Corinne UngerSustainable Minerals Institute
Corinne Unger (BSc Dip Ed Dip Geoscience), has more than 30 years’ experience in land rehabilitation, 28 of those years in mine rehabilitation and closure planning mostly in industry but also in government, consulting and research. A Churchill Fellowship in 2009 enabled Corinne to undertake research on leading practice abandoned mine rehabilitation and post-mining land use in Europe and Canada. She began working part time at SMI in March 2011 with a focus on managing mining legacies and more recently on knowledge management for coal mine rehabilitation and closure. Corinne is Chief Investigator for the ACARP funded MRC-wiki project.
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Abstract
“MRC-Wiki” – a mine rehabilitation and closure knowledge management tool for coal mine practitioners.
This paper is based on original research exploring the ways to facilitate retention of mine rehabilitation and closure knowledge for Central Queensland coal mines. The research project was developed in response to the loss of valuable knowledge gained over several decades as practitioners left the region and the workforce. Mining boom and downturn cycles have exacerbated the loss of knowledge due to rapid changes at mines in this region. Some of the most experienced rehabilitation practitioners in central Queensland, especially, are approaching the end of their careers and want their valuable, and often less formal knowledge, retained. This research has been undertaken in cooperation with the Central Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Group (CQMRG) with the following objectives: to guide users to appropriate knowledge, decision support and other management tools already available through ACARP and other sources; capture the (less formal) long-term knowledge of rehabilitation practitioners and stakeholders in a rehabilitation manual and discussion forum format; encourage discussion and ensure the accessibility of this unpublished knowledge in perpetuity and be able to be maintained by industry groups like CQMRG, over time. The research team found that an innovative Mine Rehabilitation and Closure wiki (MRC-Wiki) was the most suitable tool to retain the wealth of practitioner knowledge that has accumulated over the last 20+ years. This paper describes both the methodological process of developing the Wiki and distils learnings from knowledge management theory and this project that have potential to inform knowledge management in other regions, commodities and disciplines, and thus have a far wider application.
Study Authors: Unger, C. J., Bond, C. J., Baumgartl T., Glenn, V. and Sabourenkov, P. Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Environment Centres, The University of Queensland
“MRC-Wiki” – a mine rehabilitation and closure knowledge management tool for coal mine practitioners.
This paper is based on original research exploring the ways to facilitate retention of mine rehabilitation and closure knowledge for Central Queensland coal mines. The research project was developed in response to the loss of valuable knowledge gained over several decades as practitioners left the region and the workforce. Mining boom and downturn cycles have exacerbated the loss of knowledge due to rapid changes at mines in this region. Some of the most experienced rehabilitation practitioners in central Queensland, especially, are approaching the end of their careers and want their valuable, and often less formal knowledge, retained. This research has been undertaken in cooperation with the Central Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Group (CQMRG) with the following objectives: to guide users to appropriate knowledge, decision support and other management tools already available through ACARP and other sources; capture the (less formal) long-term knowledge of rehabilitation practitioners and stakeholders in a rehabilitation manual and discussion forum format; encourage discussion and ensure the accessibility of this unpublished knowledge in perpetuity and be able to be maintained by industry groups like CQMRG, over time. The research team found that an innovative Mine Rehabilitation and Closure wiki (MRC-Wiki) was the most suitable tool to retain the wealth of practitioner knowledge that has accumulated over the last 20+ years. This paper describes both the methodological process of developing the Wiki and distils learnings from knowledge management theory and this project that have potential to inform knowledge management in other regions, commodities and disciplines, and thus have a far wider application.
Study Authors: Unger, C. J., Bond, C. J., Baumgartl T., Glenn, V. and Sabourenkov, P. Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Environment Centres, The University of Queensland
Presentation
“MRC-Wiki” – a mine rehabilitation and closure knowledge management tool for coal mine practitioners.
Presented on 31st March 2017 at the 7th Annual Best Practice Ecological Rehabilitation of Mined Lands Conference (2017)
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