future mining engineers – educational development strategy

Future Mining Engineers Educational Development Strategy

M Scoble1 and D Laurence2

ABSTRACTSignificant developments in future mining systems, technology and bestpractices are emerging that are driven by issues relating to humanresources, competitiveness, environmental and social responsibility,within the dynamics of globalisation. It is proposed that the definition ofthe role and attributes of the mining engineer in the mine life cycle needsto be viewed more holistically in the face of increasingly more diverseand complex responsibilities. These developments are motivating theneed to consider a fresh approach to mining education and training at alllevels for industry.

A growing diversity and complexity of professional responsibilities isextending the mining engineers broadly based skill set and reinforcingthe need to play a central role within increasingly interdisciplinary teams.On the other hand, the imminent new technologies that will transform themining process are prompting the assumption that more focused andspecialised skill sets will be needed. A way forward is suggested thatwould first define a blueprint for the future mine, as an attempt tocharacterise the systems architecture, processes and organisation of thenext generation mine. This can be the basis for assessing the nature of theworkforce and distribution of responsibilities, from which can be inferredthe skills and training requirements. In the context of the miningengineer, the paper explores how understanding such future requirementswill enable more proactive development of a strategy for educationaldevelopment. The paper then concludes by considering issues and lessonslearned from some recent mining educational development initiativesunderway in Australia and Canada that are shaping significant change.

INTRODUCTION

Ten years ago the Minerals Council of Australia published Backfrom the brink Reshaping minerals tertiary education(Minerals Council of Australia, 1998). Without changes, it wassuggested that Australias minerals education could be:

pushed over the brink of viability as a longterm supplier of the graduates that Australianindustry will need in years ahead.

The paper pointed out:

graduates often have a poor understanding ofhow their theoretical knowledge can be appliedin practice. They also tend to be unaware of theimportance of communication and people skills,how business decisions are made, OHS, thedemands of life in (often remote) operationalsettings and other significant issues facingindustry

and:

undergraduate education should delivertechnical excellence in the fundamentalprinciples of science and engineering, anunderstanding of broader issues facing theindustry and the ability to continue to learn.

This discussion paper was the catalyst for change in miningengineering education in Australia and one of its tangibleoutcomes is Mining Education Australia, the joint venturebetween the top three Australian mining schools. This and otherinitiatives have eased the supply shortages in terms of quantityand quality but challenges will need to be met in the future.

The world of mining has changed dramatically in the past tenyears with the economic development of China and India; recordcommodity prices; stability in some resource-rich countries(eg South-East Asia); instability in others (eg Africa); greaterrecognition of the need for community engagement; and so on.Thus it is timely to analyse and attempt to describe what skillsets a mining engineer needs to thrive in this dramaticallychanging environment.

The industry has expressed a greater commitment to newtechnology and practices as part of the quest towards improvedhealth and safety, competitiveness, sustainable development andcorporate social responsibility. Mining engineers who arestrongly grounded in enabling technologies and systemsengineering, as well as in change management and innovation,will be key prerequisites to success in technology transfer andprocess transformation for the next generation mine. New miningsystems technology, as well as process adaptation for bestpractices, in the hands of a next generation of innovative miningengineers offers the solution to addressing the new interactiveissues that are emerging, for example, related to globalisation,human resources, automation and control, water and energyissues and climate change.

The current issues in recruitment and retention of humanresources, compounded by the ongoing global mining boom anddemographics-based HR crisis, have prompted significant recentinitiatives, although these have yet to look too far in the future. InCanada this has resulted in the formation of the Mining IndustryHuman Resources Council (2008), funded by the Canadiangovernment. The council collaborates with all communities ofinterest (employers, educators, organised labour, Aboriginalgroups and others) to address human resources challenges facingthe Canadian minerals and metals sector. A related initiative inAustralia is the Mining Industry Skills Centre (2008). This hasa vision to create a one stop shop for both industry andgovernment on all matters relating to the training anddevelopment of a sustainable workforce to meet the miningindustrys current and future needs. The HR crisis also underlinesthe priority need to address mining education, not only from thepoint of view of product quantity but also quality, relevance andalignment. Re-engineering the mining education process isgetting underway in some schools and recognised to be achallenge that needs to be shared together by industry andacademia.

