Collaborative multidisciplinary learning : quantity surveying students’ perspectives

The construction industry is highly fragmented and is known for its adversarial culture, culminating in poor quality projects not completed on time or within budget. The aim of this study is thus to guide the design of QS programme curricula in order to help students develop the requisite knowledge and skills to work more collaboratively in their multi-disciplinary future workplaces. A qualitative approach was considered appropriate as the authors were concerned with gathering an initial understanding of what students think of multi-disciplinary learning. The data collection method used was a questionnaire which was developed by the Behaviours4Collaboration (B4C) team. Knowledge gaps were still found across all the key areas where a future QS practitioner needs to be collaborative (either as a project contributor or as a project leader) despite the need for change instigated by the multi-disciplinary (BIM) education revolution. The study concludes that universities will need to be selective in teaching, and innovative in reorienting, QS education so that a collaborative BIM education can be effected in stages, increasing in complexity as the students’ technical knowledge grows. This will help students to build the competencies needed to make them future leaders. It will also support programme currency and delivery

Specifications and Development of Interoperability Solution dedicated to Multiple Expertise Collaboration in a Design Framework

This paper describes the specifications of an interoperability platform based on the PPO (Product Process Organization) model developed by the French community IPPOP in the context of collaborative and innovative design. By using PPO model as a reference, this work aims to connect together heterogonous tools used by experts easing data and information exchanges. After underlining the growing needs of collaborative design process, this paper focuses on interoperability concept by describing current solutions and their limits. Then a solution based on the flexibility of the PPO model adapted to the philosophy of interoperability is proposed. To illustrate these concepts, several examples are more particularly described (robustness analysis, CAD and Product Lifecycle Management systems connections)

Quantifying Changes in Creativity: Findings from an Engineering Course on the Design of Complex and Origami Structures

Engineering educators have increasingly sought strategies for integrating the arts into their curricula. The primary objective of this integration varies, but one common objective is to improve students’ creative thinking skills. In this paper, we sought to quantify changes in student creativity that resulted from participation in a mechanical engineering course targeted at integrating engineering, technology, and the arts. The course was team taught by instructors from mechanical engineering and art. The art instructor introduced origami principles and techniques as a means for students to optimize engineering structures. Through a course project, engineering student teams interacted with art students to perform structural analysis on an origami-based art installation, which was the capstone project of the art instructor’s undergraduate origami course. Three engineering student teams extended this course project to collaborate with the art students in the final design and physical installation. To evaluate changes in student creativity, we used two instruments: a revised version of the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA) and the Innovative Behavior Scales. Initially, the survey contained 12 constructs, but three were removed due to poor internal consistency reliability: Extrinsic Motivation; Intrinsic Motivation; and Tolerance of Ambiguity. The nine remaining constructs used for comparison herein included: • Originality: Confidence in developing original, innovative ideas • Ideation: Confidence in generating many ideas • Risk Taking: Adventurous; Brave • Openness of Process: Engaging various potentialities and resisting closure • Iterative Processing: Willingness to iterate on one’s solution • Questioning: Tendency to ask lots of questions • Experimenting/exploring: Tendency to physically or mentally take things apart • Idea networking: Tendency to engage with diverse others in communicative acts • Observing: Tendency to observe the surrounding world By conducting a series of paired t-tests to ascertain if pre and post-course responses were significantly different on the above constructs, we found five significant changes. In order of significance, these included Idea Networking; Questioning; Observing; Originality; and Ideation. To help explain these findings, and to identify how this course may be improved in subsequent offerings, the discussion includes the triangulation of these findings in light of teaching observations, responses from a mid-semester student focus group session, and informal faculty reflections. We close with questions that we and others ought to address as we strive to integrate engineering, technology, and the arts. We hope that these findings and discussion will guide other scholars and instructors as they explore the impact of art on engineering design learning, and as they seek to evaluate student creativity resulting from courses with similar aims

An Overview of the Feasibility of Achieving Level 2 Building Information Modeling by 2016 in the UK

The aim of this study is to investigate the current status and feasibility of achieving Level 2 BIM (building information modeling) usage that is to be made mandatory by the UK government on its projects by the year 2016. This study assesses the level at which organizational and practitioner knowledge of BIM is currently positioned. The UK government, being the largest public stakeholder client, has realized the benefits and advantages of BIM when used in procuring projects across their lifecycle in the built environment. A critical review of the BIM literature was carried out and the evidence base was created in relation to government targets for 2016. At the current stage, Level 2 BIM adoption is achievable by 2016 for large construction firms but not for SMEs (small medium enterprise). Also, from evidence in this study, the technology needs to be properly tailored to meet SME variables if Level 2 status is to be achieved for the entire industry

Information technology as boundary object for transformational learning

Collaborative work is considered as a way to improve productivity and value generation in construction. However, recent research demonstrates that socio-cognitive factors related to fragmentation of specialized knowledge may hinder team performance. New methods based on theories of practice are emerging in Computer Supported Collaborative Work and organisational learning to break these knowledge boundaries, facilitating knowledge sharing and the generation of new knowledge through transformational learning. According to these theories, objects used in professional practice play a key role in mediating interactions. Rules and methods related to these practices are also embedded in these objects. Therefore changing collaborative patterns demand reconfiguring objects that are at the boundary between specialized practices, namely boundary objects. This research is unique in presenting an IT strategy in which technology is used as a boundary object to facilitate transformational learning in collaborative design work

Validating and optimizing the effects of model progression in simulation-based inquiry learning

Model progression denotes the organization of the inquiry learning process in successive phases of increasing complexity. This study investigated the effectiveness of model progression in general, and explored the added value of either broadening or narrowing students’ possibilities to change model progression phases. Results showed that high-school students in the ‘standard’ model progression condition (n = 19), who could enter subsequent phases at will, outperformed students from a control condition (n = 30) without model progression. The unrestricted condition (n = 22) had the additional option of returning to previous phases, whereas the restricted condition (n = 20) disallowed such downward progressions as well as upward progressions in case insufficient knowledge was acquired. Both variants were found to be more effective in terms of performance than the ‘standard’ form of model progression. However, as performance in all three model progression conditions was still rather weak, additional support is needed for students to reach full understanding of the learning content

Virtue integrated platform : holistic support for distributed ship hydrodynamic design

Ship hydrodynamic design today is often still done in a sequential approach. Tools used for the different aspects of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation (e.g. wave resistance, cavitation, seakeeping, and manoeuvring), and even for the different levels of detail within a single aspect, are often poorly integrated. VIRTUE (the VIRtual Tank Utility in Europe) project has the objective to develop a platform that will enable various distributed CFD and design applications to be integrated so that they may operate in a unified and holistic manner. This paper presents an overview of the VIRTUE Integrated Platform (VIP), e.g. research background, objectives, current work, user requirements, system architecture, its implementation, evaluation, and current development and future work