Hazar Dib

Serious Sustainability Challenge Game to Promote Teaching and Learning of Building Sustainability

AbstractThis paper presents ongoing research aimed at improving building sustainability education through the use of serious games. With the growth of the population worldwide and the increased demand on resources, there has been a growing emphasis on sustainable buildings. As architects, engineers and construction professionals are educated for the future, the complex area of building sustainability must be included in the curriculum; however, the literature shows no clear consensus on teaching methods or curriculum design. Growing evidence suggests that computer games could be effective tools in construction education as they can provide students with both theoretical and applied knowledge. In this paper we describe the development and initial evaluation of a serious game for learning sustainable building design principles and practices. The game is aimed at undergraduate students enrolled in Civil Engineering, Architecture and Building Construction Management programs. Findings from a formative study w...

A measurement model of building information modelling maturity

Purpose – There is a growing requirement for a rating system of building information modelling maturity (BIMM) to compare the effectiveness of modelling processes in construction projects. The literature related to BIMM contains theoretical proposals and description of their maturity models. However, the research efforts are limited and lacking substantial theoretical and empirical justifications. This paper is a unique attempt to integrate previous models by performing empirical investigations of key factors for measuring BIMM in construction projects. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A national survey was designed to extract the perception of 124 BIM-related practitioners and academicians about the conceptual model. Then, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed to identify and test the key factors underlying the 27 areas. Findings – A principal component factor analysis of the collected data had suggested a five-factor model, which explained 69.839...

An innovative software application for surveying education

We present an innovative educational computer application for undergraduate students enrolled in a Construction Surveying Fundamentals course. The application includes an Interactive Virtual Environment for learning surveying concepts and practices, and an e‐assessment tool that measures the individual students cognitive and practical abilities. Results of a pilot study with 31 undergraduate students and 2 faculties showed that the software was perceived as easy to use, useful, and effective at measuring the individual students performance.

Structural Equation Model of Building Information Modeling Maturity

AbstractFor the implementation of building information modeling (BIM), an incompatible development among various aspects of a business can lead to different levels of BIM maturity (BIMM) or even project failure. Therefore, it is important to identify key causal factors of BIMM. This research develops a structural equation model of BIMM through three-step multivariate analysis. It starts with exploratory factor analysis to identify three key BIMM factors, which are further tested with confirmatory factor analysis. The causal relationships among the three factors and BIMM are then proposed and validated with structural equation modeling. This research has both practical and theoretical contributions. Practically, the proposed model can be used by practitioners to initiate and evaluate their BIM implementation. Theoretically, the result provides empirical evidence for the multidimensional nature of BIMM and insights into the causal relationships among the factors. Specifically, the factors of process managem...

An E-tool for Assessing Undergraduate Students’ Learning of Surveying Concepts and Practices

We describe an innovative e-assessment tool for Surveying Education and report the results of a pilot study with a group of undergraduate students enrolled in the Building Construction Management Program at Purdue University. The e-assessment tool consists of two parts: a student’s component and an instructor’s component. The students’ component is a Virtual Learning Environment that can be used by students to review surveying concepts and practices and get feedback on their understanding of the subject. The instructor’s component is a summative assessment tool that measures the individual student’s cognitive and practical abilities with high level of accuracy. Results of a pilot study with 31 students enrolled in an undergraduate surveying course show that students perceived the application as easy to use, very useful for reviewing class content, and effective at providing immediate and accurate feedback on their performance. A comparison between the grades obtained by manually grading the field exercise and the grades generated by the e-assessment tool showed a significant disagreement between the 2 sets of data, with the electronically generated grades being much lower. Analysis of the data recorded by the e-tool suggests that the deviation between the two sets of grades is due to the ability of the e-assessment tool to track the individual student’s performance more accurately.