Mining engineering curricula in Australia historically evolvedby focusing on the academic requirements associated with amine managers statutory certificate of competency (Laurenceand Galvin, 2006). It is no longer adequate to just educatemining engineers in how to design and operate mines safely.There remains a necessity for a strong focus on these skills, butthis potentially risks the exclusion of other knowledge and skillsets which are becoming increasingly relevant. The expectationsof the capabilities of the future mining engineer, on the part ofboth industry and society, are shifting in response to the need toaccommodate the dynamics of technology advances as well aschanging real world issues and the paradigm of sustainablemining.

First International Future Mining Conference Sydney, NSW, 19 - 21 November 2008 237

1. Professor and R E Hallbauer Chair in Mining Engineering,Department of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia,5th Floor, 6350 Stores Road, Vancouver BC V6T 1Z4, Canada.Email: [email protected]

2. FAusIMM, Director Postgraduate Studies and InternationalDevelopment, School of Mining Engineering, University of NewSouth Wales, Sydney NSW 2052. Email: [email protected]

A future mine blueprint would attempt to clearly show theintegration of the next generation mining systems architecture,technologies and processes. If this next generation mine can becharacterised reliably then it should be a basis for identifying notonly the human capital, in terms of the distribution of employeesand work responsibilities, but also what then can be inferred asthe skill set and capability requirements. This in turn should be amodel on which to construct an educational developmentstrategy. It seems logical that industry would be best served byrelating future mining systems to sustainability drivers andtechnology advances. There is then an ability to account forhuman resources implications in its strategic planning. From theuniversity viewpoint, it is important to plan more strategicallyand anticipate the future mining needs through proactiveeducational development.

A HOLISTIC VIEW OF MINING ENGINEERING

A more holistic view of mining engineering, based upon a strongframework of more diverse systems for mine design and planningneeds to be promoted. It is important to anchor the core systemsof mining, mineral processing and geology in the context ofmining engineering. The core systems traditionally bringtogether the interaction between the mineral resources, miningand processing systems. Other engineering and applied sciencecontributions support the technologies and practices that accountfor equipment, power, water, etc. Also, it is becomingincreasingly important to recognise the interdependence thatexists between environmental and social factors that now need tobe related to traditional technical and economic factors in minedesign, planning and management (see Figure 1). It appears to besensible that this more holistic framework could be rooted in aparadigm of sustainable mineral resources development. Theneed to account for social licence, environmental and socialimpact assessment, regulatory and permitting constraints, riskassessment and management in mine design and planning isbecoming paramount. Also, the concept of the mine lifecycle needs to be reflected in that framework, encompassingexploration, development, construction, production, rehabilitation/reclamation and closure. In this context, the mining engineerneeds to become even more an integrator of diverse skill setsand best practices, and a coordinator of an increasinglyinterdisciplinary team. The management of projects and peoplebased upon strong leadership and social intelligence arefundamental to success in this role.

INFUSION OF OTHER DISCIPLINES INTOMINING ENGINEERING

Interdisciplinary collaboration can leverage synergies betweenuniversity researchers and teachers that can enhance the capacity

of relatively insular and small mining schools. The last decadehas seen a movement in mining education and research towardsmore interdisciplinary collaboration to focus more diverseexpertise on issues such as environmental stewardship andsustainable development. History, however, shows us somenotable contributions from outside the mining discipline, forexample, in mine ventilation, explosives and blasting.

