Do 3rd class degree graduates make poor teachers and process engineers?

With an election in the UK fast approaching, the politicians are on the cheap votes campaign by making empty promises that are ill thought out and often totally impractical.

This week David Cameron, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party has promised to improve the education system by ensuring that third class degree graduates do not become teachers.

Apart from being deeply offensive to the many excellent teachers with 3rd class degrees, it is also superficially-crafted nonsense.

I have little experience of school teaching, but I would have thought that, although a high intellect would be desirable, it may be secondary to good social skills- the ability to communicate, command the respect of students, sense of humour etc.

In this respect, teaching has a lot in common with process engineering. I left industry in 1974 to take up a lecturing position at Camborne School of Mines, and I have always felt that it was my sporting prowess, rather than intellect, that helped me get the job (in fact, on reflection, that must have been the reason!). During my 22 years at CSM I saw many graduates leave for a variety of positions in the minerals industry. What soon became obvious was that a first class degree wasn’t an automatic passport to success in industry. Many of the high-flyers were ideally suited to ivory-tower research positions, but often lacked the people-skills to make themselves a success in the mining environment. Conversely many of the 3rd-class graduates made it to the top in the mining industry, probably having honed their social skills during student life, to the detriment of their final degrees. Only recently I reported how South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall is being revitalised under the dynamic leadership of John Webster, a higher diploma graduate from CSM.

So, David Cameron, if you wish to lose many potentially excellent teachers, go ahead with your harebrained scheme, but my advice would be to think before you leap.

Industrial Minerals Conference fast approaching

It is now less than 2 weeks to the start of Processing of Industrial Minerals '10 in the old city of Istanbul.

It's looking like it will be a nice little conference, with 55 delegates already registered, and representing 13 countries:

Bulgaria; Egypt; Finland; France; Germany; Iran; Italy; Jordan; Norway; South Africa; Turkey; UK; USA.

If you have an interest in industrial minerals processing, it is certainly not too late to register. The full technical programme can be found by clicking here.

Why is a good conference paper not necessarily a good journal paper?

This is a tricky one, which often creates some ill feeling when we accept a paper for conference presentation, then reject it from the special issue of Minerals Engineering journal.

Why is it not suitable for the journal if it was suitable for the conference?

Conferences provide many things, intellectual stimulation, socialising between friends and new acquaintances, and professional networking, leading to new ideas and projects.

Imagine that you are talking to someone in a conference coffee break and you mention the fact that you have been suffering from a bad back. Your new contact finds this interesting, as he cured his back pain by hanging upside down from a tree for three hours. Your reaction might be that this is worth a try and that speaking to this person has proven to be an interesting and potentially valuable experience. However, you would not expect his advice to make it to the British Medical Journal, as it is purely anecdotal and has no scientific rigour. If he had performed many controlled experiments with bad back sufferers, hanging from trees for varying times and noted the results, then his findings might make it to a scientific journal.

Many good conference papers are anecdotal, and have little solid scientific backing. For instance papers by plant operators might show how a change in flowsheet improved recovery, so providing food for thought for other operators in the audience. Such papers are interesting, and of potentially great value, even though not backed up by rigorous science.

This is the crux of the matter. An anecdotal paper is unlikely to be published in a peer-reviewed, archival journal such as Minerals Engineering. Peer-reviewed journals seek to advance the knowledge of science, and it is no coincidence that at MEI’s Flotation conferences, a higher percentage of the fundamental papers make it to the journal rather than the applications, although many people would argue that the latter are of more interest to the audience.

So when submitting a conference paper to a peer-reviewed journal, ask yourself:

1. Are the results and conclusions backed up by solid scientific methodology?
2. Is the paper of generic interest? It must not be of interest only to a specific ore or operation.
3. Is it original and innovative?

If the answer to anyof the above is ‘no’ then think again about submitting to the journal, and accept the fact that your paper is anecdotal and might have sparked new ideas and concepts at the conference.

How to produce an awful PowerPoint Presentation

It’s hard to believe that little over a decade ago conference presentations were illustrated by 35mm slides and overhead transparencies, with all the incumbent problems of slides jamming in projectors, slides upside down or the wrong way round. Everything changed in the late 90s with the advent of PowerPoint, and overnight presentations became slick, professional, and, in many cases, very boring!

So how do you go about preparing an awful PowerPoint presentation? According to an article in Mining Man the best way to bore an audience is to read the text on your slide word for word.

This is the method often adopted by nervous, inexperienced presenters and I have seen some really awful examples, where slide after slide is full of text, which the presenter reads out verbatim. Don’t do this!! The problem is that we read faster than we talk, so the members of the audience are always one step ahead of the presenter who is droning on in the background. The golden rule, therefore, is to separate what you want to say from what is on your slides.

What other guidelines are there to producing a presentation which will truly irritate an audience, and hopefully bore them to tears? My particular suggestions would be:

1. Show the audience how clever you are, and how well you know the technology and features of PowerPoint. Don’t be subtle about the way you introduce text and figures into a slide. Cut them into small chunks and have them flying into the slide from various angles without warning.

2. Make use of all the colours that PowerPoint can offer. Forget the fact that black text on a yellow background stands out clearly, and is used on most airport signage. Try the nice pastel colours- pink on red looks very pretty, and don’t worry that it will be difficult for the audience to see the text clearly.

3. Make liberal use of the small fonts so that you can cram as much information as possible into tables, but always explain when presenting your slide “You probably won’t be able to see this at the back, but...”.

I would be grateful for comments on this posting, which will be used as an aid for MEI Conference speakers. I particularly welcome any further tips for producing appalling presentations!

Congratulations Mike Adams

It was good to hear that MEI’s consultant to Precious Metals ’10, Dr. Mike Adams, has been awarded a DSc (Eng) degree by the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Mike brings a great degree of enthusiasm to everything he does and we are particularly grateful to have him on the MEI team as a very active consultant. He is also a valued member of the Minerals Engineering Editorial Board and Editor of the seminal Advances in Gold Ore Processing, which was published in 2005.

More details on Mike’s award can be found on MEI Online.

Comminution '10 attracts high calibre international speakers

In consultation with Prof. Malcolm Powell, of Australia's JKMRC, we have now put together the provisional timetable for Comminution '10, which will be held in Cape Town in April.

Over 70 papers have been accepted and the provisional timetable is now available for viewing.