Currently testing BIM on the training/testing environment of my current institution. This is where I find all of the problems from the institution’s non-vanilla implementation of Moodle.

Manage marking – not all markers – DONE

Not showing details for all of the markers that have been allocated students. This appears to be because the institution has introduced a new role called “Course coordinator”. Checks:

• Change on of the teachers to “teacher” more standard role.
• Then change the access.php file in bim to map the new role appropriately.

Part of this problem is due to students not being allocated to groups TO DO: Implies a need to identify those students who are in the course, but not in groups.

Actually, the problem was a misplaced add_data_keyed that was outside, instead of inside, a loop.

Find student view details

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘;’ in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/moodle/mod/bim/marker/view.php on line 968

Need to remove mysql_real_escape – DONE

This is a hang over from early development and not removed. Won’t work on server environments if they aren’t using MySQL. — marker/view.php line 900

Manage marking – counting all marked posts – DONE

Only 1 post marked, but release is showing 3 marked!!

This is because it’s simply adding the total marked for each marker. If there is overlap in students between markers, then the # marked is counted more than once.

Fix needs completion locally before putting onto -train

Marking form – min/max display – DONE

Need to change hard code 0 and 55 to the real min/max values.

Student viewing details – DONE

The table with student details always shows the progress report. Even for marked posts that have not been released to the student. Initially this table was only for staff. But it is also being used on the students view page. Need the progress mark to only include released posts in its total.

Calculation done in bim_generate_student_results – do it here.

All calls to this function, need to pass in cm

Breadcrumbs for new functions – DONE

The “change blog” feature doesn’t have good bread crumbs. May also be a problem with other new functionality. Check and fix.

Mark post

Add “register blog” – DONE

Just as marker can change existing feed for a student, add the option to “register a blog” for unregistered students.

cron job not completing – DONE

Call to undefined function bim_get_mirrored() in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/moodle/mod/bim/lib.php on line 176

Get this by running the admin/cron.php.

Model Progression Specification for BIM

Organizing the Development of a Building Information Model

Jim Bedrick, AIAVice President of Virtual Building and Design, Webcor Builders

At the core of architectural design is the process of moving from approximations to progressively more precise information.  Representations of building elements in a BIM, though, are exact, whether they’re intended to be or not, and can give a false indication of the precision actually known at a given point in the design process.  Add to this confusion the fact that it is possible to use a BIM for many purposes costing, scheduling, performance simulation, code checking, and visualization, to name just a few, some possibly not considered by the author of the BIM.  The need for a framework for defining a BIM’s precision and suitability for specific uses becomes obvious.

Model Progression Specification for BIM

To address this need Vico Software (then a division of Graphisoft) began work in 2004 on a Model Progression Specification (MPS).  Webcor Builders teamed with Vico to further develop the concept, and then brought it to the technology subcommittee of the AIA California Council’s Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) Task Force.  Here the viewpoints of architects, contractors, engineers, subcontractors, owners, and software developers were brought to bear in order to broaden the applicability of the MPS.  The AIA National Documents Committee has adopted the approach, provided further development, and incorporated it into the new E202, an exhibit which formalizes the processes for development and use of BIM’s for a specific project.  This document will aid teams in agreeing on the purposes for which the project BIM(s) will be used, the level of detail to which specific elements of the BIM(s) will be brought at the conclusion of each phase, and who will develop specific elements of the BIM(s) to the specific levels of detail.  The E202 is slated for publication in the fall of 2008.

While the MPS is extremely useful in any project using BIM, the depth of collaboration in IPD makes some kind of systematic approach like this essential.  With this in mind, the MPS has been developed to address two principles of IPD:

• The requirement “that phase outcomes—milestones and deliverables—be defined succinctly” so that team members “understand the level of detail at which they should be working, and what decisions have (and have not) been finalized.” (See Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide,http:www.aia.org/ipdg, p 23)

1. The idea of assigning tasks “on a best person basis, even when that differs from traditional role allocations.” (Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide, p 13)

Level of Detail (LOD)

The core of the MPS is the LOD definitions—descriptions of the steps through which a BIM element can logically progress from the lowest level of conceptual approximation to the highest level of representational precision.  It was determined that five levels, from conceptual through as-built, were sufficient to define the progression.  However, to allow for future intermediate levels we named the levels 100 through 500.  In essence, the levels are as follows:

100. Conceptual
200. Approximate geometry
300.  Precise geometry
400.  Fabrication
500.  As-built

These definitions are further developed in the context of specific uses of the model.  The current state of the LOD definitions is shown in Table 1.

Table 2 shows some examples to help clarify the concepts.

The LOD definitions can be used in two ways:  to define phase outcomes and to assign modeling tasks.

Phase Outcomes

As the design develops, various elements of the model will progress from one LOD to the next at different rates.  For example, in the traditional phases, most elements will need to be at LOD 300 at the conclusion of the CD phase, and many will be taken to LOD 400 in the shop drawing process during the construction phase.  Some elements though—paint, for example—will never be taken beyond LOD 100, i.e., the layer of paint is not actually modeled, but its cost and other properties are attached to the appropriate wall assembly.

Task Assignments

Beyond its 3-dimentional representation, there is a great deal of information that can be linked to an element in a BIM, and this information may be provided by a variety of people.  For example, while a 3-dimentional representation of a wall may be created by the architect, the GC may provide a cost, the HVAC engineer a U-value and thermal mass, an acoustical consultant an STC rating, etc.  To address this multiplicity of input, the AIA Documents Committee developed the concept of “Model Component Author” (MCA), who is responsible for creating the 3-dimensional representation of the component, but not necessarily for other discipline-specific information linked to it.

In a traditional project, it is likely that MCA assignments will align with the design phases—the A/E team will do all the modeling up through CD’s, and subcontractors and suppliers will do any shop-drawing modeling required.  However, in an IPD project, with tasks assigned “on a best person basis,” it is likely that handoffs will occur at various points in the design process.  For example, the mechanical subcontractor may take over as MCA for ductwork during the Detailed Design phase.

The Model Progression Specification

Figure 1 shows a portion of a completed MPS.  While the example shows phase names, LOD progression, and MCA assignments typical of an IPD project, these entries can be changed to fit the project at hand.

The spreadsheet shown is in the public domain—the latest version can be downloaded free of charge from www.ipd-ca.net (click on “Tools/Publications”).  This is a work in progress—it is likely that through use on actual projects, shortcomings will be found and improvements proposed.  We encourage project teams to use the spreadsheet, modify it if desired, and provide feedback to ipd@aiacc.org.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the members of the AIACC IPD Task Force Technology Subcommittee for their hard work in developing broad-based consensus around this process:

Paul Audsley, NBBJ Architects
Jim Awe, Autodesk
Jim Bedrick, Webcor Builders (chair)
Dan Gonzales, Swinerton Builders
Mario Guttman, HOK Architects
Atul Khanzode, DPR Construction
Greg Luth, GPLA Engineers
Tony Rinella, Anshen + Allen Architects
John Wynne, Lucasfilm (owner)

via Organizing the Development of a Building Information Model: AECbytes Feature Article.

BIM is essentially complete and about to go into user testing, however, initial testing suggests that an ability for staff to change the blog students have registered would be a significant benefit during the first couple of weeks. This post describes the design and implementation of this feature.

Plan

The aim is to allow all teaching staff should be able to modify the blog that has been registered for any of their students.

• Add to the student details screen, for each registered student, a link “change blog” in the “live blog” – actually change it to “Current blog | Change blog”
• The change blog is a link to a new form, essentially the same as the student register, just ask for a URL.
• When submitted, pass it through the same checks as the student does when registering — Will need to abstract this code out into a function to use in both places.

Update the student details screen

Add the change/current blog stuff. Easy, done.

Need to identify the URL for the form….&screen=ChangeBlogRegistration

Display the form

Need to call the function to show the form for both:

• Marker
• Coordinator

Show the details of the student and the current blog, show a form.

All done

All done and working. Need to update some of the bread crumbs for navigation, but that is part of another task.

Today, numerous companies are striving to re-imagine the way we interact with information.  Apple claims the iPad has dramatically rethought the way people will interact with the web.  Google’s numerous products constantly strive to deliver information in the most simple and clear format possible.  For decades, people have noted that the construction industry has evolved very little in comparison to the productivity leaps taken in other industries.  These comments usually refer to large products that are most similar to buildings: cars, airplanes and other industrial equipment.  From Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture (1931) to Kieran Timberlake’s Refabricating Architecture (2004), it has been noted that architects should take lessons from ever-evolving manufacturing processes.  These texts point out the differences in the physical process of making.  But what if, instead of modeling our evolution off of planes and cars, we strived to replicate the Steve Jobs of the world – those who are re-thinking the way we communicate basic information?

