12 - Paper INTED2018 Proceedings
12 - Paper INTED2018 Proceedings
12 - Paper INTED2018 Proceedings
Abstract
During the last decade, Qatar started an industry diversification strategy based on a knowledge-based
economy for the next years. The ambition is to become a global "hub" in some key fields such as new
technologies, finance, culture and sporting events. Such a diversification strategy requires massive
investments, not only in physical and technical infrastructures, but also in the field of education. For
instance, big projects based on the use of advanced new technologies such as BIM (Building
Information Modelling) are currently under development in new economic cluster areas in the country,
such as QEZ (Qatar Economic Zones), Lusail Smart City, Stadiums for FIFA world cup 2022, etc. This
raises a need for new BIM competences, and helps local education institutions such Qatar University
to adopt a BIM education strategy in collaboration with these sectors and AEC (Architecture,
Engineering, and Construction) industry in general. Such effort intends to cover the lack of skills and
equips graduates with specific BIM competency. Globally, BIM education in the country remains soft
and partial compared to the current evolution of the AEC industry but also to the risks that are inherent
to the BIM adoption. This paper deals with the integration of new information technology patterns such
as Cybersecurity and its Blockchains feature in a typical university BIM curricula. Addressing this
feature during the BIM collaborative processes, such as the sharing information models developed
and maintained across the lifecycle of the building/infrastructure, is becoming tremendous. Such
curricula are becoming multidisciplinary by nature, and require the collaboration between not only the
different education departments (Architecture, Civil Engineering, Computer Science and
Engineering...), but also the local concerned industry. An integrated proposal will be made in this
paper, focusing on the specific needs of the Qatari context.
Keywords: University-Industry collaboration, Curricula, BIM (Building Information Modelling),
Cybersecurity, Blockchains.
1 INTRODUCTION/CONTEXT
Building Information Modelling (BIM) comes with its intelligent process based on 3D model and
information to give the AEC professionals the tools and ways to design, to construct, and to manage
building/infrastructure efficiently. Due to its enormous importance, the UK government is mandating it
on all public projects from 2016 in order to benefit from all its advantages, actually they are in level 2
of BIM maturity and they will move to level 3 from here 2025, which is deeper in terms of processes
and workflows [1]. According to (Bilal Succar), BIM includes a wide variety of concepts, tools and
workflows which need to be learned and applied by industry stakeholders [2]. BIM Education covers
the procedures of obtaining the necessary knowledge and the required skills to establish BIM
deliverables and meet the clients’ requirements. BIM Education as well is the process of learning the
sum of theoretical and practical knowledge linking to BIM technologies, workflows and protocols [2]. At
this age of Information Technology (IT) revolution, BIM is a new field of technology which is currently
posing some challenges to educators in terms of its teaching & training, which are due to the needed
resources for knowledge, skills, finance and time, coupled with its influences on project delivery
processes [3]. To ensure the success of an integrated curricula, we have to be motivated to use BIM,
this can be reached for industry by the governments and major clients’ pressure applied, and the
opportunity to improve the profits and the competitiveness [4].
