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Developing a European Master in Construction IT

E. Dado1, R. Beheshti2

1) Assistant Professor. Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Design and Construction Processes, Building Informatics Group, Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN, Delft, The Netherlands. E-mail address: e.dado@ct.tudelft.nl / 2) Associate Professor. Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Design and Construction Processes, Building Informatics Group, Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN, Delft, The Netherlands. E-mail address: r.beheshti@ct.tudelft.nl

1. Introduction

Nowadays, information is probably the most important “construction material” in the Building and Construction (BC) industry (including Civil Engineering) [1]. Over the years, IT has changed the way people in the BC industry create and exchange information. IT can be defined as “the use of electronic machines and programs for processing, storage, transfer and presentation of information” [2]. IT encompasses many technologies such as computers, software, networks and even telephones and fax machines. Computers and software are used to create non-existing or change existing information (i.e. information processing) and networks, telephones and fax machines are used to make information available for others (i.e. communication) [3]. The term Construction IT has been accepted in the last few years to denote the specific field of applied IT in BC. A more concise definition of Construct IT is given in [4]: “Construction information technology is equipment, applications, and services that are used by organizations to assist human communication, commitment negotiation, problem solving and decision making, and is utilized over several civil engineering1 disciplines”.

Several surveys have been conducted in the past couple of years to determine the use IT in the BC industries of various countries [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. Although, these surveys showed that there is a clear evidence of a widespread (and increasing use) of IT in the BC industry, the uptake of IT in the BC industry can be characterized as slow in comparison with other industries. However, it is expected that the uptake of (advanced) IT in the European BC industry will accelerate in the coming years. One of the incentives for this acceleration is the increasing pressure from society and market for improved competitiveness of the European BC industry. As stated in the influential Latham report in the United Kingdom, a significant part of the efficiency improvement can be associated with IT enabled process innovations [10]. In order to meet the future demands for IT-skilled students, universities have to complement the existing portfolio of teaching programs, incorporating IT knowledge and skills required for the BC industry.

The BC research community has already for decades emphasized the increasing importance

1 In the continental Europe, “civil engineering” is considered as the most generic discipline. Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright @ 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Beheshti, R., & Dado, E. (2004, June), Developing A European Master In Construction It Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13832