What would it look like if we rethought the way owners and builders interact with construction documents? Can we improve upon the conventional methods of construction documentation to better communicate the mountain of information required to realize a new building?

For decades, the construction documents for large buildings have consisted of a set of drawings and written specifications, each several inches thick.  This system works; much thought has gone into these documents’ format to allow all parties involved in the construction process to find information quickly.  The construction site is dangerous and while searching through a paper document can be cumbersome, the hard copy format is imperative. Some construction trailers have computers and tablets (and possibly iPads, in the not too distant future), but the conditions of the site and the number of parties involved in a building’s construction insist that distributable paper deliverables will still be required for the foreseeable future.  Operating within the boundary of 2D graphics on paper, can we use modern digital tools, such as BIM, to reassess the way we communicate our designs?

Let’s consider modern methods of creating paper construction documents.  The construction drawings depict two-dimensional graphic conventions that have evolved from the earliest of hand drawings.  For 20 to 25 years architects emulated such drawings using CAD software.  Today, we have numerous other tools at our disposal than CAD alone; we use BIM software, such as Revit, to create conventional construction drawings from a 3D model.   If such robust tools are now available, how should architects take advantage of them to improve how others comprehend their designs?

BIM models can contain tremendous information about the model components.  While Integrated Project Delivery methods do allow for the model information to be shared, how should the traditional 2D deliverable be reconsidered to better communicate the information required for construction?  Conventional documents provide several layers of information densely compiled on the same drawing.  This provides as much information on as few total drawings as possible.  If clear visual communication is a goal, then how might BIM models facilitate more clear drawings?

Let’s take the architectural floor plan as an example. The layers of information shown are:

• The building’s geometry
• Rooms: number, finish codes, area
• Dimensions
• References to other drawings: elevations, sections and enlarged plans
• Notes
• Tags for doors, windows and other scheduled components
• Fire ratings
• Partition types

Of this information, what could be delivered differently through a BIM model?  Filters can be applied to automatically change the display of certain components.  A colored plan could automatically show a carpenter where each unique partition type is located in the plan.  Plan diagrams that more clearly communicate fire ratings can also be generated.  Similarly, different doors or window types could be filtered to graphically highlight where each type should be provided.

Beyond the floor plan, how should other drawings take advantage of the third dimension to clearly communicate the design?  Yes, we can put 3D views on the drawing sheets, but what systematic approach should be taken in doing so?

As we continue to improve how we use BIM, we should think critically about what aspects of our designs should be better communicated.  If innovators in information technologies such as Google and Apple are thinking critically about how people interact with information, what would equivalent innovation in architectural communication look like?  Construction drawings as we know them have facilitated the construction of the greatest buildings for generations.  Even 3D models have been around for many years.  But we should not underestimate the paradigm shift that BIM models represent.  We’re virtually constructing the building; how can we use the model to provide additional value for our clients and the construction process?  Collectively, if we do provide additional value to individual projects, perhaps we will take a larger step toward increasing the value of architectural services.

One of the bigger tasks left to do is to integrate BIM with the gradebook. Some initial exploration has been done, this post seeks to document the initial implementation.

This implementation is going to be quite simple, and perhaps simple minded. The less than straight-forward nature of the task of finding information about how to do this and the reducing time available are the main reasons for the simple approach. Potentially, the simple approach might also help the academic staff driving it.

Initial design

As posts are “released” by the coordinator, the marks will be added to a column in the gradebook that matches the name of the BIM activity. i.e. this will be simple addition. In terms of scaling etc. it will be up to the teaching staff to use the gradebook features to do this.

At best there should be an option to include in the gradebook.

Implementation

Add option to include results in gradebook

• Modify the bim table with new field.
• Modify mod_form.php to have field.
• Modify lib.php functions to appropriately modify the database appropriately.

  TO DO: Modify add_instance to include a call to grade_update to add the item to the gradebook.

  Borrowing a lot from existing modules.

Question arises: what happens if the gradebook option is added after some results have been released? Should BIM:

• Not allow changing.
• Allow coordinator to “reset” gradebook for all currently released results?

Add the results

• Modify the “release” posts function to update the gradebook.

  TO DO: If the appropriate option is set, then call grade_update to change the entry.

  Have initial code in place. Doesn’t seem to be updating correctly. Need to look at this more. Subsequent additions of marks, not summing up?

A simple testing process for this:

• Register feeds for 3 students in the one course.
• Allocate posts to a few questions for each.
• As an iterative process
  • Mark one or two, check gradebook, release one or two, check gradebook, repeat
• Repeat for another course, observe.

Initial testing of releasing 2 students with 2 of the same questions, works fine. All in gradebook as expected.

More questions/students seems to work.

Go to another course, without creating questions and register a couple of student blogs. Now, create the questions and run the bim_cron function. Yep, that works like a charm. Now back to gradebook.

Adding BIM to gradebook after initial addition is working. Can I release and add marks to it? Oops, yes, but it adds another entry!!!! Bugger. Will it do it again? Nope. and it works.

TO DO: fix the problem with an update of BIM adding Gradebook followed by release resulting in 2 columns, not one.

Problem with bugs introduced in the update_instance method. Fixed and working.

Just about done with development of version 1.0 of the module. A couple of important, but hopefully straight forward tasks to do. One of these is adding the ability for BIM activities to be backed up and restored. That’s the purpose of this post. The plan is to find out how it is meant to work and plan how it can be done for BIM.

At this stage, I’ve worked out the basics of how this works. I think. I haven’t implemented it, so new wrinkles may appear. Current status is to defer work on this and focus on that functionality required for immediate use. This can be added in a little while.

How it works

The Module extension development book I’ve been using is pretty poor in its treatment of backups/restores. Some existing Moodle documentation includes:

• a start of some developer docs.
• the user forum with links to faq

Some basic stuff gleaned from the code of some activities – incomplete

• Moodle looks for files backuplib.php and restorelib.php
• Data is saved in a simple XML file format.
• backup functions (from core choice module) QUESTION Are these specific to choice or common?
  • choice_backup_mods($bf,$preferences)
    Standard, purpose is to backup everything for this module
  • choice_backup_one_mod($bf,$preferences,$choice)
    Standard, purpose is to backup just a single instance of the module based on the $choice parameter as the id
  • backup_choice_answers ($bf,$preferences,$choice)
    Standard, previous function backs up the instance data and then this one saves some contents
  • backup_choice_options ($bf,$preferences,$choice)
  • choice_check_backup_mods($course,$user_data=false,$backup_unique_code,$instances=null)
  • choice_check_backup_mods_instances($instance,$backup_unique_code)
  • choice_encode_content_links ($content,$preferences)
  • choice_ids ($course)
  • choice_answer_ids_by_course ($course)
  • choice_answer_ids_by_instance ($instanceid)
• Need to save
  • instance data

An attempt to describe the process

• Moodle module backup works be essentially creating a XML file that contains all the information in the database tables associated with the module.
• It assumes a hierarchical relationships in the data.
  • All instances of the module
    • Data specific to an instance. (non-hierarchical)
    • All hierarchical data for an instance (e.g. student feeds for a bim)
      • Data specific to a single instance (e.g. feed_url)
      • All hierarchical data (e.g. posts made to the feed)
        • Data specific to a single instance (e.g. content of post)
        • All hierarhical data (…and so on)
• The nested/hierarchical relationship with the XML produced is mirrored in the functions that exist. The first one is MODULENAME_backup_mods($bf,$preferences) which calls the next level down…
• Two other required functions with names containing …_check_.. are used to generate some options that allow the user doing the backup to choose what to backup.
• Another function MODULENAME_encode_content_links is a bit of a mystery. Might be to “support inter-activities linking” or “recode links to ensure they work when reimported” – NOT SURE.
  I’m assuming that this is needed because as the database ids are created by a restore, they are likely to be different to the original data. If they do change, then it will be necessary to modify some other links. There are two types I could think of:
  1. links between database tables
  2. links in URLs with fields in the tables.

  The backup stuff for chat, seems to indicate the latter

• The functions doing the save are meant to write XML by using fwrite and XML functions like “start_tag” “end_tag” full_tag”.