The Section above underlines the relation between BIM and IT while Section 2 of this paper touches
some of the main works related to BIM education curricula within the high education institutions at an
international level, then Section 3 focuses on the current issues related to the safety needs in BIM
process, and highlights some of the possible solutions to tackle those needs. Section 4 refers to some
BIM-Blockchains application and finally, Section 5 provides an example of local context and a typical
BIM education curricula, based on an interdisciplinary BIM certificate under discussion between teams
from three departments at Qatar University (computer science and engineering department, the
Four stages mentioned above are; (1) Illustration Stage (Knowledge/Comprehension and
Receiving/Responding): Here we are talking about a starting stage where the BIM models will be used
to illustrate and demonstrate fundamental concepts to students. Those BIM models have a sufficient
level of detail that allows lecturers/tutors to highpoint the different elements and objects showing how
buildings will be constructed, insulated and waterproofed for example. The students will be taught
separately in their proper disciplines. (2) Manipulation Stage (Comprehension/Application and
Responding/Valuing): At this phase, students begin interacting with and manipulating the existing BIM
models by themselves. They will be prerequisite to make some basic changes and/or create simple
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elements and objects related to their disciplines within the existing BIM models. In parallel, students
are developing their coordination working and improving their IT knowledge skills, in addition to
enhancing knowledge related to their discipline-specific. (3) Application Stage (Application/Analysis
and Valuing/Organizing): Students at this phase, after having acquired the theoretical knowledge, they
start to apply it to solve problems related to their disciplines. For architecture students, they start to
make the BIM models from sketching and learn how to set these models up for efficient inter-
disciplinary collaboration. Engineers after that will start to use tools to analyze those models using
exports BIM formats. Construction managers will progress and improve the models with the 4D
(construction sequencing) and 5D (cost estimation schedules). (4) Collaboration Stage
(Synthesis/Evaluation and Characterizing): At this final phase, all the students meet together and start
to work on common projects. Real-project issues will be addressed by the students for solving, for the
purpose to facilitate the students understanding of the process, they would start working on semi-
finished BIM models, and then be requested to make some modifications due to “new project
information” highlighted. The students will learn the different types of contract that smooth BIM
process and protocols, and will continue to learn collaboration and coordination working.
(Zhang, Schmidt and Hui Li) [8] identified priorities for successful curriculum development in Civil
Engineering and Management (CEM) utilizing Quality Deployment Function (QFD) as a guideline, in
order to respond to the increased need for talent development in the area of BIM in China. Indeed,
adopted the QFD framework of industrial engineering education to propose different curriculum
planning phases which are described below “Fig. 2”.
Phase I is related to the planning curriculum, which highlights the industrial BIM capability for providing
critical teaching quality characteristics (TQC), while phase II refers to the design curriculum, where it
gives TQC the priority to be included into the supportive curriculum content. In phase III, which refers
to the implementation curriculum, Teaching Quality Management (TQM) is attributed to specific
curriculum content in Civil Engineering and Management, and finally the phase IV which concerns the
priority curriculum is integrating the phases II and III to provide a curriculum content in addition to TQM
techniques and modules in order to meet the industrial BIM capability.
(Wu, Tzong-Hann, et al) [9] used Virtual Reality into BIM education curricula, where they designed and
implemented two VR types; desktop-based and immersive, which are platforms named the virtual BIM
reviewer (VBR) where students use the BIM model to highlight discrepancies by communicating with
each other to achieve a solving problem solution. The first VBR was presented into the Sky Classroom
courses of 2015 and 2016 for evaluation and was used in 2017, the second VBR was added in 2016
respecting the BIM model review procedure. Three issues were identified to test the remote
communication in class i.e. low communicability, passive problem finding, and poor spatial cognition.
The VBR functions has been tested in the Sky Classroom course to support seven universities
globally collaborating in their course project. Manipulators In the desktop-based VBR, explore the
model through the virtual environment using mouse and keyboard, communicating with each other by
the chat room and interact through a server that include the BIM model and client data. Users identify
the design discrepancies and explore the BIM model utilising the inspection module then they
discussed together to highlight those issues by using the communication module. They proceed after
for the problem-solving solution using the modification module. Regarding the immersive VR module,
it reinforces spatial understanding so it gives them the best design issues identification.
Notwithstanding the huge efforts to integrate an efficient BIM education strategy within higher
education institutions which intends to cover the lack of skills and equips graduates with specific BIM
competency to meet the AEC industry requirements, we observed that it still remains insufficient and
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inadequate due to the new issues and needs related to information security that are coming and
should be tackled.
