MURRAY & ROBERTS CHAIR IN INDUSTRY
EXXARO CHAIR IN XR TECHNOLOGY
LEADERSHIP 4.0 Chairholder: Prof Ina Fourie Chairholder: Prof Ronny Webber-Youngman This Chair is formally housed in the University’s Department of Information Science and will provide the following expertise:
One of the key future challenges with regard to the 4IR or Industry 4.0 is requisite leadership for the mining industry. The Department recognises that current 20th-century leadership theory is largely redundant or inappropriate for the 21st century. In view of this, several leadership initiatives and research projects for the mining industry are being conducted.
• Selecting the most appropriate XR technology for the specific application, and then designing interactions that can enable intuitive interaction with virtual environments • Conducting the extensive user testing of proposed solutions to ensure that the solutions address as many of the challenges as possible • Exposing users to the technology through creative interactive paradigms and introductions to the experiences to ensure accessibility to the technology • Educating and training the next generation of developers and researchers with real-world projects that are unique to XR technology and immersive learning in student programmes, postgraduate research projects and industry projects
To supplement the current research, the research outcomes of the M&R MELA for students has expanded the final-year students’ Mine Design curriculum to incorporate futuristic leadership aspects required by the 4IR. Research projects in leadership relevant to mining conducted in this Research Chair were the adoption technology by leaders to the safety and risk leadership required by these leaders to navigate the impact of the 4IR on South African mining companies, as well as the risk profiling of senior managers in the mining industry.
RESEARCH OUTPUT The Department’s research agenda includes improving the number of articles published in internationally accredited, peer-reviewed journals, increasing the number of citations these journal articles attract, and improving the impact factor (H-index score) of its researchers. There is also an ongoing drive for staff to apply for ratings from the NRF and to increase the output of outstanding postgraduate students.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the Department’s research output. This can largely be ascribed to many of the planned conferences being cancelled, including the international symposium of the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM) – Eurock 2020: Hard Rock Engineering – that was to be held in Norway in October 2020, for which five papers had been completed for presentation under the guidance of Prof Francois Malan, who is recognised internationally as an expert in rock engineering. Several other journal papers had also been completed, but due to the slow journal referee processes, could only be published in 2021.
DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING
The Department’s focus is also shifting to submitting more papers for publication in high-impact journals. While almost all papers published in 2020 were published in the Journal of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the focus in 2021 was to publish more papers in high-impact European journals such as Rock Mechanics
and Rock Engineering and the International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Science. A study conducted in 2018 revealed the impact factors of the typical journals for publishing rock engineering research to be as follows:
Journal
Impact factor
International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences
3.780
Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering
6.650
Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology
4.450
International Journal of Mining Science and Technology
3.903
Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
0.94
In January 2020, Prof Malan was appointed as a member of the Publications Committee and Editorial Board of the Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. A key initiative of the Committee, supported by Prof Malan, is to improve the impact factor of this journal to bring it more in line with that of other top-rated rock engineering journals.
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ANNUAL REVIEW 2020/21