An e-tool for undergraduate surveying education: design and evaluation

We describe an innovative e-tool for Surveying Education, report the results of a pilot study with a group of undergraduate students, and discuss lessons learned and future work. The e-tool consists of two parts: a student’s component and an instructor’s component. The students’ component is a 2D Virtual Learning Environment that can be used by students to review surveying concepts and practices and get feedback on their understanding of the subject. The instructor’s component is a summative assessment tool that measures the individual student’s cognitive and practical abilities with accuracy. Results of the pilot study show that students perceived the application as easy to use, useful for reviewing class content, and effective at providing immediate and accurate feedback on their performance. A comparison between the grades obtained by manually grading the field exercise and the grades generated by the e-tool showed a significant disagreement between the two sets of data, with the electronically generated grades being much lower. The study revealed the limitations of the current tool due to its dimensionality (i.e. 2D) and suggested the need for a more realistic 3D learning environment.

A Virtual Steel Sculpture for Structural Engineering Education: Development and Initial Findings

We describe the development and evaluation of a virtual steel sculpture for engineering education. A good connection design requires the engineer to have a solid understanding of the mechanics and steel behavior. To help students better understand various connection types, many schools have acquired steel sculptures. A steel sculpture is a physical system that shows 48 types of connection found in standard construction practices. Unfortunately, because of its size and location, students do not always have easy access to it. The virtual sculpture described in the article can provide an effective learning alternative. It allows the students to see the sculpture from multiple points of view anywhere, anytime and shows the close-up view of each connection with description of how it may be used, potential failure modes, sample calculations, and field examples. Findings from a formative study with engineering students support the pedagogical efficacy of the interactive sculpture.

A GIS-based Visual Information Model for Buildng Construction Project Management

Abstract Computer technologies have great potential to improve management practices in the construction industry. However, the exchange of information during the construction phases of a facility is still primarily paper-based. This paper presents a GIS-based integrated visual database model that allows for effective use of computer technologies for communication, project documentation, and knowledge sharing throughout the life-cycle of a facility. The model allows for (1) accessing and retrieving construction information related to a certain construction element; (2) reporting and providing feedback from the field on the work progress, quality assurance, and inspection; and (3) evaluating the performance of the construction crews and generating cost and historical data for future reference. The proposed model is built using GIS as the base platform, and uses the 2D visual representation of the construction element as the least common denominator. The paper also reports the results of an initial evaluation of the model on a construction project.

The Effect of Gait Parameters on the Perception of Animated Agents' Personality.

The esthetics and personality of animated agents play an important role in enhancing the experience of human-computer interactions. In the context of online learning and instruction, research shows that the personality of pedagogical agents can have a significant impact on students’ learning. The study reported in the paper focused on the expression of agents’ personality through non-verbal cues. In particular, it investigated whether certain gait parameters affect how the audience perceives the personality of a stylized animated pedagogical agent walking in a virtual classroom. While evidence exists that the way a character walks can affect the viewer’s perception of his/her personality, it is not clear yet which specific gait attributes contribute the most to identifying the personality of the character. In this study, six different parameters of gait were examined to see how slight changes in their values could help the audience perceive the agent as an extrovert. The study included 18 video stimuli and data was collected from 79 participants. Findings confirmed the effect gait can have on the perception of personality. They further suggest that stride length, beat of the walk (e.g. walking speed) beltline tilt, and upper body twist contribute the most towards this end.

BIM Interoperability for Structure Analysis

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is facilitating a procedural change for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry to share information in all the phases of the life cycle of a building. It possesses great advantages in designing, analyzing, and documenting all physical and functional information of a building and construction project. Structural analysis is an integral part of the life cycle phases of building construction projects. The information needed for structural analysis originates from the architectural model, but the architectural model can be created without much consideration of structural analysis. Software tools used by architects and structural engineers are usually different and sustain information inconsistency and or missing information leading to software interoperability problems. As the first step towards addressing this issue, in this paper, the authors conducted a preliminary literature review in order to identify topics and trends on the BIM interoperability problem with a focus on the structural analysis domain, from both the theoretic perspective and the application perspective. Structural analysis is performed and discussed in the following sections to demonstrate interoperability problems and propose possible solutions.