The bim hierarchy

• bim
  • Instance data: id course name intro introformat timecreated timemodified register_feed mirror_feed change_feed grade_feed ….Other standard module stuff???
  • bim_group_allocation
    • Instance data: id bim userid groupid
    • NO HIERARCHICAL DATA
  • bim_questions
    • Instance data: id, bim, title, body, min_mark, max_mark
    • NO HIERARCHICAL DATA
  • bim_student_feeds
    • Instance data: id, bim, userid, numentries, lastpost, blogurl, feedurl
    • NO HIERARCHICAL DATA
  • bim_marking
    • Instance data: id, bim, userid, marker, question, mark, status, timepublished, timemarked, link, post, comments, title
    • NO HIERARCHICAL DATA

The following is the start of a process for developing a paper that I plan to submit to Moodlemoot AU 2010 based on my recent experience in developing BIM. The plan is to:

• Write a series of blog posts based on very rough ideas for the paper (this is the first).
• Bring those together into a presentation that will be given at CQU under the banner of LTERC and, if I can overcome some local barriers, ustream’d.
• Use the presentation as the structure/content for the paper submission.

Papers are due to be submitted on the 22nd March.

Some of the ideas in this post were sparked or mentioned in the discussion on this post giving an unofficial update on MoodleMoot AU 2010.

Basic idea

Over the last year or so I have been working to convert BAM (Jones and Luck, 2009) – a local e-learning tool that supports the use of individual student reflective journals hosted on external blog sites – into BIM (BAM into Moodle). The aim of the paper is to reflect on this process and attempt to identify the challenges in getting BAM/BIM developed and used effectively.

Explanation of the title

The current use of “blended learning” in the title is in part because of a current local institutional focus. It’s use here is simply indicating a mix of media and approaches (which is what people have always done) to support L&T within a university context.

However, the use of blended learning also allows some interesting points to develop around the rhetoric and current suggestions about how to implement blended learning at an organisational level. In particular, blended learning requires a focus on re-designing how learning occurs to best take advantage of the different types of media. I think that the paper may start to argue that implementing innovative blended learning pedagogies also requires a re-design of the information technology used and also a re-design of how that information technology is managed and supported.

Why is this important?

It’s still widely recognised that the vast majority of learning and teaching within universities is somewhat less than innovative and much of it less than good. There’s been a lot of efforts to improve this situation but much of it has failed – as demonstrated by the fact that much of L&T remains less than innovative, less than good.

By attempting to identify the barriers to developing innovative pedagogy the paper is aiming to identify those areas where organisations should perhaps focus their attention, rather than simply doing more of the same. Exploring the barriers in a specific case should help identify some ideas for further research that can confirm the relative importance of the barriers in other contexts.

An initial list

What follows is an initial list. I need to add more to this – please feel free to suggest barriers that you’ve experienced and eventually try and organise the list into some sort of abstraction or taxonomy.

Some of the challenges include:

• Learning about Moodle and Moodle development;
  While there are some useful resources, especially the developers’ forums, the information here is very disparate and inconsistent (due to differences in versions). In particular, I found it difficult to get a grasp of the “Moodle” way.
• Moving from an institution specific to general application;
  BAM was implemented specifically for CQU. It built on CQU assumptions (e.g. many courses have hundreds of students and tens of academic staff involved spread through Australia and overseas) and systems.
• Institutional confusion
  In the period 2008-2010 CQU has undergone organisational restructures, a re-branding and name change, a buying out of a commercial partner responsible for capital city campuses, restructures around who is responsible for e-learning – the on-going battle between IT and L&T, the introduction of several new positions and committees around e-learning, the dismantling and likely “remantling” of the L&T division, the selection of a new LMS (Moodle) and the selection of a new Vice-Chancellor.
• Institutional complexity;
  Significant percentage of courses have hundreds of students, multiple staff spread across Australia and overseas.
• Insitutional inertia;
  Assumptions about how a course is resourced and run that are built into embedded policies such as workload calculation. e.g. part-time tutors get paid for certain activities.
• The hierarchical de-composition of responsibilities and the subsequent lack of knowledge on which to draw upon to solve problems.
  Really effective blended learning requires a combination of knowledge including technical, pedagogical, institutional, people etc. The traditional approaches to project management and organisational structures divide these bits of knowledge into separate groups and in some cases jealously guard their area of responsibility. This prevents the development of solutions that arise from a collaborative, serendipitous mixture of the disparate bits of knowledge.
• An environment that does not encourage innovation and experimentation in teaching and learning.
  Universities in general value research more than teaching. A complex institutional context makes it even more difficult
• The non-existent net generation.
  There is an assumption amongst some that new students are savy social media and technology in general. The experience with BAM/BIM is the complete opposite.
• Training mechanisms and systems that make it difficult for staff (and students) to grok how systems work.
  To use a system effectively it helps to really understand how it works. The nature of most of the training and the systems used for blended learning are such that they encourage academic staff to development a rote-learned, process focused approach to performing tasks, rather than understanding how the system works.
• Systems/tools that are too general and don’t offer sufficient scaffolding or contextual support.
  Most of the tools within an LMS are generic – upload a document, run a discussion forum, run a quiz. To turn that into an innovative bit of pedagogy requires a lot of additional work on the part of the academic. The tool doesn’t provide much scaffolding to support particular pedagogical approaches.

  There’s good reason for this. To much support for specific approaches will make other approaches difficult, if not impossible. And the aim of an LMS is to support the broadest possible array of uses and people. But the cost is that it is more difficult to implement innovative pedagogies.

  Offering support for the local context is also part of this. Most institutions have their own names or terms that arise out of how things are done in that context. Most LMS use a generic term, usually based on the terms used by the folk who designed it. This mismatch can make it more difficult.

• Processes that place the focus on the top-down, analytical, inductive and deductive, which are inappropriate for the nature of the problem.
  Alternatives include ateleological processes, bricolage (especially in terms of Papert – education – and Ciborra – information systems) and abductive logic.

The literature

Garrison and Kanuka, 2004

This paper (perhaps one of the “seminal works”) includes

Finally, administrative and leadership issues are addressed and the outline of an action plan to implement blended learning approaches is presented

. The trouble is that much of what it suggests creates the problems I’m talking about above. A focus on top-down, efficiencies that drive out development which is especially important in a complex and novel idea that seeks to mix two complex ideas.

Should perhaps consider the book by Garrison and Vaughan.

Klein, Noe and Wang, 2006

Looks at motivation to learn and its effect (along with other things) on student learning in a blended learning course. Perhaps some stuff here on students, especially in connection with local students.

Davis and Fill, 2007

The abstract (emphasis added)

Blended learning, the combination of traditional face-to-face teaching methods with authentic online learning activities, has the potential to transform student-learning experiences and outcomes. In spite of this advantage, university teachers often find it difficult to adopt new online techniques, in part because institutional practices are still geared to support more traditional approaches. This paper describes how a project, funded to support international collaboration to enhance learning and teaching in Geography, has allowed a university to explore models for change. It briefly examines the associated issues of sharing and repurposing resources; it reflects on the impact of the project on local strategy, and the importance of sustaining the collaborations and approaches to learning and teaching after the funding is completed.

Draffan and Rainger, 2006

From the abstract,

A model for an inclusive approach to the identification of challenges to blended learning as a means to identify educational accessibility issues is presented. By focusing on both the learner and teacher perspectives, the model encompasses a broad range of factors, including learner characteristics, learning and teaching environments, interactions and activities. The proposed model provides a starting point for the identification of challenges to learning from a socio-cultural perspective rather than a medical or rehabilitation perspective. This holistic perspective is key to moving ‘thinking’ towards a more inclusive learning approach that embraces the needs of all learners, regardless of a defined disability.

Stacey and Gerbic, 2007

Offers some useful insights into blended learning and its relationship to on-campus or distance education institutions, plus some other points to build on.

References

Davis H, Fill K (2007) Embedding blended learning in a university’s teaching culture: Experiences and reflections, British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(5): 817-828

Draffan E, Rainger P (2006) A model for the identification of challenges to blended learning, ALT-J: Research in Learning Technology, 14(1), 55-67

Garrison D, Kanuka H (2004), Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education, The Internet and Higher Education, 7(2): 95-105

Klein H, Noe R, Wang c (2006), Motivation to learn and course outcomes: The impact of delivery mode, learning goal orientation and perceived barriers and enablers, Personnel Psychology, 59(3): 665-702

Stacey E, Gergic P, (2007) Teaching for blended learning – Research perspectives from on-campus and distance education students, Education and Information Technologies, 12(3): 165-174

Continuing the tidying of BIM. This time the focus is on any and all steps necessary to get BIM ready to go up on a test server and have some real folk actually look and play with it. The structure of this will be based around users and actions. I’m going to do some of my own testing and then also add in anything that comes up from working with others.