UBC Mining led an application to the Canadian governmentfor research funding in 1997 to form a Canadian Network forSustainable Mining, involving several universities integratingexpertise in mining, environmental and social sciences. In somerespects it was ahead of its time. Persistence over subsequentyears met with significant successes but not on the scale of alarge national network. Mining research (and education) has notpolitically been on Canadian government radar screens and ourbranch of engineering has few stellar researchers to competewith the more appealing life scientists. That initial dedication tointerdisciplinarity, however, grew into an independent modelcentred on the UBC campus in mining sustainability. A coregroup of professors and postgraduate students interacted tocoalesce into what came to be called the Sustainability WorkingGroup (SWG). This grew into a group of researchers,government and industry practitioners who shared a dedication toinformal collaboration in a flexible learning mode. Membersoriginating from diverse disciplines were needed to supportcredibility and the required range in capacity. This model built alegacy of capacity to relate all aspects of mining engineering tosustainability. Our aim for the mining school through SWG wasto develop the capacity to integrate sustainability principleswidely into our teaching, in parallel with a world-class programof research. The model required that students from other relevantdisciplines as well as mining engineering are infused to add thediversity to fuel the growth of the initiative. Considerable workwent in to developing the commitment of academics from otherdisciplines at UBC and other universities to join the graduatestudent supervisory teams and to fill critical gaps. The last linkwas to bridge to industrial, government and NGO partners inwhat proved to be a collaborative, interactive learning mechanism(Costa and Scoble, 2006). In addition to high-quality research,the postgraduates from these non-engineering points of originhave been very successful in gaining excellent employmentopportunities in mining and consulting companies, academia andgovernment. The mining school has also greatly benefited fromthe legacy of their intellectual capital. These efforts continue toaccount for around 20 per cent of the 85 total postgraduatestudent population in the mining engineering department.

Similarly, the University of New South Wales (UNSW)School of Mining Engineering has hosted a sustainable miningresources research group since 2000. Students working in this

238 Sydney, NSW, 19 - 21 November 2008 First International Future Mining Conference

M SCOBLE AND D LAURENCE

GEOSCIENCES

ENGINEERING

SCIENCES

ENVIRONMENTAL

SCIENCES

MANAGEMENT

SCIENCES

MINING

SCIENCES

SOCIAL

SCIENCES

MINERAL

RESOURCES

MANAGEMENT

OHS

GEOMECHANICS

VENTILATION

WATER, ENERGY

ENVIRONMENTAL

& SOCIAL

SCIENCES

GROUND

EXCAVATION,

MATERIALS

HANDLING

MINERAL

PROCESSING

POLICY AND

LAW

MINE

LIFE CYCLE:

DESIGN ---

PLANNING &

OPERATION

ASSET

MANAGEMENT

FIG 1 - A more holistic view of mining engineering.

area generally have prior education in non-mining engineeringdisciplines. Research areas include mine closure, risk and safetymanagement, sustainable development indicators in mining,sustainable mining in developing countries and so on. Activecollaboration is taking place both within Australia and moreparticular with mining schools in India, China and South-EastAsia. The school also hosts postgraduate coursework programs inmining engineering, designed principally for those in the miningindustry who wish to pursue mining engineering careers withouthaving to complete a full four year undergraduate degree orthose who need a mining qualification to satisfy the MineManagers Certificate educational requirements or simply otherprofessionals looking to enter the mining industry. Thesealternative pathways to mining engineering have grownenormously in popularity over the past five years.

FUTURE MINE BLUEPRINT

The mining engineer designs and plans the systems architectureof a mine through its life cycle and assumes a range ofresponsibilities for its development and operation to post-closure.Figure 2 demonstrates a classification of these areas ofresponsibility and reflects the observation of the diversity andcomplexity of the required personal skill sets, tools andknowledge of best practices. Three classes of responsibility areshown: social, environmental and technological. Legislation,which in itself is a moving target, will often determine the natureof these responsibilities. Although the mining engineer isrequired to possess a reasonable professional competency to dealwith responsibilities in all three of these areas, assisted by theintegration of interdisciplinary specialists, the significant level ofproficiency needs to remain in the core, mining technologicalresponsibilities. These interdisciplinary specialists for industry,for example in community relations, law, environmental sciences,civil, electrical and mechanical engineering may exist on minesite, in corporate headquarters or in internal or externalconsulting groups. The future mine is likely to see an increasingdependency on interdisciplinary support within the responsibilityareas shown.

