| Responsible Department | Department of Large Animal Sciences
75 % Department of Veterinary Disease Biology 15 % Department of Basic Animal and Veterinary Sciences 5 % Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences 5 % | ||||||||||||||
| Earliest Possible Year | MSc. 2 year | ||||||||||||||
| Duration | Two blocks | ||||||||||||||
| Credits | 23 (ECTS) | ||||||||||||||
| Level of Course | MSc | ||||||||||||||
| Examination | Final Examination oral examination All aids allowed Description of Examination: According to the rules and regulations at the veterinary thesis Weight: One total mark is given for the thesis and the seminar with the main emphasis on the written component. 7-point scale, external examiner | ||||||||||||||
| Requirement for Attending Exam | A course report is submitted | ||||||||||||||
| Organisation of Teaching | Based on project-work with populations from or in the veterinary contexts. Consequently, a major part of the course period will be outside the university. Traditional one-way lectures will be the exception. | ||||||||||||||
| Block Placement | Block 3 Week Structure: Outside schedule Block 4 Week Structure: Outside schedule Joint excercises will primarily be in the middle of the course in April | ||||||||||||||
| Language of Instruction | English | ||||||||||||||
| No Credit Points With | None overlapping. Meat hygiene can be taken in parallel | ||||||||||||||
| Optional Prerequisites | 300024 Dif. Farm Animal Health and Production, module 1 See election criteria in the MSC program in veterinary medicine | ||||||||||||||
| Restrictions | 25. Forbeholdt veterinærstuderende. | ||||||||||||||
| Course Content | |||||||||||||||
| The course is a so-called 'elite-module' because extra supervision is allocated. It is organized in 3 largely sequential modules, each approx. 7.5 ECTS. MODULE 1: Identification of project context, project planning and data collection (February-March) The RAPH Ph.D. training program and relevant research-groups will provide a list of relevant options and supervisors. This project work will be individual or in groups. Students are encouraged to do project-work in groups. MODULE 2: Workshops on theory and tools (see objectives) based on the students' preliminary plans This module will in particular involve the international teachers and establishment of relations to the relevant Ph.D. students because it is integrated with RAPH-activities. This module will be joint sessions with all students. MODULE 3: Analysis and scientific writing This phase may already commence during module 2. The projects must be based on an animal-related population and the results must be targeted at concrete decision support. In principle any animal species can be selected given these constraints. Populations/contexts can be high-tech commercial livestock herds (probably most suited), groups of herds in national health programs, zoonotic outbreak-management (animal-human interaction), dog kennel in the pharmaceutical industry, horse training facility or similar. The selection of population/project context must be approved by the course management no later than during the first week of the course. Students are encouraged to suggest plans prior to the course. During the course, we will support and promote efforts of the students to spend at least 25% of the time at a foreign R&D unit. However, the principal supervisor of each student will always be a faculty member at LIFE. Quality assurance and certification The quality of the ordinary veterinary education is certified, in the sense that all veterinarians educated at LIFE automatically will be licensed as practicing veterinarians in Denmark. This license will allow them to practice veterinary medicine in all EU countries. This elite-module will comply strictly to the rules at LIFE for the students' course evaluations and subsequent follow-up. This elite-module has the following mechanisms/tools to ensure quality and continuous improvement/innovation: . Integration of the learning process with the end-users in the industry and specialized veterinary practice will ensure relevance of the teaching program. . Applying the quality criteria for publication in peer-reviewed publications to the products of the teaching will be a direct and objective indicator of scientific quality and academic level. Strong international contribution to teaching and supervision will ensure an international outlook and will contribute to a continuous improvement of the program. The Danish livestock industry, the veterinary authorities and the Danish Veterinary Association will support and promote the elite-module. The support comprises access to competent teachers, specific expertise, infrastructure, technicians, and data files in the organizations. In addition, these partners will facilitate contacts to production units (e.g. herd owners, veterinary practice, abattoirs) and dissemination of the research projects produced by the students. Because the industry, including veterinary practice, is directly involved in the project-based teaching, they can ensure an appropriate focus on needs of the industry, the stake holders and the quality of the teaching. Similarly, the students will realize the needs of the industry directly through the involvement in real-life problems. Due to the direct involvement of the industry, including veterinary practice, we have a tool to monitor the quality and efficiency of the program, and the students' satisfaction with the teaching. Indicators of quality can be derived directly from the input to publications and application of the results of the project work in the industry. | |||||||||||||||
