Practical challenges of BIM education

Abstract

Purpose

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is becoming the new norm in the AEC industry and also part of many construction project management (CPM) programmes. The purpose of this paper is to address the difficulty and challenges in walking the narrow line between an industry-ready BIM and a BIM that is good for student learning and offers a realistic and practical, but simultaneously achievable, learning environment.

Design/methodology/approach

An action research was conducted in an undergraduate CPM education setting.

Findings

Key challenges encountered were availability of appropriate teaching and learning resources for BIM; finding the balance between theory and practice, technology and process, and traditional and emerging CPM methods; and facilitating staff’s professional development. Closer look was given to the teaching and learning resources for BIM. Theoretical resources that are available for education in the form of books, articles and websites are easy and straightforward to locate. Likewise, a good share of various tools are available for educational purposes. On the other hand, actual building models represent a challenge in terms of preparing and optimising usage of the model for high-quality educational purposes. Several different approaches for obtaining BIM resources were identified with various challenges and benefits.

Originality/value

The results and recommendations will assist educators to better understand and overcome the practical challenges related to BIM education, especially those related to teaching and learning resources.

Citation

Puolitaival, T. and Forsythe, P. (2016), "Practical challenges of BIM education", Structural Survey, Vol. 34 No. 4/5, pp. 351-366. https://doi.org/10.1108/SS-12-2015-0053