The current human resources crisis has created a dire shortageof experienced specialists but this will be compounded further bythe need for a new breed of specialists as new technologiesbecome implemented. The implementation of automation andcontrol in both underground and surface mining systems is aparticularly significant example, following on from the wellestablished advances in process control in mineral processingplants. Underground automated drill-blast-transport systems inhard rock mines, particularly in block caving systems, are on theverge of widespread operational implementation (albeit aftermore than 20 years of sporadic research). The underground coalindustry faces renewed advances in automated excavation, anti-collision and process control technologies. Autonomous truckhaulage is imminent in surface mines. Having the professionalexpertise to deal with these forms of excavation and transportautomation, in addition to further mineral processing andenvironmental impact mitigation technologies will test the abilityto take competitive advantage of the new technological advances.The same could be said for communications and informationsystems technologies in facilitating mine wide informationsystems for enhanced production planning and control. Thesetechnological changes to the operational environment are in thearea of the core responsibilities for the mining engineer. Thereliability and cost effectiveness of such systems will impactsignificantly on the mining engineers responsibilities. Above all,the considerations of systems safety and human factors will beparamount, particularly with respect to the potential interactionbetween automated systems and the workforce.

Figure 2 demonstrates the diverse and complex challenges toeducational development for future mining. The next generationof educational programs need to generate a bachelors graduatewith the ability to understand the holistic nature of miningengineering but with three professional priorities. The firstpriority is to seek excellence in the ability to deal with the coretechnological responsibilities. The second priority is to developa fundamental understanding of the skill sets, tools andbest practices to shoulder the environmental and socialresponsibilities. The third priority it to develop personal qualities


FUTURE MINING ENGINEERS EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

CO2 Emissions-Sequestration

Water Quality-Conservation

Energy Efficiency-Power

Reclamation-Closure

Waste Management

Environmental Footprint

Ecosystem Integrity

Community Relations - Social Licence

Workplace Quality of Life

Skills & Training: Lifelong Learning

Workforce Health and Safety

In situ mining-processing

Geological reserves-grade control

Rock Fragmentation Transport

VentilationEmergency Response

Geomechanical-Hydrological Control

Asset Management

Integrated Mine-Mill Processes

Systems Safety-Human Factors

Automation & Control Systems

Minewide Information Systems

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

OPERATIONAL CONTROL

DESIGN & PLANNING

FIG 2 - Mining engineering classification of areas of responsibility.

and social intelligence, especially to gain the capability to excelin an interdisciplinary environment. The bachelors degree is thusa foundation qualification to enter the industry for the next stageof lifelong learning. That professional development will likelysee further educational and training episodes, potentiallyundertaken within industry or returning to university for graduateprograms. Companies are increasingly recognising the need toadopt this approach, not only to develop but also to retain theirhuman capital. These programs will likely continue to evolve togenerate the ability for the mining generalist to assume a form ofspecialism, for example, focusing on applied mining (such asgeostatistics, rock mechanics and blasting), environmental (suchas groundwater, tailings management and acid rock drainage),social (such as policy and regulation, community relations) ormanagement sciences.

A particular emerging challenge is how to deal with theprofessional support in-house required for implementing andmaintaining advanced technology mining systems. There appearsto be at least four routes, not necessarily mutually exclusive, tomeeting this challenge. For example, returning to the subject ofunderground mining automation, the first route is to developfurther the existing concept whereby mining engineering and/orelectro-mechanical-computer engineering undergraduates couldtake double degrees or minors. This generates a versatilegraduate with complementary strength in both fields: miningengineering and automation-robotics.

