Three-day course in methods for studying animal behavior in Beijing filled to capacity

With 60 participants attending last December’s course in animal behavior in Beijing, the interest was even greater than the organizers had hoped. People travelled from as far away as Hong Kong to attend this 3-day course. The participants were also very happy with it, with many giving it an above-average rating and not a single person giving it a poor rating. The content was a mixture of theory and hands-on. It covered the use of a wide variety of tools for measuring behavior including both manual and automatic ways to measure behavior.

The course used the solutions in Noldus’ portfolio as illustrations of the methods and for the practical exercises, but care was taken to make it sufficiently general that it was also applicable to those not using Noldus’ tools themselves. The bulk of the course was given by Andrew Spink (head of Services at Noldus) and Chengfang Wang (Chief representative of Noldus in China). In addition, Professor Nan Sui (from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Psychology) and Professor Jianxu Zhang (from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology) gave interesting guest lectures. The Institute of Zoology (with whom Noldus has a partnership agreement) hosted the course. Altogether the course was a great success. "We will certainly be giving such a course again in the future" said Dr. Spink.