Opening the door to future training opportunities at Oxford Instruments Superconductivity with receipt of a national finalists award for excellence in technical training
Following the recent receipt of a national finalists award for excellence in technical training, Oxford Instruments Superconductivity has now been highly commended by attendees of its inaugural training school course.
Commenting on the company's 2002 finalists award, presented by the UK Skills National Training Awards in association with the Department for Education and Skills, Christine Dunford, training coordinator at Oxford Instruments, said, "We are extremely pleased to have received this award.
This demonstrates the fact that we are not only technology providers, but also educators as well, ensuring that our engineering staff are technically excellent to fully meet all of our customers' needs." The first Oxford Instruments Training School course on 'Practical aspects of magnets, cryogenics, thermometry and vacuum' has proved equally successful.
The course content, quality of training facilities and knowledge disseminated by trainers were all highly praised by attendees.
Attended by scientists from both research and industry, the modular course offered a combination of introductory, best practice and practical demonstrations in small interactive teaching groups using the latest in laboratory technology.
All attendees said that they would certainly recommend the course to others and found the practical aspects of the course particularly useful, since they related directly to their daily work.
For example, Gary Williams from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory said, "We require cryogenic environments down to 80mK in our research, so maintaining accurate ultra low temperatures are essential.
The course was particularly helpful and informative in providing me with a technology overview and taking practical thermometry measurements." Keith Proctor from Surrey University added, "As an NMR laboratory technician routinely responsible for liquid nitrogen handling, I found the safety and good practice aspects of the course extremely useful." According to Paul Rivitt, training solutions coordinator at Oxford Instruments, "We are delighted that our course has proved so successful in providing such useful insights into the associated techniques required for work in low temperature environments.
It was also extremely valuable to meet and receive useful feedback from people regularly using the type of equipment that we design and manufacture."