The second route would be to implement focused Mastersprograms that transition mining engineering graduates from theaforementioned mining generalist into an automated miningsystems (AMS) specialist. This is to develop a basic capacity incommunications, robotics, monitoring and control technologiesso as to ground the mining engineer in the fundamentals of suchsubject areas. The emphasis in such development would be togain professional capacity to manage the operation andmaintenance of automated mine production systems and theirassociated personnel, legitimately taking responsibility for theirproduction performance and systems safety. The mine will stillbe dependent upon the specialist automation engineer andtechnician (SAET), but that person will be focused on thearchitecture, hardware and software infrastructure, in termsof technical integrity. SAET personnel would be recruitedfrom conventional electro-mechanical-computer technologybackgrounds. In contrast, the AMS specialist should be able torelate mining production performance parameters (eg rock massbehaviour, fragmentation, grade control, production rates and costs)to technology performance and risk (eg availability, utilisation andmaintainability of the automated mining system). Communicationsand teamwork between the AMS and SAET personnel would becritical.

A third route would be to recruit SAET personnel with electro-mechanical-computer technology backgrounds and transitionthem through a diploma or masters in mining engineering with aproduction focus. Finally, a fourth route that might supplementthe other three, would be to facilitate distance educationand short course programs to enable mine site personnel tocross-train and develop capacity, integrated into employment.These programs would be dependent upon automation expertisebeing available from electro-mechanical-computer educationalspecialists with some mining experience.

MINING EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Canada, Australia and other developed countries

Mining schools globally have traditionally seen recruitment andsurvival at risk during industry down cycles, for example at theturn of 2000 many North American, as well as Australian schoolswere close to extinction (Scoble, 2003). Many are now in a stateof renaissance, after decades of being the Cinderella on Campus.At UBC a concerted development effort has raised mining

student recruitment significantly as well as industry and B Cgovernment financial support to form the N B Keevil Institute forMining Engineering (2008). Its staff are currently working withboth the students and its Industry Advisory Committee toreappraise its curriculum to meet a new definition for the futuremine and its mining engineer.

Mining Education Australia, the national school of miningengineering is a formal partnership between the CurtinUniversity of Technology, the University of New South Wales,and the University of Queensland, supported by the MineralCouncil of Australias (MCA) Minerals Tertiary EducationCouncil (MTEC). In the words of the MCAs Chief Executive,Mr Mitchell H Hooke:

developing the collaborative universityprogram is part of the MCAs nationallycoordinated strategy for the minerals industry toovercome the well-documented global shortageof professionals and tradespeople. MiningEducation Australia is being designed tostrengthen our alliance with Australias premiersuppliers of mining engineering graduates andhelp alleviate the skills crisis by providing adependable source of well qualified miningengineers into the next decade (Hooke, 2005).

MEA in a nutshell provides a common curriculum for the finaltwo years of mining engineering education across the threeinstitutions, which represent the three largest mining states. It isnow in its second year and overall, the program has succeeded inits goal of providing the best education for its participatingstudents of any mining program in the world. Initiatives includeproject-based learning in many of the subjects, elimination ofexams, group work and peer reviews.

The general engineering fraternity at universities worldwidehas been evaluating the quality of their educational experienceprovided to students in recent years. In a new approach tomeasuring Australasian higher education quality, a survey wasconducted in 2007 by the Australian Council for EducationalResearch (ACER) on student engagement, defined as studentsinvolvement with activities and conditions likely to generatehigh-quality learning. This built upon an earlier North AmericanNational Survey of Student Engagement. Measures of studentengagement are aimed to provide information about anindividuals intrinsic involvement with their learning, and theextent to which they are making use of available educationalopportunities (ACER, 2008). The survey used six scales in aquestionnaire, designed to tap a range of what were consideredto be key educational Performance parameters that relate toengagement, see Table 1. These scales demonstrate the increasedefforts on the part of academia to understand students and toenhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their educationalefforts.