This is a work in progress.

The following bullet list will list the different roles and the actions they can perform. It will contain a description of what I found/reflected upon. I’ll add any todos in line with the action/user. The users and their actions for BIM currently include:

• Coordinator
  • Remove a bim activity
    Not what would typically be first, but I have some old test cases laying around and it was the first one I needed to. The standard editing interface will remove the bim from display. It will remove the data from mdl_bim. Can’t confirm if it will remove entries from the other bim tables.

    TO DO: Check whether removing a BIM will delete all database entries. No, it doesn’t.

    TO DO: Modify lib.php:bim_delete_instance so that it removes all evidence from the database tables. Also check if it should actually ask about backups?

  • Create new bim/Configure;
    First, let’s login as a coordinator of a course and create a new BIM activity.

    TO DO: having the newly designed icon for bim in place results in a massive icon in the configure page for a new activity. Need to reduce it. (icon is quite large – need to reduce it)

    TO DO: Need to put in place the help pages.

    TO DO: Need to put in HTML editor for “about BIM activity”. This is a problem with Safari.

    TO DO: Can the “group mode” option in common module settings be removed? Also “ID number” and “Grade category” Added features parameter to “standard_coursemodule_elements”

    TO DO: Is the “mirroring” check box in configure actually preventing mirroring? YES

  • Configure
    Once the BIM is actually created, it’s necessary to do some additional configuration that isn’t on the standard configuration screen. In particular, add questions and allocate markers.

    TO DO: Add some description/help to the page to give some indication of what the page is for and how to use it.

    TO DO: By default allocate the coordinator to all students. Is there a “all students” group? Don’t do this. Up to coordinator to have groups allocated.

    TO DO: Add a message on this screen that summarises the current configuration and is especially strong on the fact that students can’t register, or mirroring is turned off etc.

  • Manage questions

    TO DO: Add some description/help to the Manage question page to give some indication of what the page is for and how to use it. The message only shows up when there is an existing question. Not when there are no questions.

    TO DO: Able to enter question without min/max mark

    Can’t make it required on client side because sometimes there is no new question to add.

  • Allocate markers

    TO DO: Fails if there are no markers
    

    nvalid argument supplied for foreach() in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/moodle/mod/bim/coordinator/marker_allocation_form.php on line 34

    . Yes, works if there are actually groups. So some error checking needs to be added.

    Having a question does reduce the number of errors, but not entirely.

    TO DO: Error on moodle-training
    

    SELECT * FROM m_bim_group_allocation WHERE bim=1 and userid in ( 21, 55348, 3, 104903, 10749, 2 )

    * line 686 of lib/dmllib.php: call to debugging()
    * line 609 of lib/dmllib.php: call to get_recordset_sql()
    * line 930 of lib/dmllib.php: call to get_recordset_select()
    * line 157 of mod/bim/lib/groups.php: call to get_records_select()
    * line 30 of mod/bim/coordinator/allocate_markers.php: call to bim_get_all_markers_groups()
    * line 39 of mod/bim/coordinator/view.php: call to bim_allocate_markers()
    * line 97 of mod/bim/view.php: call to show_coordinator()

    Being caused by incorrect set up of bim_group_allocation table. Have fixed the XMLDBB in moodle-train, but is not taking effect. May need to reinstall after doing more fixing.

  • Manage marking

    TO DO: Show message if no marker allocation, as this means this display won’t work.

    TO DO: Fails if there are no markers
    

    .

    TO DO: May also be a problem with no questions be created.

    TO DO: When a new question is added and there are no responses to it. Missing: is set to 0. When it should be all students. It’s also not a link.

    TO DO: The list of unregistered students seems to include teaching staff. Need to double check how “all students” are being got. – seems to be working as required. Students role seems to have a few strange allocations

  • Find student

    TO DO: Add the hint that a “%” will show all students, which might be useful for smaller classes

    TO DO: The “show details” link in a list of students is taking us to HRMT20019.

    TO DO: When showing table of multiple matches, sometimes the “Show Details” link goes to a page saying that the student hasn’t registered. Need to show “not registered” in the table.

  • Your students
    • View student details

      TO DO: Add in the number of students in the registered and unregistered tables.

      TO DO: May be a problem with the calculation of the time/date for Last post. 40 years since the last post on my blog?

      TO DO: Colour code the “Last post” cell.

    • View post details
    • Allocate post

      TO DO: After allocating a question the status in the form doesn’t seem to reflect the changes…..MOSTLY DONE….drop box still says unallocated but that doesn’t change operation

      TO DO: Add title of post into display.

      TO DO: Add a link for the coordinator to “process and allocate” existing posts in the database. Maybe just leave it for cron to do…but add a message on allocate to explain.

    • Mark post

      TO DO: When simply changing the allocation the post is being set to marked. Should only change the allocation. Also the drop box is keeping the value

      TO DO: Num Marked of Num Released is wrong way around. Should be released/marked.

      TO DO: Not checking that mark is within the min/max range. Can this be done on the client? It does require a number, but does not check that it is within the max/mark range – TO DO: Add a warning message if it goes above maximum.

      TO DO: Does the progress result total make use of the max mark for each questions?

      TO DO: Entering a large number is getting auto translated into 99.

      TO DO: When re-allocating a post, that is already marked, to a different question – need to check the mark.

• Student

  TO DO: Add the configuration message to the top of this page in someway.

  • Register blog

    TO DO: Errors when registering a successful URL and just before display the details – may have been caused by there not being any questions

    TO DO: fix up the “string” for the heading.

    TO DO: add in the “about” for the bim.

    TO DO: Add in checks to prevent common “bad” URLs that are blogs.

  • View details

    TO DO: Marked questions not showing up as marked.

    TO DO: Add the message about this activity to the bottom of the page.

    TO DO: Convert the details into a table, including progress. Use the same function as for the marker bim_show_student_details, move to locallib

• Marker
  • View student details

    TO DO: If there are no allocations for a marker, i.e. no groups. Then display a message suggesting they contact the teacher in charge.

  • View post details

    TO DO: IF there are no allocations, has a failure.
    

    ine 334 of mod/bim/marker/view.php: call to bim_get_marking_details()

    No longer a problem as the link to post details is no longer shown if there are 0 students.

  • Allocate post
  • Mark post

Non activities related

• Get latest copy of SimplePie.
• Registration of blog posts may be screwing up the lastpost time. My blog posts are being set to 0.

  TO DO: Check that lastpost in bim_student_feeds is being set correctly on registration

  TO DO: Ensure that lastpost in bim_student_feeds is being updated when processing feeds.

  TO DO: Check num_entries in bim-student_feeds is being changed at registration and mirroring.

• use addRule numeric on appropriate values
• Generating OPML feeds for staff? Leave till later
• TO DO: Is timemarked being updated by the marking process.
• TO DO: Add a timereleased to bim_marking.
• TO DO: Get timereleased set when released.???? code is in, can’t see why it isn’t working. Might be due to database change. Will need to keep an eye on this.
• Check cron is working.
• Gradebook stuff. – moving to another post
• Deleting BIMs.
• Backing BIMs up/restoring – Leave till later
• Check whether a student blog url, has already been registered for this bim.

New problem – instance in course_module

At the moment, it appears that the setting of the instance field in the course_module table is being corrupted in some way. Caused by the add_instance method not returning the id as it should.

Just got this from AIA Technology in Architectural Practice (TAP) community.  They are announcing their 2010 BIM Awards call for entries.  The submission fee is $300.

If you have a BIM project that excels in any of the following categories, please submit!:

• Category A: Creating Stellar Architecture Using BIM
• Category B: Design/Delivery Process Innovation Using BIM
• Category C: Outstanding Sustainable Design Using BIM
• Category D: Outstanding Design for Fabrication Using BIM

The deadline for entries is 5pm EST, March 29, 2010

2010 Jury

Erleen Hatfield, PE LEED AP – Buro Happold – New York
Stephen Jones – McGraw Hill Construction – New York
Thom Mayne, FAIA – Morphosis – Santa Monica
Stephen Selkowitz – Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – Berkeley
John Tocci – Tocci Group of Companies – Woburn

source- http://www.aia.org/practicing/groups/kc/AIAS074564

The last tidy up of BIM resulted in some fairly major code changes as early design assumptions were over-turned in favour of more PHP/Moodle like approaches, not to mention general better design/structure. This tidy up turns to some of the more “housekeeping” types of tasks. This one seeks to ensure that BIM follows all of the security guidelines as suggested on the Moodle site

Auth and capabilities

• require_login course is used check
• has_capability called early. check

Forms

• Use moodleforms wherever possible check
  There are 7 forms in BIM
  • allocation_form.php
  • coordinator/find_student_form.php
  • coordinator/marker_allocation_form.php
  • coordinator/question_form.php
  • marking_form.php
  • mod_form.php
  • ./student/register_form.php
• setType method for each field
  • allocation_form.php check
  • coordinator/find_student_form.php check
  • coordinator/marker_allocation_form.php check
  • coordinator/question_form.php check
  • marking_form.php check
  • mod_form.php check
  • ./student/register_form.php check
• use optional_param/required_param check
• Clean data from external sources – RSS Feeds
  I’m using SimplePie to retrieve all the feeds. I’m assuming this does the job of cleaning. I would hope so. This will need confirmation

Output

more information

• Use s or p to output plain text
• use format_string for minimal HTML
• use format_text for all other content
• use stripslashes on data from option_param or required_param if being outputed

There’s also the question here of some of the internationalisation stuff that I need to include.

