Collaboration and coordination learning modules for BIM education

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is the trend of the future, with increased use documented in the construction industry in the last few years. To sustain the momentum of BIM, effective workforce development that aims to balance the supply-demand equation in the labor market is essential. For many, experience with BIM begins in academia. The challenges reside in the classic gap between academic focus on disciplinary principles and the industry needs for specific application proficiency. As a result, architecture and civil engineering education needs to embrace the opportunities provided by BIM and overcome the challenges presented by BIM to remain current and relevant. A growing number of architecture, engineering, and construction programs have begun to offer courses that include BIM-related content, and a few programs have strategies in place to fully integrate it. This paper presents a modular approach adopted by the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) to promote BIM-enabled learning. Experiences in creating and adapting Collaboration and Coordination Learning Modules to BIM education respectively in the Construction Management and Engineering Graphics programs at IIT are presented and discussed. The content created to implement and facilitate the learning and understanding of BIM are evaluated. The objective is to educate the both the engineers and architects of the future who will be actively using BIM routinely. This strategy relative to BIM Learning Modules is expected to help architecture, engineering, and construction professionals be prepared for the needs of the industry in the future.