed can all be found at home or at the grocery store. In the procedure students are asked to assemble materials, conduct the experiment, record data, complete multiple trials and analyze their findings. Students are actively engaged in every step of the process and must build on each step of the experiment as they go.

Another strategy? Let your students be the builder/teacher. In the past, Natalie had introductory Biology students pick a virus of interest. The students were then asked to build a model of the virus. Each student had to research the viral components, make a plan, find references, build a model and present it to the rest of the class through pictures and online write ups. Natalie showed one of these models in our webinar (see below).

Regardless of subject matter, scaffolding your course in a way that allows you to ‘flip’ the classroom encourages students to take ownership of their learning. Regular benchmarks, meanwhile, keep everyone stay on track.

Some experiments are tricky to conduct outside the lab. In these cases, a bit of creativity goes a long way. If something is difficult to model, have students can draw it or write up the steps they would take in a lab setting. With ownership and creativity, you and your students can start to build an online learning community in no time.

REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT

Once you’ve found strategies that work, don’t be afraid to repeat them. The remote classroom needs well defined work flows and expectations in order to run smoothly.

Natalie found, for example, that she worked best in the morning and her students completed most of their work in the evenings. As a result, she made assignments due at midnight the night before she had time available to begin grading. She structured her online labs and assignments the same way each time so that students always knew what to expect.

The LabArchives course manager makes it easy for you to track student engagement. You can view student log in histories and check out their notebooks whenever you’d like. This requires students to stay up to date. Revision histories show the progress of student work (see below).

Consistent work patterns and tracking tools keep instructors and students on the same page, remove guesswork from the equation and keep everyone moving forward at the right pace.

AND….GO!

Now that you’ve got some of Natalie’s tips and tricks for online teaching, it’s time to check out LabArchives more closely.

Once you’ve found Lab Builder content that you’d like to use you need to copy this content to your course notebook.

Let’s say you want to use that stoichiometry lab we looked at before. Simply right click the lab folder and select ‘Copy to another notebook…’ then select your course notebook.

Click into your course notebook and you’ll see the lab is now there. From there you can add or remove steps from the lab, further define terms and methods, add images, videos or even audio recordings. Tools like the image annotator (see below) make it easy to upload photos and add labels/diagrams. Simply put, you can completely customize Lab Builder content for your purposes.

You and your students will also have access to free OpenStax digital textbooks via LabArchives. Integrations with learning management systems (Blackboard, Canvas and Moodle) and other educational platforms mean LabArchives works with tools you may already use.

But don’t get too caught up in all the details. We’re here to help you get going and can walk you through how to set up your course. Send us a message at support@labarchives.com to begin!

Systems Administrator

As a Systems Administrator, you will be part of a small, dedicated team interacting with many departments in support of our industry leading Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) and internal company systems. Working with developers, systems and quality assurance staff you will have a substantial impact on the many systems and processes behind the product we provide. You Will...

- - Be a team member and collaborator.
  - Work to support desktop and server Linux, Windows and Mac systems.
  - Work with system managers to help build, support and update cloud and on-premise systems and services.
  - Be a Technology enthusiast.

You Will Need...

- - - Real world IT and systems administration experience.
    - Knowledge and work experience with installing and supporting Windows and Mac desktop systems and Microsoft Office applications.
    - Knowledge and work experience with Linux servers and including systems administration, security, backups, disaster recovery, scripting to automate processes.
    - Knowledge and work experience with Amazon Web Services offerings such as EC2, RDS, S3, EFS and CloudWatch.
    - Advanced knowledge of concepts including but not limited to virtualization, disk storage, mysql, encryption, security, network connectivity, NFS, DNS, firewalls and load balancers.
    - The ability to provide and completely maintain ongoing access, performance, security and availability to installations across the globe 24/7/365.
    - To reside in the United States.
    - Ability to submit to required background checks for security purposes.