Currently, I’m simply using “print”. Source files using print include:

• coordinator/allocate_markers.php check
• coordinator/find_student.php check
• coordinator/manage_marking.php check
• coordinator/view.php check
• coordinator/question_form.php check
• lib/bim_rss.php check
• lib/locallib.php check
• marker/view.php
• marker/allocation_form.php check
• marking_form.php
• student/view.php

Adding in language support is interesting. Not a lot of examples. Having to use some arcane greps and finds to discover examples and try to deduce from there.

Log every request

Use add_to_log

The major requests for BIM are:

• Coordinator Check
  • Configure BIM
  • Manage and change questions
  • Allocate markers
  • Manage marking
    • View students in various states
    • Release results
  • Find student
  • Your students
    • student details
    • post details
    • reallocate post
    • Mark post
• Marker CHECK
  • student details
  • student post details
  • reallocate post
  • Mark post
• student CHECK
  • view details
  • try to register feed

Next step in tidying up is to clean up the checking, calculation and setting of the blog and feed URLs as students register their blogs.

First, fix up some problem with markers without any students.

Unregistered students

Which highlights a problem with coordinator seeing unregistered students. Add this information to the Manage Marking page.

Process is: get all student details, call the appropriate functions.

Now there is a bim_get_all_students, but it currently relies on bim_markers_students. Need to replace that.

Let’s use it first and get that bit working. Done.

Now time to replace the kludge with something that will actually get all students in a course. I’m guessing that get_users_by_capbility is the one to use here. Done.

Checking of blog URLs

One of the biggest areas for work is students who make mistakes when registering their blog. BAM does a range of tests including:

• Can the URL actually be retrieved.
• Does the URL include a link to RSS feed – done via auto-discovery.
• Can the feed (any one of them) be retrieved.
• Can the feed be parsed as XML

At the very least these checks need to be made.

Additional checks that need to be made, based one experience:

• The feed is not the wordpress.com feed
  Students can choose to register something a bit too early in the blog creation process that returns the main feed from wordpress.com.
• They register the edit screen of WordPress e.g. http://myblog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php.

The checking is one stage, the other is how to communicate these problems back to the students.

So, checks to implement:

• Is it even a valid URL.
• Can the URL be retrieved
• Can we get some auto discovery feeds
• If not, is the URL itself a feed?
• If there are feeds, loop through each one, and work with the first one that
  • We can retrieve
  • Is a feed
  • And doesn’t break any of the exclusions we know of

Interestingly, SimplePie makes this process much simpler in that it does much of the checking itself.

Should also look at client side checking i.e. make the form stop if the student hasn’t put in a URL. Do that later.

Testing SimplePie

• User enters blog url (not RSS) – e.g. http://davidtjones.wordpress.com – then permalink is blog and subscribe url is feed for both WordPress and blogger
• User enters feed URL – e.g. http://davidtjones.wordpress.com/feed/ – permalink is blog and subscribe url is feed. WordPress and blogger.

So, it seems I can trust SimplePie to do this and simply check permlink/link and the subscribe link. Need to check that both URLs are gettable and that the subscribe url is actually RSS.

Simply getting a page that doesn’t have a feed, will generate an error.

So the logic appears to be:

• Create SimplePie object with URL provided by user.
• Any errors, crash out.
• Compare the permalink and subscribe URLs
• If the value passed in is not the subscribe URL, get it??? No, it looks like SimplePie automatically gets the RSS, so if it can’t it would generate an error. Will need to test that. Yes, that’s what happens

Client side validation of URL

The form for registration uses Moodles formslib which in turn is based on the Pear library which has some documentation around validation.

Client side validation is generally done (I think) with the addRule method. Pear doesn’t seem to support a URL type, but Moodle does.

That seems to have too much difficulty for now.

Processing and allocating the feed elements

The last major task is to process and allocate items in the feed. This needs to be called on an individual blog when it is first registered, but also via cron at the fixed time.

Given a single student feed, the process is:

• Get the elements in the feed.
• For each element in the feed
  • Check to see if there is an existing feed in the database for this item, this is based on the permalink for the item stored in bim_marking
  • If there isn’t an entry, prepare to put one in.
  • Loop through each unallocated question for this student
    • If the post seems to match the question, modify the entry for the post.
  • Insert the new entry

Implementation and a need to re-use this code for the cron job that mirrors/processes registered blogs has resulted in a bit a re-factor. bim_process_feed( $bim, $student_feed, $questions ) is up and going.

In terms of text similarity there appear to be a few in-built PHP functions that might be helpful later on. This Pear class could also be a great help.

Get and test the cron updating

Okay, the cron code has been updated with the new methods. Rather than run from cron I want to see what’s going on. So going to modify the default “config” page for a coordinator to run the cron function.

It seems to be working, but to be truly sure I need to start looking at some individual student entries and how they change. For that, I need to add the student search facility that is currently missing.

Delete a small number of entries from bim_marking for students.

Run the cron thing to see if it works. Done.

Student search facility

Coordinators need to be able to search through all students and view their details. A marker doesn’t need to do this as they have a list of all their students shown and they can simply use the browser find facility. A coordinator, theoretically, has their own students as well as a responsibility to look after all students. Hence they need to be able to enter a student number and see their details.

Implementation plan:

• Add a “Find student” tab.
• Implement a simple form that takes details about students (try to do something like MyCQU in terms of making it simple).
• Display specific student details or a list of potentials to search from.
• Use the standard “student details” function to show the details.

Done, which is now bringing us back to the question of the item titles which is problematic because of the changes in what’s being stored in the database…

Limiting use of xml files – all in database

A difference between BIM and BAM is that BIM will be storing all posts made to the student feed in the database. BAM only stored posts allocated to questions. This caused two issues:

• The ability for markers to “unallocate” posts meant that there were some unallocated posts in the database. This starts to create a duplication/difference. Some unallocated posts are in the database, some are.
• Feeds don’t always provide a history of all the posts. So some might be lost. Not really a problem with current use as most students didn’t make enough posts.

By making the decision to put all posts in the database, there’s a need to update some early design decisions that were made on the basis of the BAM design.

Add post title to bim_marking

Because all the posts are going into the database. Need to add the title into the database table bim_marking.

Done.

Sorry, no insights into the title of the post. This is simply a test post that I’m using for bim development.

Building Smart Alliance including International (IAI) Sites

The acronym “BIM,” is historically linked in the minds of many to 3-dimensional and now 4D (time) and 5D (cost) virtual modeling of buildings. BIM, however, has the capability and even the responsibility to be much more.

“Building” in this usage is a noun referring to the structure more than the process and accordingly, current BIM examples tend to be virtual models of individual or small clusters of buildings executed in proprietary software for the purpose of supporting the design, detailing and construction phases of the lifecycle. Used within this scope, BIM speaks primarily to architects, architectural engineers, specifiers, estimators, scientists interested in performance modeling, constructors and construction vendors, computer application vendors interested in this business space, and owners as they participate in the new-building development process. The future of BIM modeling is to expand the information model to include more of the life cycle phases (ie: real property commerce, maintenance and operations, environmental simulation, etc.), to standardize life cycle process definitions and associated exchanges of information, and to standardize information content so that meanings and granularity are clear and consistent. This expanded scope definition will make BIM useful to a wider community including, for example, real property managers, appraisers, brokers, mortgage bankers, facility assessors, facility managers, maintenance and operations engineers, safety and security personnel as incident responders, landscape architects, infrastructure engineers and operators, and others outside the business verticals associated with new building design and construction.