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4 BLOCKCHAIN BASED FRAMEWORKS
Integrated through BIM processes and protocols, Blockchain is representing a very powerful and
promising tool that will make a concrete evolution in the AEC industry sector in the coming years. The
implementation of the Blockchain technology is currently used in few domains but differently. For
example if we take its application in the finance (Bitcoin, Etherieum,..etc), we realize that the number
of transactions, number of participants and size of the data to be managed are huge compared with
those components in the BIM Blockchain which are about hundreds of transactions between dozens of
users up to a couple of gigabytes each. Here (Turk and Robert) [12] present 4 scenarios where
blockchain would be used in a BIM process which are described below:
(1) Chained and very decentralized: in this scenario BIM files are linked into the blockchain which is
already integrated across workstations of participants. All versions of all files are preserved and a valid
“last” version of each file is maintained via an operating system plugin. (2) Chained and slightly
decentralized: due to the big size of the BIM files in the first scenario that exceeds the capacity of
individual workstations as the entire Bitcoin does. This scenario comes with the distribution of the
blockchain across a few key project partners in order to offer what is called a “wallet software”. It
appears to the client that a file is local while in fact it would be pulled from the blockchain and cached
locally if and when needed. At least one project partner has to host the entire blockchain. (3)
Unchained: this scenario is completely different from the previous ones, it does not store the BIM files
themselves in the blockchain but only stores their fingerprints. It uses Cloud or Server to store the BIM
files. A copy of the blockchain is given to all project partners as poof to access the document
management system. However, it would be left to other software to guarantee that all the files
mentioned in the blockchain would be preserved somewhere. (4) Blockchain of BIM transactions: in
the last scenario, and in order to reach the best performance using Blockchain within BIM
transactions, is preferred to integrate blockchain within a server where the size of blockchain can be
expected and better managed, as it is larger than the BIM data which is already controllable with
current technology. The architecture of a system using Blockchain within BIM transactions is given
here under “Fig. 4”, (figure enhanced by authors).
Blockchain is also used as a disruptive new technology at the urban level. (Marsal & Maria) [13]
proposed Blockchain4Cities, where the main purpose is to make a coopetition (physical-virtual
networking environment). Physical actions executed by humans are registered in the blockchain and
controlled in smart contracts. Blockchain4Cities is a Machine to Human system that permits the
delivery and the implementation of urban codes. Blockchain-made urban policies codes: urban needs
are submitted directly into the blockchain by citizens and the highly demanded ones are transferred to
the authorities via consensus mechanism to include them in the official policies draft, and this will
cover the real needs of the population unlike the politic agenda. Blockchain-enabled urban planning
codes: this is a continuity of the previous step, after the agreement on the policies, their physical
transformation is defined by using blockchain where citizens submit master planning’s characteristics
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and zooning, this ensure a reasonable distribution of physical involvements. Blockchain-articulated
urban regulation codes: this deals with the intangible citizens needs which are not transformable to
physical involvements, utilizing the same pervious consensus. Blockchain-facilitated urban standards
codes: this comes after all the above steps to design the standards requested based on the citizen’s
needs. Blockchain4Cities is physical/virtual networking co-operation that allows the deliverance of
urban codes using blockchain technology. “Fig. 5”, (figure enhanced by authors).
Figure 5. Blockchain4Cities.
While (Mathews, M., Robles, D. & Bowe, B) [14] highlighted that using Blockchain and BIM will resolve
the problem of trust occurred between different stakeholders in the AEC sector. They proposed an
#AECoin cryptocurrency coin which is a collaborative consensus controlled by smart contracts within a
blockchain. This helps micro economies to be developed, recording transactions values of the
collaboration and providing a method to reward both individual validations and contributions between
all the actors by an agreed percentage of coin of that cryptocurrency. This system can change
radically the current centralised professional collaboration existed nowadays and gives more trust to
project based multidisciplinary collaboration.
5 AN EXAMPLE OF CURRICULA
The Qatari government anticipate spending around 160 billion$ on infrastructure and construction
projects as Metro System, stadiums, residences and hotels, in preparation of the 2022 FIFA World
Cup. (Qatar Construction Summit, 2011). Ensuring the delivering of those projects necessitates a total
fulfilment of the requirements and specifications within a specified time. The implementation of BIM
process becoms a must. Notwithstanding the increasing use of BIM has been observed in Qatar’s
AEC sector in the last few years. Indeed, large scale clients such as Qatar Foundation, Qatar
Economic Zones, Lusail smart City, Ashghal, Qatar Rail, and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and
Legacy have required BIM implementation in their projects. Multiple efforts have been done to
elaborate such BIM requirements and regulations for the tenders to restructure the BIM processes and
protocols. For example; Lusail smart City is one of the BIM pioneers in Qatar due to its largest BIM
projects (buildings/infrastructure) which have been used in many business processes as design and
construction, marketing…etc. The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy intended that the
stadiums projects will be constructed fully BIM way, their BIM Implementation Master Plan is a perfect
specimen to be followed by any potential consultants/contractors interested in participating in these
developments. Ashghal has also implemented BIM requirements on their projects such as
expressways and roads, which engendered a lot of benefits for all stakeholders. Such BIM
requirements are projected to be adopted soon as standards for highway and tunnelling projects.
