A review of tertiary BIM education for advanced engineering communication with visualization

Abstract

Background: Today, the architectural, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry is motivated to employ graduates educated about Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools, techniques, and processes, which help them to better integrate visualizations and data into their projects. In line with today’s AECO industry necessities and government mandates, globally active BIM educationalists and researchers are designing BIM educational frameworks, curricula and courses. These educationalists and researchers are also generating solutions to the obstacles faced during integration of BIM education into tertiary education systems (TESs). However, BIM researchers have taken few efforts recently to provide an overview of the level of BIM education across the globe through review and analysis of the latest publications associated with BIM education in TESs. Hence, this study attempts to fill this gap by providing a review of the efforts of globally active educationalists and researchers to educate AECO students about BIM in the context of advanced engineering education with visualization. Method: In our study, an investigation of texts in the field of academic BIM education was conducted. Keywords such as “BIM education”, “BIM curriculum”, “BIM course”, and “visualization in engineering education” were used to search for publications ranging from 2010 to the present day. Textual and content analysis were employed to arrange BIM-related qualitative textual data into similar sets of conceptual categories for the purpose of analyzing trends in today’s global academic BIM education research. Results: This study generated six conceptual categories by arranging qualitative textual data from 70 collected BIM publications in order to build an understanding of active BIM educationalists and researchers efforts: (a) identifying needs for BIM in tertiary educational institutions (TEIs), (b) identifying essential BIM skillsets for BIM education, (c) developing BIM educational frameworks, (d) developing BIM curricula, (e) experimenting with BIM courses, and (f) developing strategies to overcome BIM educational issues. Through this process of review and analysis, current research gaps in academic BIM education across the globe are identified. Conclusion: This process of review and analysis of global BIM education research trends resulted in a conceptual categorization of BIM educationalists and researchers’ efforts in TES. This categorization and review of the collected publications can serve as a knowledge base for: (a) identifying major issues involved in BIM education, (b) developing strategies to incorporate BIM into TES, and (c) developing BIM frameworks and curricula in the context of tertiary education, which can assist BIM educators with taking BIM education in TES to the next level for visualization in advanced engineering education. Through analyzing global BIM education research trends, this study also provides future research suggestions on academic BIM education across the globe. Furthermore, our analysis highlights the relationship between current tertiary BIM education and visualization.