Tags: System Administrator, Amazon Web Services, Windows, Mac, Linux

Front-end Web Developer

As a Developer at LabArchives, you will be part of a small, dedicated team working on the development of our industry leading Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN). Working with your fellow developers you will have a substantial impact on the development process and ultimately our product.

You Will...

Be a team member and collaborator.
Work in conjunction with product managers and Team leads to craft a modern responsively adaptive user experience.
Work closely with product managers and dev team managers to realize features and additions.
Be a Technology enthusiast.

You Will Need...

Real world product development experience.
Understanding of Material Design, React, JSX, Bootstrap, REST.
Understanding of product development management techniques.
Understanding of OOP and MVC and other development patterns.
Experience with git.
To reside in the United States.

Tags: Front-end Web Developer, Material Design, React, JSX, Bootstrap, REST, CSS, Responsive, Adaptive

Territory Manager, Classroom

The Territory Manager is a higher education course sales representative position. The person is responsible for establishing relationships with key decision makers in higher education institutions in scientific instructions (Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Engineering). Focus will be Instructor and department level decision makers. You will be responsible for generating leads and managing the sales process in order to acquire new clients. We have a few new open positions: Boston/NY area, Metro DC area (this person will work from our Fairfax County office) West Coast, specifically Northern California and the Midwest. Some travel is required, approximately 25% which includes clients and conference / trade show

What will you be doing?

As a Territory Manager, you will reach-out to prospective new clients and existing clients. You will build relationships, solve problems, understand on-going needs and continually build the territory base business. You will engage in top-down and bottom-up business growth strategies. You will continually add new individual courses while working with administration to promote department-wide and university-wide licenses. You will add financial, account and contact information into the CRM on a daily basis. You will have weekly/bi-weekly meetings to discuss prospecting, pipeline and projections. You will work closely with the entire company team, which includes sales, marketing, client and technical support and executive management. We are all responsible for our success and work as one team.

Territory Manager, Classroom responsibilities will include:

- Outbound focused sales position within geographic territory
- Sales prospecting, engagement, negotiations
- Conduct application discovery meetings, training seminars, sales presentations/client support
- Prepare and present proposals for decision makers
- Process and/or organize process of content conversion
- CRM input and output, for projections, activity and travel reporting
- Support company-wide and channel sales efforts
- Implement digital integrated marketing within territory
- Utilization of social media applications, phone and email
- Assist with data gathering

Required Experience:

- Bachelor's degree
- Minimum of 1-3 years of sales related EdTech company experience or an equivalent combination of education and sales experience with software to Higher Education market
- Experience with sales or marketing of SaaS products
- Ability to develop a deep understanding of LabArchives products, as well as the needs of post-secondary science instruction
- Able to operate in a team selling environment and engage high-level decision makers
- Strong record of establishing relationships with new accounts/hitting performance objectives
- High level of enthusiasm and passion for education
- Strong selling and negotiation skills
- Strong problem-solving skills; able to manage several projects simultaneously, function well in a fast-paced environment and coordinate effectively with other team members
- Demonstrate excellent written and verbal communications skills. Experience presenting products (in person and via online meetings)

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE:

- Higher Education sales experience a plus.
- Scientific Lab course experience / Science / Engineering degree a plus
- Work and present at Academic Conferences

Tags: Sales, Prospecting, Managing Relationships, Marketing, Presentations, Support, Training

Territory Manager, Enterprise

The Territory Manager for Enterprise sales is responsible for establishing relationships and acquiring enterprise level customers with a primary focus on higher education and secondary focus on industry, healthcare and government research. Successful candidates will establish relationships with key decision makers in targeted institutions in scientific research functions, scientific instruction/support, administration and IT.

