IOA Education and Training is pleased to be able to announce and welcome the new Diploma Laboratory venue in the Middle East.

IOA Education and Training is pleased to be able to announce and welcome the new Diploma Laboratory venue in the Middle East. 

For the past few years, a substantial proportion of Diploma candidates have been from overseas and the IOA seeks both to maintain and preferably, to increase this number.

An obstacle for many overseas Diploma candidates is the need to travel to the UK or Dublin to participate in the classes required for the laboratory module.

Dublin has tended to be favoured over Liverpool since the classes are held over a four-day block in January, whereas Liverpool requires two two-day trips in November and February respectively.

During a meeting between Graham Parry (Vice-President for Groups and Branches) and Paul Schwartz (Technical Director of the Dubai Acoustic Research Laboratory (DARL)) in March 2018 to discuss the inauguration of a Middle East chapter of the IOA, the idea was initiated that DARL could be used for Diploma laboratory classes, thereby offering candidates from the Middle East in particular, considerable savings in time and in the cost of travel.

Accreditation

Paul followed this up in October 2018, by finding out what was needed to arrange for accreditation at DARL for delivery of the Diploma laboratory classes. As a result, Gary Seiffert, the Diploma laboratory examiner and tutor for the Diploma laboratories in Liverpool, visited DARL at the end of November 2018 to check out facilities and tutors.

Gary reported back positively and thanks to the efforts of Gary and Gerald Stewart at DARL, experiments and notes were prepared to enable the first cohort of six students (shown in the photographs) to take laboratory classes at DARL in January 2019.

Last year, DARL delivered seven of the eight laboratory activities used at Liverpool.  The eighth, on vibration, was offered as ‘demonstration only’ this time but will be available for ‘hands-on’ activity this year. Nevertheless, given the short time scale in which everything has been achieved, congratulations are deserved all round.

IOA Education Manager, Professor Keith Attenborough HonFIOA, reports.

First published in the IOA Acoustics Bulletin March April 2019.