Although BIM applications and practices in current use are vastly superior to manual and 2D-only CAD methodologies, current usage of BIM technologies and techniques must be improved further. Currently, processes and content are locally negotiated on a project-by-project basis and data sets (i.e.: models) are not necessarily capable of being used for different purposes through unassisted machine-to-machine and application-to-application exchanges. To realize needed end-to-end efficiencies in the capital facilities industry these are the characteristics that are needed in BIM methods.

Ironically, many BIM applications are already capable of supporting standardized interoperable processes and content if they existed. But in the absence of standards and associated best practice definitions, this support is only utilized on an ad-hoc, project-by-project basis and often is re-negotiated and/or recreated for each services contract and/or project.

It is true that associating BIM with the development and use of 3D virtual building modeling techniques and technologies can yield very productive results. However, when used in this context, BIM tends to be focused on data and technology standards during design and construction and may not fully realize the potential for information-based, interoperable business processes related to “building” (the verb). The application of BIM is pertinent to at least all the following participants in the facilities industry:

• Owners—High level summary information about their facilities
• Planners—Existing information about physical site(s) and corporate program needs
• Realtors—Information about a site or facility to support purchase or sale
• Appraisers—Information about the facility to support valuation
• Mortgage Bankers—Information about demographics, corporations, and viability
• Designers—Planning and site information
• Engineers—Electronic model from which to import into design and analysis software
• Cost & Quantity Estimators—Electronic model to obtain accurate quantities
• Specifiers—Intelligent objects from which to specify and link to later phases
• Contracts & Lawyers—More accurate legal descriptions as well as more accurate to defend or on which to base litigation
• Construction Contractors—Intelligent objects for bidding and ordering and a place to store gained information
• Sub-Contractors—Clearer communication and same support for contractors
• Fabricators—Can use intelligent model for numerical controls for fabrication
• Code Officials—Code checking software can process model faster and more accurately
• Facility Managers—Provides product, warranty and maintenance information
• Maintenance & Sustainment—Easily identify products for repair parts or replacement
• Renovation & Restoration—Minimizes unforeseen conditions and the resulting cost
• Disposal & Recycling—Better knowledge of what is recycleable
• Scoping, Testing, Simulation—Electronically build facility and eliminate conflicts
• Safety & Occupational Health—Knowledge of what materials are in use and MSDS
• Environmental & NEPA—Improved information for environmental impact analysis
• Plant Operations—3D visualization of processes
• Energy, LEED—Optimized energy analysis more easily accomplished allows for more review of alternatives – impact of re-siteing by 5 degrees for example
• Space & Security—Intelligent objects in 3D provide better understanding of vulnerabilities
• Network Managers—3D physical network plan is invaluable for troubleshooting
• CIO’s—Basis for better business decisions and information about existing infrastructure
• Risk Management—Better understanding of potential risks and how to avoid on minimize
• Occupant Support—Visualization of facility for finding places – people can’t read floor plans
• First Responders—Minimize loss of life and property with timely and accurate information Each of the above requires information as well as creates information for others. The optimized BIM would only contain the information needed by others, however since this is currently an expanding concept it is likely better to err on the side of collecting too much information.

Each of the above requires information as well as creates information for others. The optimized BIM would only contain the information needed by others, however since this is currently an expanding concept it is likely better to err on the side of collecting too much information.

National BIM Standard (NBIMS)

The work of the National BIM Standard Committee (NBIMS), a committee of the National Institute for Building Sciences (NIBS), is to knit together the broadest and deepest constituency ever assembled for the purpose of addressing the losses and limitations associated with errors and inefficiencies in the building supply chain¹.

The current NBIMS Charter signatories (a list of which can be seen at the NBIMS web site) represent most, of the active end-user constituencies as well as many of the professional associations, consortia, and technical and associated services vendors who support them.

Several organizations have initiatives underway to develop data technology (i.e., interfaces, encodings, schema, etc., that enable different technologies to “plug and play”), generic business process workflows and content standards. One of the most important tasks for NBIMS is to coordinate these efforts and harmonize work between all organizations with similar products and interests. Many professional organizations are actively endorsing NBIMS as well as providing subject matter expertise and important development resources. In addition, over 300 applications now support IFC’s and most BIM application vendors have indicated their support for BIM standards and are participating on the committee both in an advisory capacity and through participation in test bed demonstrations. Lists of the active organizations are found at the end of this resource page.

NBIM standards will merge data interoperability standards, content values and taxonomies, and process definitions to create standards which define “business views” of information needed to accomplish a particular set of functions as well as the information exchange standards between stakeholders. This is significantly different from previous initiatives, which have focused primarily on data-centric approaches. Using business views as guides, NBIMS standards will identify information needed to support these views, appropriate content standards, and provide a technical description that developers can use to provide supporting computer-based applications.

To illustrate this and to give readers a sense of what to expect, here are some of the distinguishing characteristics of and goals for the Committee:

• The scope and planned products are much more practice-oriented rather than data-centric. Both the organization of and representation on the Committee reflect this intent.
• The Charter assumes and encourages participants from, and value propositions for, all phases of the building process lifecycle.
• A primary goal is to maximize value for all process participants involved in the building lifecycle.
• A primary strategy is to maximize existing research and development through alliances, cross-representation, active testing and prototyping, and an open and inclusive approach to both membership and results. NBIMS will, through memorandums of understanding, recognize and harmonize its work with other standards-development organizations.
• The Committee has significant representation from government owners, private and government practitioners, vendors, and specialist professionals. It is actively seeking more involvement from, for example, private owners, A/E/C practitioners, property and facility managers, and real property professionals.
• The Committee supports the view that a building process lifecycle is not a strictly linear process but is a primarily cyclical process with feedback and cycle-to-cycle knowledge accumulation. The best representation of the building process lifecycle is therefore believed to be a business process helix with a central knowledge core and external nodes representing process suppliers and external consumers. Between these three elements exist information interchange “synapses” which require exchange rules and agreements.

A helical building process lifecycle model (used with permission)

• One of the principal products of the Committee’s work will be process standards describing parties to a process and the contracted information exchange requirements between the parties. It has been estimated that about 250 process definitions will eventually be required to support an interoperable building supply chain. Through a spiral development process, NBIMS plans to release developments in packages that will be immediately useful even as each release adds additional and more mature concepts and practices. The first packages are scheduled to be available in late 2006.

A NBIMS scoping diagram showing business processes and exchanges on a backdrop of life-cycle phases
(© NIBS 2006)

• NBIMS will support the development of content standards including taxonomy standards such as CSI OmniClass; which provides organized classification of elements important to the building process lifecycle.
• NBIMS will recognize and facilitate the harmonization of software implementation views as they provide necessary “machine interpretable” data sources to the building information exchange process. buildingSMART™, .ifc, ifcXML, BLIS, AEX, CSI/2 and others are examples of software implementation views.
• Vendors are actively participating on the Committee because they see value in having consistent and predictable processes to which they may apply their technical solutions. Having to develop, market and maintain products to support multiple, inconsistent processes, content, and interchange methods is expensive and complicates the product development cycle.
• Though not a CAD standard, NBIMS will address CAD graphic and non-graphic information and processes as well as phases both before and after design and construction (where CAD is most often used). However, the National CAD Standard will continue to be important as, for the foreseeable future, building processes will continue to need standards for 2D drawings as well, and even into the future to define standard reports out of a model.

By now, readers should understand that the work of the National BIM Standards Committee is the next logical step in transforming the building supply chain. The Standard assumes that a paradigm change is required, since the definition of paradigm change is “reforming the underlying pattern or model on which actions are based”. Participants in the building supply chain, through standards development and use of existing BIM technologies are already well on the way to changing the underlying patterns and operating practices used during the building lifecycle. But to realize the greatest efficiencies, BIM approaches must be based on broad aggregations of best practices rather than narrow, project-specific, proprietary solutions. By focusing now on the business view of contracted information exchanges and best-use of interoperable data sources, and by expanding the conceptual scope of BIM to include all phases of the building lifecycle, we can realize promised new levels of quality and efficiency.

Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBIE)

COBIE is an IFC reference standard supporting the direct software information exchange and a spreadsheet that can be used to capture COBIE data for both small renovation and capital projects. COBIE may be directly incorporated into existing post-construction data exchanges using existing contract specifications. COBIE data can also be captured during the design and construction process by adding information as it is created. Capturing COBIE data during the project and eliminating paper exchange is expected to significantly decrease existing paper based exchange costs. Owners and construction managers’ implementation instructions will allow COBIE data to integrate within existing maintenance, operations, and asset management systems.

