Incorporating BIM into the upper-division curriculum of construction engineering and management

Figures & data

Figure 1. An example of workflow of the team work in full BIM application group.

Note: 4D BIM refers to linking the 3D model into scheduling; 5D BIM means adding cost-related items to the existing BIM platform.

Figure 2. Tasks involved in a typical partial BIM application group working on construction planning.

Table 1. Timetable of the 15-week final semester undergraduate project.

Week	Content/tasks
1	Induction week, including receiving the original 2D AutoCAD drawings of the assigned project, learning the tasks and deliverables for the final semester project, and becoming familiar of all the resources needed to complete the tasks; Further starting reading drawings/plans, and proposing the initial construction plan
2	(1) Software tutorial and practice in the computer lab; (2) starting the modelling work in the BIM environment
3–4	Field trips and site study
5–7	(1) Group work of discussing and confirming the construction plan, determining the work-breakdown structure, calculating quantity take-off (manual estimate required), and estimating labour resources; (2) writing up the project opening report; (3) writing up the literature review work related to BIM for construction management
8	(1) Creating the site plan for the given construction project; (2) determining the durations of each activity and the relationships among them in the plan; preparing the schedule with networking cross-diagrams; (3) preparing the resource plans, including labour, materials, and equipment
9	Design and calculation of formwork
10–11	Design and calculation of scaffolding
12–13	(1) Creating the plan and drawings for formwork; (2) Simulation of major construction activities in the construction process
14	(1) Preparing for submission of project deliverables including project report, literature review, manual calculation and analysis, videos and other digital files, etc.; (2) defence of the final semester project to be evaluated by the academic panel
15	Final submission

Table 2. An example concrete quantity take-off between manual quantity take-off and BIM-generated output.

Cost item	BIM-assisted estimate	Manual estimate	Cause analysis of difference
Shearwall concrete in the basement /m^3	189.77	155.71	Basement was treated as a building separated from the superstructure in the manual estimate, and concrete beyond the exterior wall was not included. In the BIM-based estimate, all building components were recognised and included in the quantity take-off. Therefore, the BIM-generated estimate turned out higher compared to that of manual work. The project estimate was recommended to not include what was beyond the exterior wall. Therefore, the manual work in this case was more reliable.
Beam and slab concrete in the basement/m^3	200.61	231.62	Double-checking the manual work revealed that the opening area within the slab had not been deducted when estimating the concrete volume, resulting in the higher estimate from the manual work. After revision, the manual estimate was corrected as 200.69 m^3, with only 0.04% difference from the BIM-generated work.
Shearwall formwork in a standard floor/m^2	1,051.54	1,055.59	The difference between the two estimates was only 0.40%. The shearwall boundary lines were corrected located in the BIM-based model converted from the original 2D CAD drawings. The difference could be considered marginal.
Concrete quantity in basement columns/m^3	33.04	31.85	The difference between the two estimates was 3.60% which could be considered relatively low. Generally the concrete columns’ geometric shapes were correctly recognised in the digital model.

Figure 3. Digital models of the case study project saved in different file formats.

Figure 4. Interface involving BIM and VR.

Figure 5. Site layout in the main building’s interior finish stage.

Figure 6. The process of creating construction simulations.

Figure 7. Illustration of the planning/scheduling for building formwork and scaffolding.

Table 3. Overall sample analysis in the question of students’ perceptions on the degree of application of each prior course in the final semester project (Overall Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.8826).

Prior course in the CM curriculum	Mean	Std.	Ranking	Item-total Correlation	Cronbach’s Alpha
Field Trip and Site Study (FTSS)	4.279	0.915	1	0.5700	0.8744
Construction Technologies (CT)	4.197	0.963	2	0.6261	0.8705
Cost Estimating (CE)	4.164	1.036	3	0.3594	0.8886*
Computer Aided Design (CAD)	4.066	1.031	4	0.6543	0.8682
BIM Technology and Application (BIM TA)	4.066	1.109	4	0.6269	0.8701
Construction Planning (CP)	4.049	0.990	6	0.7071	0.8648
Project Management (PM)	4.049	1.040	6	0.5442	0.8760
Engineering Drawing (ED)	3.705	1.085	8	0.7066	0.8641
Engineering Structures (ES)	3.672	1.193	9	0.7549	0.8596
Real Estate Development and Planning (REDP)	3.525	1.233	10	0.5947	0.8734

*: An individual Cronbach’s Alpha value higher than the overall value suggests that survey participants had more differed perception towards this course.

Table 4. Statistical results for subgroup analysis of students’ perceptions of how each prior course is linked to the final semester project.

Course name^a	Subgroup
	Full BIM application		Construction planning/ scheduling		Take-off estimate		Research dissertation		Statistical comparison
	Mean	Post-hoc group	Mean	Post-hoc group	Mean	Post-hoc group	Mean	Post-hoc group	F value	p value
ED	3.895	A	3.600	A and B	4.050	A	2.917	B	3.36	0.025*
CAD	4.579	A	4.100	A	4.300	A	2.833	B	11.74	0.000*
ES	4.000	A	3.900	A and B	3.650	A and B	3.000	B	1.96	0.130
PM	4.263	A	4.100	A	3.700	A	4.250	A	1.19	0.322
CP	4.526	A	4.000	A and B	3.750	B	3.833	A and B	2.44	0.074
CE	3.895	B	3.800	B	4.900	A	3.667	B	6.55	0.001*
REDP	3.526	A	3.400	A	3.400	A	3.833	A	0.34	0.796
FTSS	4.421	A	4.200	A	4.250	A	4.167	A	0.23	0.872
BIM TA	4.579	A	4.000	A	4.350	A	2.833	B	9.68	0.000*
CT	4.579	A	4.200	A and B	4.200	A and B	3.583	B	2.87	0.044*

^aThe acronyms used for each course are defined in Table 3.

*A p value lower than 0.05 indicates significantly differed perceptions of students from different project options.

Figure 8. Four different types of research-informed teaching that could be applied in BIM education (adapted from Healey 2005).

Table

Activity	Importance of the given course to the final semester project (please select a number from 1 to 5)
Field Trip and Site Study (FTSS)
Construction Technologies (CT)
Cost Estimating (CE)
Computer Aided Design (CAD)
BIM Technology and Application (BIM TA)
Construction Planning (CP)
Project Management (PM)
Engineering Drawing (ED)
Engineering Structures (ES)
Real Estate Development and Planning (REDP)

Healey, M. 2005. “Linking Research and Teaching Exploring Disciplinary Spaces and the Role of Inquiry-Based Learning.” In Reshaping the University: New Relationships Between Research, Scholarship and Teaching, edited by R. Barnett, 30–42. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press.

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