| Teaching and learning Methods | |||||||||||||||
| The teaching principle is primarily exemplary, based on project work with large animal-related populations. These projects provide high quality data and complex real-life decision problems. The students will become able to handle all major types of animal populations, if they can handle the examples chosen here. The elite-module will be integrated with the Research School for Animal Production and Health (RAPH) that aims at training Ph.D. students in an interdisciplinary context. This will ensure links to Ph.D. projects, Ph.D. students and the supervisors, with the training of elite-module students. The aim of this integration with RAPH is to expose students in the elite-module to the international research community, which might inspire them to formulate industry-relevant Research and Development (R&D) projects after graduation. The teachers/supervisors will be Danish and foreign university faculty members and experts from industry. They serve primarily as learning facilitators/coaches and sources of expert knowledge. There will be minimum use of one-way presentations. Supervision will be individually or in groups with a maximum of four (4) students. Each student will be assigned at least one faculty member (principal supervisor) and one international expert. Teachers (supervisors) from industry, including veterinary practice, will be associated whenever relevant. Teaching and requirements at examinations will be based on tasks that are aligned with R&D-functions needed in the livestock industry. That is, teaching principles, teaching material, and supervision/teaching are linked closely together and to the objectives of the course. The student must apply the acquired competences in a course report that must demonstrate that the student can apply or interpret the knowledge and skills obtained in the training course. The main quality criterion is that the quality of key components corresponds to work published in a peer-reviewed veterinary or animal science journal. | |||||||||||||||
| Learning Outcome | |||||||||||||||
| The aim is to make the students able to provide research-based solutions to complex health problems concerning animal populations, based on existing or new data. The course will also aim at integrating the training of research-minded veterinary students with the Ph.D.-training conducted at Research School for Animal Production and Health (RAPH). This integration will facilitate future recruitment of Ph.D. students and increase the research competences of the Ph.D. students. After the course, the candidates must be very attractive to the livestock industry, to specialized private business (i.e., specialized veterinary practice), or governmental institutions for R&D-functions in an interdisciplinary setting. At the end of the course the students will have: Knowledge to: * Reflect on the theory and ethics of science in relation to a concrete context within population-oriented veterinary R&D-tasks. * Reflect on the principles of disease pathogenesis in populations, disease control, health, health promotion, including the concepts of risk (analysis, management and communication), causality and animal health economics. Skills to: * Write papers in a format that is acceptable for scientific journals * Manage scientific information * Manage R&D-projects * Apply the principles of risk (analysis, management and communication) * Apply the principles for study design (experimental and observational) * Manage data from R&D-projects * Apply multilevel statistical models and similar tools suited to handle health related data. * Apply principles of (herd) health and production management, including interpretation of results from diagnostic laboratories, animal health economics tools and decision support systems, with application of simulation models. Competences: * Contribute significantly to a R&D-project including the study design, planning, conduct and analysis of an animal population, in a way that is ethically and scientifically sound, and contribute significantly to the preparation of a research article that can be published and implemented. * To contribute actively to practice-oriented R&D-tasks that contribute to decision support, innovation, and research concerning health promotion in animal-related populations in high-tech commercial contexts. The elite-graduate will be distinctly better qualified than licensed doctors of veterinary medicine with respect to: * Admission to a Ph.D. program * The delivery of additional specialized tasks related to research and health promotion in animal populations rather than in the delivery of only traditional individual animal care, disease treatment and laboratory work. | |||||||||||||||
| Course Literature | |||||||||||||||
| Depends on the individual students' projects. Search for and selection of relevant litterature are core skils to be developed in the course. | |||||||||||||||
| Course Coordinator | |||||||||||||||
| Carsten Enevoldsen, ce@life.ku.dk, Department of Large Animal Sciences/Production and Health, Phone: 353-32683 | |||||||||||||||
| Study Board | |||||||||||||||
| Study Committee V | |||||||||||||||
| Work Load | |||||||||||||||
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