National Institute of Building Sciences Council Involvement

• NIBS – Building Enclosure Technology and Environment Council (BETEC)—Encouraging optimum energy use of buildings through a better understanding how over all complex building components interact with each other and the environment.
• NIBS – Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC)—Enhance public safety fostering improved seismic safety for use by the building community.
• NIBS – Facility Maintenance and Operations Committee (FMOC)—The goal of BIM is to support business processes throughout the lifecycle—getting information to the operator and sustainer of the facility is a key goal of which FMOC is working. They are a co-sponsor of the COBIE project.
• NIBS – High Performance Building Council (HPB)—This emerging effort is focusing on not building to the minimum but looking at sustainability. This will be reinforced by accurate information provided by a BIM.
• NIBS – Multihazard Mitigation Council (MMC)—Having accurate information about facilities is a key need for evaluating the impact of hazards. The MMC is supporting the need for BIM to improve the accuracy of their reporting and analysis.
• NIBS – National CAD Standard—We will be using drawings for quite a long time into the future. Drawings are a report from a BIM and the NCS will be moving toward optimizing that reporting capability in the future.

via NIBS BIM Initiatives | Whole Building Design Guide.

Out of BIM Chaos, the Road to Structured Data

By Stephen R. Hagan, FAIA

These days, much is being written and hyped about Building Information Modeling (BIM). To my count, at least 10 initiatives (either ongoing or in start-up mode) focus on BIM and various interoperability and industry process issues:

• National BIM Standard
• National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) International Alliance for Interoperability—North America (IAI-NA) and its buildingSMART initiative
• GSA requirements for Industry Foundation Class (IFC)-based BIM submissions for design starts in Fiscal Year 2006 and beyond (see Section 3.4 of the GSA Public Buildings Service CAD Standards)
• Virtual Builders Roundtable
• NIBS Facility Maintenance and Operations Committee
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) effort on the Capital Facilities Information Handover Guide
• FIATECH Capital Projects Technology Roadmap
• Federal Facilities Council (FFC) Emerging Technologies Committee focus on BIM and Interoperability
• AIA TAP’s own focus on three inevitable technologies: BIM, interoperability, and collaboration
• Construction Users Roundtable focus on A/E productivity
• Various international efforts in Finland, Norway, Singapore, and Australia.

I’ve probably missed a few in my list above, including TAP’s own “Building Connections: The 2nd Congress on Digital Collaboration in the Building Industry,” which convened on November 10, 2005 (see related article in this issue of EDGES).

We can elaborate on each of these efforts at another time. However, they all seem to have energized members, created a flurry of activity (at least as evidenced by e-mail and listserv traffic), and contributed to a growing excitement and buzz about BIM and the future of our industry.

Nonetheless, this flurry of excitement and activity also has the potential to explode into a fragmented effort if all of these individuals and organizations run in different directions and with different agendas.

Can this fragmentation be prevented?

One topic not yet fully aired is an underlying classification and/or taxonomy structure to what we call BIM. If BIM is as much about data as it is about geometry, then it is essential to ensure that this data is structured.

Robust industry classification systems have the potential of forming the essential underlying BIM foundation. In fact, if all objects in a BIM conform to the same underlying classification system and industry taxonomy, that in itself is arguably a fundamental form of interoperability.

Why Classification Systems and BIM?
So what is so exciting about classification systems? Do you remember elementary or high school and walking into the school library? What confronted you first? Rows and rows of card catalogs—the “search engine” to thousands if not millions of books. And what made all of these documents searchable and retrievable? A universally accepted classification system! First we had the Dewey Decimal System and later the Library of Congress classification system for books. Of course, newer search technologies (deployed, for example, by Amazon and Google) are changing the playing field, but classification systems remain critical in all industries and professions

UniFormat, MasterFormat, and the newly developed OmniClass are three of the foundational classification systems of the design, construction, and facility/real-estate industries.

UniFormat
The original UniFormat was developed jointly by the General Services Administration (GSA) and the AIA in 1972 for estimating and design cost analysis. UNIFORMAT II, which ASTM first issued in 1993, is an enhanced version developed by a task group that included the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI), GSA, AACE, the Tri-Services, R.S. Means, and others.

Elements are traditionally defined as “major components, common to most buildings, that perform a given function, regardless of the design specification, construction method, or materials used.” In practice, an element may be considered any logical component of a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). From a project management perspective, the UNIFORMAT II classification is the ideal WBS for the design phase of a building project to control scope, cost, quality, and time. For more information about Uniformat, see the following:

• NIST UNIFORMAT II Elemental Classification for Building Specifications, Cost Estimating, and Cost Analysis (PDF)

• UNIFORMAT II home page

• “ASTM Standard E1557 and CSI Practice FF/180:  New Design Management Tools for Project Managers.”

MasterFormat
Also developed by CSI, “MasterFormat™ is the specifications-writing standard for most commercial building design and construction projects in North America. It lists titles and section numbers for organizing data about construction requirements, products, and activities. By standardizing such information, MasterFormat facilitates communication among architects, specifiers, contractors, and suppliers, which helps meet building owners’ requirements, timelines, and budgets.

The MasterFormat 2004 Edition is the most significant in the product’s 40-year history and reflects the growing volume and complexity of information generated for commercial construction projects.”

OmniClass
CSI developed OmniClass (formerly known as the Overall Construction Classification System [OCCS]) in collaboration with other industry partners: “Having recognized a need for classifying the majority of construction subjects, the increased use of electronic information technology, and the expanding focus on the complete life cycle of construction, the concept of an Overall Construction Classification System (OCCS) was born.”

Conclusion
What do you think? Are consistent industry classification structures and taxonomies crucial to the notion of Building Information Models? Weigh in with your thoughts by sending an e-mail to Stephen.hagan@gsa.gov.

Stephen R. Hagan, FAIA, is 2006 chair of AIA TAP Advisory Group and director of the Project Knowledge Center, GSA Public Buildings Service, Washington, D.C.

via Out of BIM Chaos, the Road to Structured Data.

What is Building Information Modeling (BIM)? ISA Project Team Report July, 2008

Wikipedia defines Building Information Modeling (BIM) as the process of generating and managing building data during its life cycle using three-dimensional, real-time, dynamic building modeling software to decrease wasted time and resources in building design and construction.

This process produces the building information model (also abbreviated BIM), which encompasses building geometry, spatial relationships, geographic information, and quantities and properties of building components, including the life-cycle processes of construction and facility operation.

Building Information Modeling (BIM, the process) began as a common name for a variety of activities in object-oriented computer-aided design (CAD) that support the representation of building elements in terms of their 3D geometric and non-geometric (functional) attributes and relationships.

It gained widespread use after Lessarian argued in 2002 that it should be an industry-standard term.

At the time it was recognized that BIM based systems are more expressive than CAD systems in that “abstract objects, such as a space, can be defined by the relationships between physical building elements, identified (e.g. room number, room name, etc.), described (e.g. area, volume, use, occupancy, etc.), and referenced (e.g. listed in a room schedule, counted to calculate total floor area, etc.)”.[Howell and Batchelor05]

Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) are a commonly used format for BIM (the data model). They are architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) open data model specifications for data representation and file formats for defining graphic data as 3D real-world objects that enable CAD users to transfer design data between different software applications. They are intended to provide an “authoritative semantic definition of building elements, their properties and inter-relationships”. [Goldberg05].

The IFC specification is developed and maintained by the International Alliance for Interoperability (a division of the International Standards Organization) as part of its buildingSMART mission, and has been included in several ISO standards.

“4D Modeling” concepts were later coupled with Building Information Modeling, but when used by the facilities modeling community (for example, the National BIM Standard committee) the term refers to systems that can model life cycles of elements and sets of elements.

The National Building Information Model Standard (NBIMS), developed by a US based buildingSmart group, describes three categories of BIM:

1. a product or intelligent digital representation of data about a capital facility. BIM authoring tools are used to create and aggregate information which, before BIM, had been developed as separate tasks with non-machine interpretable information in a paper-centric process.

2. a collaborative process which covers business drivers, automated process capabilities, and open information standards use for information sustainability and fidelity.

3. a facility lifecycle management tool of well understood information exchanges, workflows, and procedures which teams use as a repeatable, verifiable, transparent, and sustainable information based environment used throughout the building lifecycle.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy section describes the meaning and context of each word used in the BIM Resources @ GeorgiaTech. This taxonomy aims to clearly describe the specification, functaionality and exchange capabilities of BIM tools. The definition may conflict with general definition of the taxonomy, though the BIM Resources @ GeorgiaTech tries to convey the general definition.

via BIM Resources @ Georgia Tech.

