We want to reduce time and money wasted on technical problems, freeing up resources to be spent on answering new scientific questions. We know how time-consuming and costly it can be to get a new technique up and running in the lab. To help accelerate the process, we have developed in-depth training modules for Open Ephys users. Whether you are a beginner just starting your first experiments, or an expert looking to streamline the process of switching techniques, we can help.
Available Training: Acquiring with the Open Ephys Acquisition Board
During the intake videocall, our team will discuss your project with you, making sure you have all the equipment you need to get started and making specific recommendations for your experiments.
The remote training will center around data acquisition with the Open Ephys acquisition board and GUI (or Bonsai if more appropriate). We will cover:
How the system works
How to use the Acquisition Board
How to use the Open Ephys GUI / Bonsai to develop your own workflows tailored to your experiments.
Making sure that the board is integrated into your setup and synchronized with other devices.
Specific adaptations for your experimental design (e.g. closed-loop)
Checking and loading data for post-processing
Follow-up support
This training module includes follow-up support after the remote training sessions in case you come across new issues or questions.
As always, we want to provide what the community needs- if you have any suggestions or requests please email training [at] oeps.tech.
Coming soon: Acquiring with the UCLA Miniscope System
We are preparing to launch a new training on all things UCLA Miniscope. Write to training [at] oeps.tech if you are interested in getting it.
FAQs
Why are trainings given online?
We are offering these remotely, rather than on-site, since this:
Greatly reduces training cost by eliminating travel & accommodation: training costs cover preparation time and fees of several highly-trained scientists. We make our training as affordable as we can while still valuing our employees’ time.
Greatly reduces the C02 emission of a training session from considerable (4 flights) to almost no additional emission.
Who teaches the training modules?
Training is given by members of the Open Ephys and Open Ephys Production Site team; the people who design and produce this equipment, together with scientists who actively use these devices in the lab to make sure the information we give you is always up-to-date. Training is given and coordinated by Cecilia Herbert, PhD who has experience teaching the Cajal Training Courses on Extracellular Electrophysiology Acquisition and DeepLabCut, as well as Bonsai for the LATP Training Program, and other workshops on open source tools.
I want my lab members to learn, not just blindly use equipment.
We want that too. Our goal is to teach you how the equipment really works. We’ll leave you with workflows that make sense for you, but not without making sure that everyone involved understands the process and how to adapt these for future experiments. We encourage people to get hands-on experience and to understand equipment for themselves. However, your time isn’t free- neither are the animals, equipment and students’ time wasted when experiments go wrong for preventable reasons.
I want to learn something else instead!
In the future, we hope to expand this branch by rolling out sessions for all kinds of experiments, which means we could put together a custom training to suit your needs. Please let us know through training[at] oeps.tech.
Can you come to my institution and demo the tools or provide a workshop?
We participate in several courses and workshops throughout the year. You can read about some here. Please reach out to us through training[at] oeps.tech to make arrangements.
We like our educational and showcase activities to be interactive and open-ended so participants can experience challenges directly and attempt to answer their own questions. The goal is to provide general concepts that can be applied to different scenarios, using our open-source tools as examples to understand them. We also highlight features of open projects such as how they can be customized and how to contribute to expand them. This approach helps identify knowledge and need gaps so we can improve our training services and our tools to better serve users.