The first Madagascar school for advanced users took place in Qingdao, China, on AugustĀ 8-9, 2015, and was hosted by the China University of Petroleum (East China).
The local organizers were Professor Qizhen Du (China University of Petroleum) and Dr. Gang Fang (Qingdao Institute of Marine Geology).
The school attracted more than 100 participants from 15 different organizations, including 10 Chinese universities. The program included not only lectures on different advanced topics in the use of Madagascar but also presentations from different users about their personal experiences with using Madagascar for geophysical research. The school materials are available on the website.
The school timing and location cleverly coincided with the famous Qingdao International Beer Festival, the biggest one of its kind in Asia.
From the people who responded to the after-school survey, 100% said that they would be interested in attending a Madagascar event in the future and would recommend it to their colleagues.
Some of the common positive comments: “The lectures are detailed.”, “The exercises/instructions are useful.”, “The contents are novel.”
Some of the common negative comments: “It is hard to understand English.”, “Two-day is a little bit short. It would be better to extend the training time. More practice would be better.”
The most popular suggested location for the future school is Beijing (85% of the votes) followed by Houston.