Barry McAuley, PhD Post-Doctoral Researcher 086 014 4853 bmcauley@cita.ie www.bicp.ie
ASSESSING THE CURRENT POSITION AND ASSOCIATED CHALLENGES OF BIM EDUCATION IN IRISH HEIs Background The BICP team surveyed members of the BIM Academic Forum in Ireland (BAFI) in Q1 2017. The survey was based on a UK BAF survey, which will enable direct correlations between results. A total of 14 HEIs were targeted in the study, 12 responses were received. Table 1 details the institutes who have replied to date.
Which of the following best describes your experience with BIM? The majority of respondents reported that they had both academic and industry experience in BIM. (See Figure 1).
Institutes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Athlone IT Cork Institute of Technology Dublin Institute Technology Galway Mayo Institute Technology IT Carlow IT Sligo IT Tralee Limerick Institute of Technology University College Cork University College Dublin Trinity College Dublin Waterford Institute of Technology
Figure 1 – Experience in BIM
This short report details the key findings of the study.
Please indicate your primary discipline in the built environment A good mixture of departments replied to the survey. The highest representation came from the civil / structural Engineering departments who represented 23% of the survey. Architecture was the second largest response with 15%. Construction/Project Management also represent a total of 15%. The remaining 50% consists of Architectural Technology, Building Services Engineering and quantity surveying.
A total of 46% of the sample reported that they had an academic knowledge.
How would you describe your current primary academic position/level? The majority of respondents reported that they hold the position of lecturer (Figure 2).
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In your own opinion please indicate a representative percentage range to the following aspects of what you consider constitutes BIM.
Figure 2 – Primary academic position
A quarter of the respondents hold a position as head of department.
Figure 4 – Constitutes BIM
How do you feel about BIM and the Irish Government's implementation strategy?
It is clear from Figure 4 that the respondents equally valued the choices provided (Figure 4).
The majority of respondents (54%) reported that were of the recent Irish Government's implementation strategy released by the Office of Government procurement (Figure 3).
Which of the following best describes your institutes maturity levels as ranked by the UK BIM Task Group?
Figure 5 – Institute Maturity
Figure 3 – Awareness of Irish Government's implementation strategy
A good range of maturity levels were reports by the respondents, with two even suggesting that they had reached Level 3 which was interesting.
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Please rank the level of interest for embedding BIM within the following academic programmes in your school/department? The departments which demonstrated the greatest interest for embedding BIM include Architectural Technology, Building Services Engineering, Civil / Structural Engineering, Quantity Surveying and Construction Project Management. The lowest interest rate was found within Architecture and Mechanical and Electrical Engineering departments.
Other popular software choices include Autodesk Navisworks, Sketch Up, Solibri Model Checker, Cost X and Buildsoft. Both Bentley and Graphisoft are taught within 3 of the institutes (Figure 6).
How has BIM been incorporated into the academic curriculum in your institute?
Please indicate which software(s) your students are currently exposed to?
Figure 7 – BIM within the academic curriculum
All of the institutes have incorporated BIM into their taught curriculum in some form (figure 7). A total of 5 of the institutes have stated that it has been incorporated into particular modules, with a further 3 producing stand-alone BIM modules which have been partially embedded. 3 of the institutes have fully embedded BIM into the majority of modules/programme. Three institutes reports the design of specific BIM programmes.
Please indicate the degree of teaching of BIM within the following respective education levels in your school/department? Figure 6 – Software The Autodesk design suite consisting of Architecture, Structure and MEP is universally used across all of the institutes.
A good range of level 6 to 9 modules and courses were reported by the respondents. These courses mainly focused on software training. There was hover examples of postgraduate information management programmes also reported.
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Please indicate the effectiveness of the following curriculum based assessments in aligning with the BIM related Intended Learning Outcome (ILO) in your school/department The most effective tool reported for curriculum based assessments was the use of Collaborative MultiDisciplinary Projects. Practical BIM software applications and discipline specific BIM projects both ranked highly. The least effective medium was tutorials and practice/mock tests.
Do you consider that the National BIM Council of Ireland should recommend the formal adoption of the BIM Academic Forums ILO in the design of future undergraduate and postgraduate construction related programmes? The majority of institutes agreed with the proposal for the NBC to recommend the formal adoption of the BIM Academic Forums ILO (Figure 9).
How long has BIM been taught in your school/department? 5 out of the 13 institutes have been teaching BIM between 1-3 years. A further 3 institutes have been on their BIM journey for 6-10 years with 3 institutes stating they have taught BIM for over 10 years (Figure 8). Figure 10 – Formal adoption of the BIM Academic Forums ILO
If you have any further comments on this subject matter please include below The following comments where recorded
Figure 8 – Years Teaching BIM
Are you aware of UK BAF Intended Learning Outcomes (IOL)? The majority of the institutes were aware of the BAF IOL.
I have insight into and some responsibility for multiple programmes across disciplines and across levels; therefore many of the questions were difficult to answer. At DIT, we have really developed lonely BIM adoption (e.g. in Architectural Technology and Building Services Engineering) while some programmes are only beginning their BIM journeys, e.g. structural engineering. We are revisiting our College BIM Strategy with a view to enabling collaborative BIM between as many disciplines as possible with a roadmap of implementation over the next 3 to 5 years. At postgradute level, we have delivered BIM Technologies to individual
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disciplines and collaborative BIM processes and management for the last 5 years. The knowledge of BIM-concepts (Process, Information, BIM data as "essential IP") is very important (long-term knowledge acquisition). Nevertheless, BIM-skills also need to be developed by students. Since skills are related to tools this can be considered as (secondary) "short term" activity. "Innovative" and "progressive" industry input is required, rather than "conservative" feed back. Difficult survey to complete on behalf of our wide range of AEC programmes across the School. Also in Q19 the students are very open to BIM, but getting some staff to change is more challenging. HEIs need money for hardware. BIM tools are processor intensive and slow machines are hampering learning It is not up to the NBC to recommend the curriculum of HEI courses, but the HEIs should give it serious consideration I'm not sure if this survey captures all the relevant information regarding BIM in the taught curriculum here in GMIT. Barry's interview with us was probably more useful. Prepared by Dr. Barry McAuley (CitA/DIT) Dr. Alan Hore (DIT) Professor Roger West (TCD) Published: March 2017
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