Scale Description

Academic challenge Extent to which expectations-assessmentschallenge students to learn

Active learning Students efforts to actively construct theirknowledge

Student and staffinteractions

Level and nature of students contact withteaching staff

Enriching educationalexperiences

Participation in broadening educationalactivities

Supportive learningenvironment

Feelings of legitimation within the universitycommunity

Work integratedlearning

Integration of employment-focused workexperiences into study

TABLE 1Six scales of student engagement (ACER, 2008).

One ACER scale, work integrated learning, has been seen inCanada to significantly reinforce the university learningexperience through the implementation of a cooperativeeducation (COOP) model. Students are formally tutored in workrelated skill sets by a central campus COOP professional groupwhich also coordinates successively more responsible four monthwork terms spent in industry. The UBC mining engineeringCOOP bachelors degree involves eight academic terms and fivework terms, resulting in a five year degree period (UBCEngineering Co-op, 2008). The value of such carefully managedwork term experience, however, is significant in terms ofpersonal and professional development.

Many engineering academics are looking to the mastersdegree as becoming the professional engineering degree of thefuture because of difficulties of cramming enough of the diversecourses into the bachelor degree curriculum over four years(Galloway, 2007). (The mining engineering undergraduatedegree at UBC like many others was reduced from five to fouryears in length in the 1990s.) Other strategies include appendingblocks of courses in relevant disciplines onto a miningengineering degree, for example as a minor in management, or aspecialist area such as a minor in automation and control, orenvironmental management, or community relations. Anotherstrategy, as discussed earlier, may be to recruit engineers orscientists from advanced technology areas who themselves havecompleted minors in mining engineering. UBC offers acertificate in mining studies, aimed to enable cross-training, laterin the career to acquire new skill sets for upward or lateralmobility in a professional career (Scoble, 2007). The certificateis based on a blend of internet-based courses and conventionalshort courses (Infomine Inc, 2008). This enables the integrationof learning into employment patterns. The recognition of thevalue of lifelong learning in developing the mines human capitalis beginning to be appreciated, as companies begin to promoteprofessional development opportunities with employees. Thisprocess will likely gain momentum as the future mine transformsinto a learning organisation (Scoble, 2007).

Mining schools in the developing world

The context of tertiary minerals education in many developingcountries differs significantly from that of Australia and Canada.In India, for example, numerous mining schools graduate largenumbers of students. Anecdotally, it is believed that most ofthese graduates do not enter the mining industry, preferring togain jobs in the information technology or similar industries. InChile and Peru, the expanding mining industry is able to provideemployment for most of its graduates. In China, there are largenumbers of both schools and students but again many students donot enter the industry. Opportunities exist for mining schools inCanada and Australia, for example, to admit the best of thesestudents at a postgraduate level to enable the student to:

be exposed to state-of-the-art mining technologies aspracticed in two of the most efficient mining countries,

learn in English, establish a network of other professionals, and enable these students to return to their careers with a global

outlook as future mine and general managers.

UniversityIndustry relations

This paper has addressed the skill set required of future miningengineers. It needs to be remembered that the universities andmining schools therein are where mining engineers develop thoseskills. Without motivated and talented academics teaching theseskills they will not be transferred to the mining engineer ofthe future mine. The outcomes of Back from the Brink bearrepeating:

Research is not severable from issues surroundingeducation Research has a significant role in:

promoting higher quality undergraduateeducation,

developing the international standing ofuniversities,

establishing academic nurseries, and transferring up to date technology to

undergraduates.

Furthermore, it stated that universities must reward behaviour:

aimed at placing a priority on the developmentof teaching excellence in tertiary education.