TAXONOMY

This facilities management taxonomy has been produced to help BIFM members and the wider facilities management community to structure its understanding of the scope of the field.

Click on the arrows icon to expand and collapse levels in the taxonomy.

Click on a taxonomy term to access articles, documents, news and other content relating to that term. NB some content will only be available to members.

If you have any comments on the taxonomy please email knowledge@bifm.org.uk

Strategic Facilities Management

Business Organisation

FM Development and Trends

Business Management

Physical asset management

Land

Buildings/Property

Workplace

Information & Communications Technology

Fleet Management

Decommissioning & Disposal

Services Management

Reception

Post & Messengers

Waste Management

Catering

Cleaning

Laundry

Security

Information & Knowledge

Library & Document Archive

Reprograhics, Printing & Stationary

Travel Booking

Stores

Process Management

Human Resources Management

Consultancy

Customer Service

Financial Management

Procurement, Project & Contract Management

Health & Safety Management

Quality Management

Performance Management

Risk Management

A taxonomy is the systematic distinguishing, ordering and naming of type groups within a subject field. In the business environment a taxonomy is a classification system for improved information management.

via BIFM – Taxonomy.

Many real property / facilities / building management have not been optimally handled by the industry.

Areas critical to improvement includes common taxonomy, definitions, data architectures, processes, etc. etc. etc. …..

The OmniClass consortium working on the fundamental taxonomy used by the buildingSMART Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) model.   COBIE, a construction submittal standard, uses the OmniClass tables.

Federal agencies and other are participating in these efforts.

The OmniClass Facility and Space Types Table  combines definitions from DoD, GSA, IFMA, BOMA and others.

The geospatial and building modeling communities are also working together through the Open Geospatial Consortium and the buildingSMART Alliance to assure the interoperability of data standards.    SDSFIE, for example, are essentially geospatial standards, while the IFC model is based upon an ISO/IGES/STEP standard for the AECO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operations/Maintenance)  industry. SDSFIE was original developed from field installation defined requirements with limited conceptual, theoretical foundation. Structural deficiencies in the SDSFIE have been addressed by DoD.

See www.nibs.org and www.wbdg.org for more info. on the National Building Information Model Standard.

re-crafted via Discussion: Federal Real Property Association (FRPA) | LinkedIn.

High Performance Building Management System.Ppt – Presentation Transcript

HPBMS High Performance Building Management System 2009

A framework for the building lifecycle cost engineering continuum, from conceptual planning (BIM) through facilities operations.

● Research ● Reference Cost Databases & Lifecycle Cost Engineering ● Benchmarking & Analytics ● Standardized Processes

Climate change and the new economic landscape

Owners are #1

Owners pay the bills in all sectors – government, corporate, institutional markets.

Planning and Budgeting” is the primary need for process improvement.

Cost estimating accuracy is the primary risk to an organization.

- Construction Financial Managers (CFMA) Study – 2008

Renovation is Critical

The Altered Enviro-Economic Landscape.

Owner Requirements:

Drive down operational costs

Focus upon lifecycle costing and energy demand reduction

Validate repair, maintenance, and construction estimates

Accurately project multi-year capital budgets

JOC implementation for renovation project under $10 million

Sustainability and High Performance Building Management are core to strategic organizational decision making.

Workflow / Process

Inventory

Conditions – Physical and Functional

Decision Support

Project Creation & Job Order Contracting

Capital Planning

Benchmarks

Data Localization

Standardized Practices & Data

Essential Information for Facility Stewardship

Qualitative information from community/stakeholders

Facility condition assessment information

Space adequacy assessment information

Utilization

Sustainability

Demographic analysis

Future requirements

Tools for the Facilities Steward

Rapid, Information-based Assessment Systems

O & M & M Audits / Implementation Planning

FM Benchmarking

Life Cycle / Sustainability Costing

Capital Planning

*Operations, Maintenance, and Management

Reference Cost Information

Materials

Labor Rates and Crews

Equipment Rates

Local Market Variations

Productivity Information

New Product Information

Green Influences

High Performance Building Information Modeling / Benefits of HPBMS

Ensures a uniform cost-control framework throughout the building lifecycle.

Define proper level of detail to set expectations from initial conceptual design through deconstruction.

Fully compatible and complementary with Integrated Project Design and Delivery ( IPD )

Serves as a “living checklist” to ensure complete coverage built environment requirements.

Provides historical information library and encourages data reuse.

Enables price visibility and validation.

Sustainability and High Performance Building Management are core to survival.

via High Performance Building Management System.Ppt.

I recently wrote an article on BIM, Building Information Modeling, that appears on p. 42 in the Winter issue of Perspective.  In preparation, I spoke with two very knowledgeable designers on the history and future of BIM. The feedback they gave me was so insightful, I quickly realized that 375 words in Perspective was barely a scratch on the surface. In recognition of that, I’d love for the conversation to continue here.

Very quickly, BIM is a way to generate and manage data from multiple users throughout a project’s life cycle. The three-dimensional, dynamic modeling software enables all members of a team to get real-time project information. As a working document that adapts and adjusts to changes as they are made, it can be an invaluable tool, and record, for a large project team.

In the article, I primarily discussed the reasons for a slow adoption of BIM.  Here then, as a counterpoint, is a list of the top five reasons why BIM could be your new best friend. All points are courtesy of Janice Stevenor Dale, FIIDA, CID, LEED AP, President of J S D A Inc and Jennifer M. McGregor, IIDA, LEED AP, Executive Director, US Sales, Obelisk.

1. BIM is changeable in real time. For teams that are increasingly going global, this presents a huge asset.

“Autodesk, Bentley, DDS, Graphisoft are all oriented to building BIM software systems that are readily adaptable in real-time dynamics,” says Stevenor Dale. “The concept for each is to connect seamlessly between BIM files to databases, to a Sketchup or Revit tool out to GoogleEarth, and back to the BIM 3D planning tools, all dynamically linked. There are new software developers who have created advanced products to expand BIM capabilities such as buildingSMART, OPS, dRufus and others. IFC is the translator software for international interoperability. These tools more deeply integrate databasing and planning/design. BIM is not only a tool, a process but also a deliverable. All team users are connected to the database. It is a faster way to analyze a ‘what if’ scenario.”

2. It’s not just for Designers.

“Contractors understand it too,” says McGregor. “[As] Designers, [we] always feel like we’re leading the charge, but contractors are embracing [BIM] and have their own Revitt licenses. They’ve stepped up and taken the lead where otherwise they would follow along.”

3. BIM is still growing and evolving.

“Initially BIM was a three-dimensional system that translated the modeled design solution into quantifiable component parts,” says Stevenor Dale. Now, “BIM can be a tool for site planning and programming, room layouts, furniture and equipment. It is used for detailed mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems just as we use it for interior construction detailing. And as infrastructure remains central to a carbon-free environment and LEED standards, it can be used for analyzing operations and maintenance for the construction phase and throughout the projected lifetime of the project.”

4. There are practical advantages for everyone.

“There’s [a] program through Autodesk that can quantify your sustainability/operational costs and savings based on the model that’s generated,” says McGregor. “Building owners are interested in getting BIM models.”

5. It’s the future.

“In the next three years, we’ll all be converted to using BIM,” predicts McGregor.

What are your thoughts on BIM? Do you use it? If not, why?

Some more tidying up of BIM to get it ready for release.

Error messages on student details

When one student views the details, we’re getting error messages.

Okay, need another check. That’s done.

Check the group usage

Have got the allocate groups stuff working, is it actually being used by the support functions that return lists of students associated with markers?

No.

So, the get_records_select for the tmp table bim_markers_students needs to get replaced with something that goes via bim_group_allocation and then group_members to get the userids.

That means changing the signature of the bim_get_markers_students function – take bim now, not course. My, the comments actually said course was temporary.

Update the calls to records select to go via the other tables.

Done.

Fix up the display of last post in the student details screen

This is a hang over of the change from datetime in BAM to unix timestamps in Moodle. There are at least 2 contributing problems to this :

• Test data from BAM into BIM put in just a year, not the unixtime.
  So need to modify the lastpost entry in my test bim_student_feeds to be using unixtime. All entries changed to the same value.
• The display of the timestamp in BIM isn’t doing the right conversion.
  Already doing this in the allocation and marking form using the PHP date function. Done.

Ahh, but that’s the rub. What is actually needed here is how long ago the last post was. That’s a different method.

Used function from here to implement.

Removed sortable links on tables

Haven’t groked how to do the flexible_table sorting. Will leave that for later.