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Faculties

Animal welfare in veterinary education at NMBU

Animal welfare and applied ethology are central to veterinary education at NMBU. Professor Andrew M. Janczak coordinates the mandatory course VET353.

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  • Animal welfare is a core subject in veterinary education

    Animal welfare is a core subject in the veterinary program at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, NMBU. The foundational theories, methods, and frameworks in this field are taught together in the mandatory course VET353 Animal Welfare, which forms a basis for students' further education. The course provides all veterinary students with a common, research-based foundation for assessing animal welfare, behavior, and health. This knowledge is crucial for providing comprehensive patient care, as veterinarians have a professional and ethical responsibility to prevent suffering and identify welfare problems in animals as early as possible. In addition, the subject gives students the necessary tools to handle complex clinical dilemmas, such as difficult decisions regarding euthanasia or situations where the animal's medical needs are in direct conflict with the owner's wishes or finances. This academic foundation also enables future veterinarians to take a confident and fact-based role in the public debate on animal welfare.

  • Theoretical foundation and ethical reflection in the course

    VET353 Animal Welfare covers how animal welfare can be assessed scientifically, the relationship between behavior, environment, and welfare, welfare indicators across species, as well as Norwegian animal welfare regulation. To assess animal welfare systematically, students delve into three main approaches: the animal's biological functioning, the extent to which the animal can perform natural behaviors, and its subjective experience of positive and negative emotions. Through applied ethology, future veterinarians learn to observe natural behavior, recognize indicators of stress and anxiety, and adapt the environment to prevent abnormal behavior. The course also incorporates fundamental ethical theories, such as utilitarianism, deontology, and the recognition of the intrinsic value of animals, to provide students with a framework for ethical reflection and action.

  • Academic progression and clinical relevance

    The teaching has a clear progression throughout the study program. In the first semesters, a solid theoretical foundation is built in ethics, physiology, behavioral genetics, and theories of emotion, motivation, and learning.

    Gradually, the focus shifts toward species-specific behavior and welfare in pigs, farmed fish, poultry, small ruminants, and dogs, among others. Later in the course, the teaching is directed specifically at the veterinarian's everyday professional life through practical work with welfare protocols at the herd level and in-depth discussions of real clinical dilemmas.

    This structure serves as a direct preparation for the students' final years of study. In the last semesters, students are expected to actively apply the competence they have gained in VET353 during their clinical rotations, in external veterinary practice, and in meat inspection work. This close connection to the clinic ensures that students naturally integrate systematic welfare assessments into their future professional practice. At the same time, the course forms a central part of the academic foundation students build upon when they later in their studies conduct systematic knowledge summaries related to animal health and welfare. The eighth semester also includes laboratory animal science, a five-day module conducted in groups in parallel with the literature study.

  • Assessing learning in an age of generative AI

    As text generation becomes more effortless, written assignments alone no longer confirm that a student understands a concept. The aim in the animal welfare teaching at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, NMBU, is not to dictate students' use of AI, but to design evaluation that tests comprehension, critical thinking, and real-time reasoning. This challenge is addressed across the first, second, third, and fifth semesters through an incremental shift from static written submissions toward formats that assess live cognitive reasoning.

    The first priority is live, interactive reasoning over static submissions. In the second semester, students take part in mandatory oral group colloquiums, presenting observations, theoretical concepts, and ethical analyses while challenging peer arguments in face-to-face discussion. These are organised partly as student-led meetings and partly as teacher-attended discussions. Emphasis on interactive formats continues throughout the programme. In the third semester, students give live presentations where they reflect on their experiences from practical farm work. In the fifth semester, students take part in small-group exam presentations and discussions of complex veterinary ethical dilemmas. This session starts with relatively open questions from the teachers. Reasoning on the spot, handling unscripted follow-up questions, and navigating ethical trade-offs allow students' learning to be evaluated authentically.

    When it is used, written evaluation is linked directly to live synthesis. To connect written work with live interaction, second-semester students write a short individual report on a dilemma discussed in class, but must explicitly contrast their own view with at least two theoretical frameworks presented live by their peers during earlier colloquiums. This task thereby evaluates a combination of active listening, real-time comprehension, and synthesis during live discussion.

    Secure, analogue fallbacks complete the approach. A student with a valid absence from a live interactive session completes a supervised alternative during the same teaching period rather than a digital make-up submission, ensuring equitable and comparable evaluation of the intended learning outcomes.

    The underlying principle is that generative AI is a reason to evaluate how students think, not only what they produce.

  • Research-based teaching

    The teaching is rooted in ongoing research. Professor Janczak leads the Computational Ethology and Precision Animal Welfare Research Group, which combines classical ethology and welfare science with behavioral testing, computer vision, and machine learning. In this research, the group collaborates closely with the Section for Ethology and Animal Welfare at the Faculty of Biosciences (BIOVIT). This collaboration ensures that up-to-date research is integrated directly into the veterinary teaching in animal welfare. The course particularly benefits from rapidly growing research fields such as cognitive ethology, which investigates how animals learn, remember, and make decisions. This insight is applied to develop new and improved methods for reducing fear and handling animals in practice. Modern methods for studying animal behavior using advanced technology, sensors, and automated behavior recognition also constitute an essential part of this knowledge base.

  • Coordination across the study program

    Animal welfare is part of a broader academic framework in veterinary education. As the course coordinator for VET353 at the Section of Animal Welfare, Epidemiology and Population Medicine, Professor Janczak coordinates the teaching in animal welfare, and, in collaboration with colleagues, ensures that the content is linked to related teaching in other courses. This coordination ensures that students are offered a comprehensive and cohesive academic track. Because the field of ethology is fundamentally interdisciplinary and builds on biology, psychology, and ecology, a natural and strong bridge is created to related courses.

  • Core Animal Welfare Teaching Team

    The academic content of the animal welfare teaching is developed by a team of key contributors. Together, they define the syllabus, further develop the course, and link the teaching in VET353 to related teaching in other courses at the faculty. The academic breadth of these contributors spans from specific knowledge about learning mechanisms to an in-depth understanding of Norwegian animal welfare legislation and the veterinarian's role in practice.

  • Contributors to Animal Welfare Teaching in VET353

    The teaching in animal welfare is based on extensive collaboration. Nearly 30 people contribute to the teaching in VET353, including lecturers, clinical supervisors, and practical professional staff, both at NMBU and externally. The size of this team reflects the coordination responsibility and ensures that students receive instruction from a diverse and up-to-date academic environment. This ensures that key topics, such as animals' advanced cognitive abilities, the effects of domestication, and physiological stress mechanisms, are conveyed by subject experts.

  • Course Documentation and Sources for VET353

    The source material is the course description for VET353 Animal Welfare at NMBU, current teaching plans, and the VET353 compendium. Further course details, timetables and teaching materials are available in Canvas after you have registered for the course via StudentWeb.

  • Editorial information and academic basis

    The content on this course page is prepared, maintained, and disseminated by the course coordinator for VET353, in accordance with the independent responsibility for the content and organization of teaching under section 2-2, fourth paragraph, of the Norwegian Universities and University Colleges Act, as well as the individual right and responsibility for dissemination under section 2-2, sixth paragraph.