As a Territory Manager, you will be responsible for generating leads and managing the sales process in order to convert new clients. We are seeking sales professionals who have a strong record of success managing and achieving sales goals within a team selling environment. This role is the Northeastern US region (ideally Boston) and will operate from a home office with frequent travel required to customer institutions, as well as less frequent travel to LabArchives offices in San Diego (headquarters) and/or Washington DC area office.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Outbound focused sales position within a geographic territory.
- Sales, prospecting, engagement, negotiations.
- Managing relationships in assigned accounts.
- Execute all sales activities within assigned territory.
- Conduct application demonstrations / training seminars, sales presentations, support.
- Prepare and present detailed proposals to individual researchers, professors, IT and administration staff.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE:

- Bachelor's degree plus at least 5 years related experience, or equivalent combination of education and enterprise level sales experience with scientific software to the academic & research markets.
- Experience selling enterprise SaaS based solutions within a complex sales process.
- Ability to develop a deep understanding of LabArchives products as well as the needs of science instruction at the university level & research data management in academic/government/corporate research labs.
- Able to operate in a team selling environment and engage high-level decision makers.
- Strong record of establishing relationships with new accounts and hitting performance objectives.
- High level of enthusiasm.
- Strong selling and negotiation skills.
- Strong problem-solving skills; able to manage several projects simultaneously, function well in a fast-paced environment and coordinate effectively with other team members.
- Scientific Lab course experience / Science / Engineering degree a plus.
- Demonstrate excellent written and verbal communications skills. Experience presenting products (in person and via online meetings).
- Experience working with CRM software applications.
- Willingness for frequent travel, as well as flexibility to work infrequent evenings and/or weekends.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE:

- Higher Education sales experience a plus.

Tags: Sales, Prospecting, Managing Relationships, Marketing, Presentations, Support, Training

Cornell University Adopts LabArchives for Management of Laboratory Data

To increase research productivity and scientific training, Cornell subscribes to LabArchives.

ITHACA and CARLSBAD, California, August 06, 2013 /PRWeb/ -- LabArchives, LLC and Cornell University announced today that Cornell has purchased a subscription to the LabArchives platform for the storage, organization, sharing, and publication of research data. Effective immediately, LabArchives is now available at no charge to all Cornell faculty and students working at its main campus in Ithaca, New York. LabArchives is a browser-based application used by thousands of scientists worldwide to simplify the management of laboratory data and to collaborate both inside the lab and across the globe.

Cornell is one of the world’s top research universities and is the largest school in the Ivy League. With more than 100 interdisciplinary research centers, the university attracts over $500 million in research funding every year to its Ithaca campus. Its Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City has more than $250 million in annual research expenditures.

“We have been privileged to have formed a strong relationship with a number of staff and faculty members at Cornell,” said Earl B. Beutler, President and CEO of LabArchives. “Prior to the establishment of the site-wide license, we have been able to work closely with Cornell in the development of features, ease of use, and security which has provided us with a superior product that is suitable for use by scientists in a wide variety of disciplines.”

LabArchives is a browser-based platform that is used to manage laboratory data and help to organize the workflow in a research facility. Available as either a “cloud” or locally installed software service, LabArchives also provides a “Classroom Edition” that is ideally suited for both undergraduate and high school level laboratory courses in the training of new scientists. Under the Cornell agreement, LabArchives will also be available for use in these courses.

Notes to Editors

1. LabArchives LLC (http://www.labarchives.com/) was founded by a team of experts in scientific computing and web-based development. It was established in 2009 to create an affordable and easy-to-use solution to the problem of laboratory organization and collaboration. It is used by scientists on 6 continents to store, organize, share, and publish laboratory data, as well as by instructors in many leading K-12 and colleges.
2. LabArchives is a Trademark of LabArchives, LLC in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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LabArchives Increases Storage by an Order of Magnitude

Professional Edition subscribers now get 100 GB per user of free storage.

CARLSBAD, California, November 03, 2011 /PRWeb/ -- LabArchives has released a new version of its flagship Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) which is instantly available to all users. Among a number of other enhancements, subscribers to the Professional Edition now receive 100 GB of storage per user, up from the previous limitation of 5 GB.