However, the ability of providing a complete approach regarding BIM processes implementation for
the whole AEC sector is still limited. Hence, the necessity to tackle BIM needs becomes crucial and
could be achieved by real awareness and BIM education programs. BIM education in Qatar is still
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remaining light if we compare it with the occidental countries such as England or United States where
universities came up with a BIM graduate degrees (PhD, Master). However, most of known deposes
are mainly focusing on BIM knowledge and deployment. Because of the raising security problems
mentioned earlier, it becomes necessary to deal with these issues. This paper proposes a typical
educational BIM security curricula in the form of an industry integrated certificate. It has the purpose of
improving the level of BIM security competency and understanding among students and BIM experts.
At this moment, a CO-OP option is prepared between 3 Qatar University (CSE, AUP & CAE)
Departments and industry. All learners make alternate stays between two learning venues QU and
firms. Two learners’ profiles have been proposed “Fig. 6”.
5.1 Profile 1
The learner is already employed by the firms (employee). Firms have BIM based projects or specific
BIM tasks and would like to support the employee who is carrying out of these tasks by a specific
certificate. In the proposed certificate, QU will provide the courses and methodological monitoring and
the firms provide the professional monitoring and industry projects.
5.2 Profile 2
The learner is a young undergraduate (student) who is continuing his/her studies. Firms are interested
in hiring him/her as an employee, and interested in funding his/her internship for the duration of the
certificate (1 year) within an assigned BIM project. QU and the firms collaborate together on the
selection of the students. QU academic staff provide the courses and methodological monitoring and
firms provide the professional monitoring, industry projects, etc.
BIM
QU Methodological Professional
Monitoring Monitoring
Secure BIM
Certificate
Qatar University Company
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Table 1. BIM Certificate courses
The new approach requires a closer connection between the CSE/AUP/CAE departments and local
partner firms, in order to select projects that meet the real needs of the industry, and that can be as
favorable as possible to participant’s learning. It also requires a reinforced dialogue between the
participant, the firm and the university tutors of the certificate degree.
In addition to these courses, leading experts will be invited on specific topics within seminars and
workshops. The certificate contains two courses from CSE department and one course from each
AUP/CAE department. The program covers a specific range of courses, such as Programming
concepts (i.e. algorithms and problem solving, programming, etc.), Information Security
(Cryptography, blockchain fundamentals and application), BIM architecture software (Dynamo for
Revit, Python, etc.), Model based design (Scripts, Data sharing for Civil 3D). “Fig. 7”.
In order to be more flexible for employees (learners), all courses are scheduled in the end of the
afternoon. The study plan requires learners to complete 12 credit hours (4 concentration electives
courses selected “Fig. 7”. The normal duration of full-time study is one year (two semesters, where
one semester is dedicated for the project). The total credit hours have been carefully designed to
ensure complementarity and needed skills.
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6 CONCLUSIONS
The paper focuses on the current issues related to the safety needs in BIM processes, and highlights
new IT paradigm to tackle those needs. A typical BIM education curriculum, based on an
interdisciplinary secure BIM certificate, is under discussion between teams from three departments at
Qatar University (computer science and engineering department, the architecture and urban planning
and the civil and architectural engineering department: CSE, AUP & CAE), to cover the gaps between
industry and academia. An online survey has been designed to better understand the security
requirements (https://goo.gl/forms/X7UyxlDgMgHY4U6B3). Workshops, specific brainstorming and
seminars with local industry and stakeholders are also scheduled to assess and validate the proposal.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is part of the NPRP7-1883-5-289 project. The authors would like to express their gratitude
to the QNRF (Qatar Foundation) for its support and funding for the project activities.
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