At the September 2004 International Society for Trenchless Technology Conference in Hamburg, Germany, the ASTT received the “No-Dig Award” in the category of “Academic Research or Training Aid.” The award was for the educational CD for use in tertiary institutions, produced by the Society in association with the University of New South Wales.
Accepting the Award, ASTT Chairman Menno Henneveld paid tribute to the efforts of Dr Jon O’Brien and his undergraduate students from the University of New South Wales in the production of the educational program. The team compiled information supplied by ASTT members into a format suitable for undergraduate training.
As a result, Trenchless Technology has been the introduced at the University as an important part of civil engineering
education.
How did the educational CD eventuate?
The ASTT contracted the University of New South Wales in 2001 to develop a cost effective e-education resource that would facilitate the introduction of Trenchless Technology education packages into tertiary education institutions throughout Australia and New Zealand.
The ASTT’s general aim for the educational CD was to provide academics and teachers with a complementary, comprehensive set of pre-packaged teaching resources and tutorial materials that could be used in their day-to-day activities. The CD was to provide an easily customisable and readily updateable, flexible teaching resource.
Prior to commencing this project, the University of New South Wales conducted a formal survey of over 100 of their final year civil engineering students, finding that there was nearly a zero awareness of the Trenchless Technology industry. Even amongst experienced construction engineering academic staff, the existence of the industry was known through technical
journals, but essentially no detailed knowledge of the special processes employed or of the cost of equipment was known.
Outcomes
The educational CD is now embedded into the curricula at the Universities of New South Wales and Tasmania, and the ASTT is now endeavouring to introduce the same training package into as many tertiary institutions as possible.
One 25 year old graduate of this program is now working in Boston in the tunnelling industry and attributes his success there to education the program provided. To at least one known student, the ASTT/UNSW project has had very significant value.
The CD has proved effective in developing a knowledge infrastructure amongst future engineers. The better this infrastructure develops, the quicker and more robustly the trenchless industry will grow.