"LabArchives is committed to making our ELN the leading product of its kind for scientists throughout the world," said Earl B. Beutler, President and CEO of LabArchives, LLC. "Some of our users and prospective clients were concerned about the potential long term cost of storage, which is a key component in information management. By providing 100 GB of storage per user, this objection is eliminated for the vast majority of investigators."

“While LabArchives will incur a significant cost in providing this additional storage,” Mr. Beutler went on to say, “our partnership with the scientific community dictates that we remove barriers to adoption of this important technology which we believe helps to accelerate the progress of scientific research.”

LabArchives is a browser based application which can be used on the secure LabArchives servers, or can be locally installed. As a web-based application, all changes are instantly available to the full community of users. The latest release also contains a number of powerful new features, including enhanced notebook management and a special module for those teaching courses using LabArchives.

About LabArchives: LabArchives, LLC was founded by a team of experts in scientific computing and web-based development. It was established in 2009 to create an affordable and easy-to-use solution to the problem of laboratory organization and collaboration. It is used by scientists on 6 continents to store, organize, share, and publish laboratory data, as well as by instructors in many leading K-12 and colleges.

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LabArchives User Growth Grows at Record Pace Through the Pandemic

LabArchives™, the leading research data management SaaS application platform, has seen a trend of acceleration in growth during the pandemic.

SAN MARCOS, CALIF. AUGUST 31, 2021 -- LabArchives™, the leading research data management SaaS application platform, has seen a trend of acceleration in growth in the past 18 months. Usage of LabArchives has increased more than 30% so far this year, which also constitutes a 50% increase over the same period from two years ago. More than 600 organizations around the world use LabArchives to manage their laboratory research data and document their findings.

LabArchives has identified ease of use, support for many disciplines, and users themselves as the driving factors of the remarkable growth. In response, LabArchives has focused on the sustainability of this growth and continued investment in systems and scale as the demand for its lab workflow products greatly increases. LabArchives Inventory and LabArchives Scheduler, both released in 2020, are showing the same increased demand and usage as LabArchives ELN for Research.

In addition to the LabArchives ELN for Research, the LabArchives ELN for Education includes a collection of curated lab activities, which launched last year and is currently used in 340 courses by nearly 13,500 students. The curated content library contains a collection of STEM course labs, protocols, course packs, and relevant text material that has been used more than 1,750,000 times since its launch in early 2020. Teaching professors use the content for no charge in their courses and “push” their version of the course activity to each student in their class or section.

About LabArchives, LLC:
LabArchives is a suite of SaaS applications dedicated to better science used by more than 610,000 scientists to manage and protect research data, inventories, and resources. LabArchives products help scientists document their research data, prove and protect discovery, and collaborate securely. Used in more than 9,000 higher education lab courses and 600+ of the world’s leading research organizations, LabArchives is the leading research data management SaaS application platform. For more information, visit https://www.labarchives.com/blog, https://www.labarchives.com or follow LabArchives on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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LabArchives Increases Storage by an Order of Magnitude

CARLSBAD, CA, NOVEMBER 03, 2011 -- LabArchives has released a new version of its flagship Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) which is instantly available to all users. Among a number of other enhancements, subscribers to the Professional Edition now receive 100 GB of storage per user, up from the previous limitation of 5 GB.

LabArchives Users Reach 100,000,000 Activities

LabArchives, the leading research data management platform with 235,000 users, announced its users have surpassed 100 million user activities.

CARLSBAD, CALIF. (PRWEB) MARCH 28, 2018 -- LabArchives, the leading research data management platform with 235,000 users, announced its users have surpassed 100 million user activities.

Researchers, professors, and laboratory students utilize LabArchives to safely store, organize, share, and publish their laboratory research. Users store research data, create chemical sketches, manage data, time-stamp discoveries, annotate drawings and images, upload attachments, and collaborate from within their LabArchives research notebook. The 235,000 users have created and managed more than 370,000 research notebooks on the platform.