In Australia, mining academics have struggled to obtainresearch funding from government and especially in the case ofnon-coal projects, from industry. Mining engineers generally areattracted to a career in academia if they can pursue their researchinterests. Furthermore, universities are increasingly promotingstaff predominantly on the basis of research performance. Withoutfunding, the research will not be carried out, promotions will nothappen and the talented staff will either leave the profession or notbe attracted to it in the first place. Industry and government needto support research capacity in the mining schools. Undoubtedly, itis sensible for a mining company to seek the best world-classresearch capacity on campus to undertake a research task toaddress its R&D priorities. This capacity may well be locatedoutside the mining school on that campus. There is a host ofexcellent research, however, that can be very successful in moreapplied areas that would be extremely supportive to a miningschool. Industry has a role to play in fostering research in andaround mines that generate the highly qualified people that will bethe next generation of employees or academics. It also shouldconsider investing directly in mining schools in order to ensureoptimum graduate recruitment: high quality graduates that arealigned with industry needs (Scoble, 2008).

CONCLUSION

The Minerals Council of Australia challenged the status quo withits discussion paper, Back from the brink Reshaping mineralstertiary education. It was a catalyst that enabled the industry tofulfil its requirements for quality mining engineers in the periodsince its publication. However, future mining engineers willrequire a fresh combination of interdisciplinary technical andsocial skill sets, based upon sound knowledge of technology andleading practice. Equally important, this must also be alignedwith personal characteristics that bring innovation, ethics,teamwork, leadership and a passion for mining. Looking to thefuture, it seems sensible to pursue the ability to understand thecharacteristics of the future mine and to start to develop a longerterm vision of a strategy for mining engineering schools toprepare for the future expectations of industry and society.

Mining is a very distinctive profession that will undoubtedlybe transformed in the coming decades. An important task will beto reshape mining education to align with the changing needsthat primarily appear to be driven by the dynamics oftechnological advances and sustainable development. It will alsobe critical to reinvigorate the human and physical resources thatserve the educational process within our mining schools. This isa collaborative task for academics, alumni, industry andgovernment together. Also, there is no reason why educationalcollaboration cannot involve global schools to the benefit of all.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of studentsand staff at the University of New South Wales and the


FUTURE MINING ENGINEERS EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

University of British Columbia. The views expressed in thispaper are personal and should not be construed to necessarilyrepresent the formal viewpoints of the universities.

REFERENCESACER, 2008. Attracting, engaging and retaining: New conversations

about learning, 2007 Australasian student engagement report,Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

Costa, S and Scoble, M, 2006. A multidisciplinary approach to integratingsustainable development into mining engineering, J CleanerProduction, 14:366-373.

Galloway, P D, 2007. The 21st-century engineer: A proposal forengineering education reform [online], Civil Engineering Magazine,November. Available from: .

Hooke, M, 2005. Industry/academia to address skills shortages: Miningeducation Australia, media release [online], Minerals Council ofAustralia. Available from: .

IIED, 2002. Breaking New Ground, Report of Mining, Minerals andSustainable Development Project (Earthscan Publications: London).

Infomine Inc, 2008. UBC Certificate in Mining Studies [online].Available from: .

Laurence, D C and Galvin, J M, 2006. Educating future mine managers Maintaining the gene pool, in Proceedings International MineManagement Conference, pp 271-280 (The Australasian Institute ofMining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Minerals Council of Australia, 1998. Back from the brink Reshapingminerals tertiary education, discussion paper.

Mining Industry Human Resources Council, 2008. Home page. Availablefrom: .

Mining Industry Skills Centre, 2008. Home page. Available from:.

N B Keevil Institute for Mining Engineering, 2008. Home page. Availablefrom: .

Scoble, M, 2003. The crisis in mining education, presented to AnnualConference, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada,Toronto.

Scoble, M, 2007. Moving the mine towards a learning organization,presented to Annual Meeting, American Society of MiningEngineers, Denver.

Scoble, M, 2008. Linking a mining school with industry, presented toAnnual Conference, Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy,Edmonton.

UBC Engineering Co-op, 2008. Home page. Available from: .



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