BIM teaching strategy for construction engineering students

After the introduction of Building Information Modeling to construction industry in 1987, today we are facing an increasing demand for the new technology and the well trained professionals capable of implementing it. Recently, the new idea of having a comprehensive 3D intelligent model with the ability of being extended to a 4D model has caught a lot of attention and forced the construction companies to move toward adopting the new knowledge and implementing it in their projects. This is due to a variety of reasons such as 1) acquiring the new technology to optimize project cost and schedule, and 2) being competitive in the job market. However there are loopholes associated with the integration of this new technology which is basically due to the lack of well-trained individuals in the field. These loopholes are basically twofold, the first is the scarcity of construction engineering programs within the universities with a dedicated course in Building Information Modeling and the second is the lack of consensus on what should be the main focus of the syllabi. While some courses are centered on the modeling aspect of the technology, the other tend to capture the gained benefits from its application for different phases of project development. This highlights the need for a proper teaching strategy for building information modeling from the academia perspective. This paper aims to capture the current state of practice with regard to BIM modeling in the construction industry and the current expectation from new construction engineering graduates within the area of information modeling. Furthermore this study will pinpoint the topics which require more teaching emphasis to bridge the existing gap between the expectation from industry and BIM curriculum.