More than 300 leading research institutions in the world use LabArchives as their primary digital research notebook solution to manage research data. Researchers, instructors, and students at these institutions maximize their efficiency, workflow, and data integrity with this platform.

LabArchives is proud to be the most frequently used digital research notebook platform.

Macmillan Learning And LabArchives Partner To Provide Full Suite Of STEM Digital Lab Tools

Collaborations will Facilitate Affordable, Interactive Options for Lab Students

NEW YORK and CARLSBAD, California, July 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Macmillan Learning, a premier educational solutions company, today announced a partnership with LabArchives®, the leading provider of cloud-based Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELN). This partnership enables Macmillan to offer educators a fuller suite of customizable, interactive solutions for college STEM laboratories. Integrating LabArchives' research notebook platform with the robust print and digital lab capabilities delivered through Hayden-McNeil, Macmillan's custom publishing division, will provide educators with access to a new comprehensive collection of lab tools and services designed to improve student lab preparedness and improve course success.

"We know that lab courses have a unique set of challenges relating to teaching and preparing lab students on lab safety, lab procedures and techniques, to teaching the scientific method and the recording and capture of lab observations and data," said Macmillan Learning General Manager, Susan Winslow. "This partnership allows our teams to provide educators with a new and improved way to deliver the lab curriculum with course-specific, customizable and interactive lab manuals with integrated electronic lab notebooks. It amounts to greater flexibility and improved student interaction."

"We are very pleased to partner with Macmillan Learning and work with their custom publishing team at Hayden-McNeil," said LabArchives President Matt Dunie. "We have provided high quality research data management solutions for lab instructors, students and researchers since 2010. This partnership gives STEM instructors and students an opportunity to utilize the unique strengths our combined solution provides."

Hayden-McNeil, a custom imprint of Macmillan Learning, has long led the market in labs by providing fully customized lab manuals, digital lab assessments, online courses and carbonless lab notebooks. LabArchives, in use in more than 375 institutions, serves more than 275,000 students in lab courses and 250,000 researchers in research labs. The combined tools and services offer compelling, affordable print and digital lab options for educators.

"Researchers, instructors and students all use our platform to store, share or publish their research," said Dunie. "Our platform gives them great flexibility to interact with their data and increase productivity. With over over 100 million research activities logged we are proud to be the most frequently used digital research notebook platform."

"Both of our companies are guided by common principles which center on providing best-in-class service and support to our customers," said Margaret Erdman, Vice President of Hayden-McNeil Curriculum Solutions. "That service level means a strong partnership with lab educators, collaborating with them on their individual teaching goals and needs. We customize a solution for that course, ultimately providing a more meaningful, cost-effective solution that will engage students and support learning outcomes."

Macmillan Learning and LabArchives will continue to work together to engage with STEM educators on the evolving needs of their courses, including participation in and support of teaching events for lab educators.

About Macmillan Learning:
Macmillan Learning improves lives through learning. Our legacy of excellence in education continues to inform our approach to developing world-class content with pioneering, interactive tools. Through deep partnership with the world's best researchers, educators, administrators, and developers, we facilitate teaching and learning opportunities that spark student engagement and improve outcomes. We provide educators with tailored solutions designed to inspire curiosity and measure progress. Our commitment to teaching and discovery upholds our mission to improve lives through learning. To learn more, please visit http://www.macmillanlearning.com or see us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or join our Macmillan Community.

About LabArchives:
LabArchives is a cloud-based software application (Software-as-a-Service) which replaces the traditional paper notebooks used in professional research labs and higher education laboratory courses. The LabArchives ELN (Electronic Lab Notebook) solution is used by more than 250,000 scientists and professors, to store, organize, share, and publish their laboratory data. The LabArchives Classroom Edition has been used in almost 4000 lab courses by 270,000 students. More than 375 of the world's leading research institutions trust LabArchives for research data management, collection, and research compliance. For more information, visit http://www.labarchives.com or see us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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How to start teaching online during COVID-19

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