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and have found immersive environments to be highly valuable for teaching critical emergency response skills by placing trainees in mining environments that would be impossible to replicate in the real world." In fact, he noted, the facility at the NIOSH campus was patterned in part after the facil- ity the researchers worked with in Australia, modified by NIOSH for technologies and for broader research needs, with the ultimate goal of examining the efficacy of using virtu- al environments for mine emergency response training. From options to tap on the mine roofs and even conduct a gas check, every potential movement was pre- sented on the stereoscopic projection screen for the team members and each step using a game system controller was logged and recorded for a subsequent debriefing of the experience. "There is strong interest in the mining community for using virtual-based train- ing for a variety of applications, including equipment operator training as well as mine rescue and escape training," Brnich said, noting that much of the self-report data that researchers have been collect- ing until this point will aid them in under- standing trainees' perceptions of their learning experience in the virtual envi- ronment. Over the coming months as NIOSH stud- ies the responses it has gathered along with its observational notes, it will also be able to assess the effectiveness of virtual environ- ments as training tools, obtained in large part by its pre-and post-experience knowl- edge-focused lines of questioning. With the team experience phase of the project just completed this month, Brnich and Mallett note that it will be months before their end result — a detailed report on its findings — will be ready for release. "At the earliest, we probably won't be able to report on our findings until at least late in the first quarter of next year," Brnich said. "We see reports of our findings as being useful to inform the mining community of the utility of training with virtual environ- ments and, perhaps, spark debate about expanding the use of virtual reality for a variety of mine safety and health training content." Coal Age will revisit Brnich and Mallett's work in 2015 at the conclusion of the project to learn more about lessons learned and how the industry can best utilize virtual reality technology going forward. November 2014 www.coalage.com 43 m i n e r e s c u e c o n t i n u e d A mine rescue scenario involving multiple victims leads a team into a virtual longwall face.