Survey on BIM Output at ENTAC 2014 - Feedback and Considerations
·7 min read
Survey on BIM Output at ENTAC 2014 – Feedback and Considerations
In the previous post I presented a statistical survey of academic output related to BIM at ENTAC 2014. The research was based on the event's proceedings, coordinated and produced by me, with the help of the TI Lab team, a training center specialized in BIM, where I am one of the partners.
As a way of announcing the survey's conclusion, and also of letting the researchers know that some of them had been mentioned by name, I decided to send an email to everyone. The response couldn't have been more encouraging: I received several comments, both on the post itself and in my email, congratulating me on the work and offering more information, questions, and discussions (in the best sense), so much so that I felt it was worth sharing in a new post, for everyone. This post is divided into three sections:
Section 1 - Opinions related to the survey and congratulatory messages
Section 2 - My opinion on the survey and its reception
Section 3 - Tips I received about BIM-related events in 2015
Opinions related to the survey and congratulatory messages
Among some of the opinions and comments related to the survey are the words of architect and Dr. João Tales Oliveira, a native of Bahia now based in Japan (his full opinion is in the comments of the previous post). Among other statements, he says (and I agree):
"I'm surprised that two universities from the Northeast are producing more academic papers on BIM than other universities in the Southeast and South", and "In my opinion, Brazil has more BIM "prophets" than other countries do. People who publish and speak about the subject without, however, mastering the use of the tools or having experience running projects based on BIM".
Besides this opinion, I also received congratulatory messages, via email, from Adriane Borda, Alexandre Toledo, Aline Schaefer, Fernanda J. Chaves de Souza, Fernando Márcio, Gisele Saveriano De Benedetto, Raphaela Walger da Fonseca, Regina Ruschel, and Ricardo Mendes Junior.
I was very pleased to share the original research data with prof. Dr. Douglas Barreto, from UFSCar - SP; after looking at the tables, he wrote back saying "excellent work, thorough and well detailed", which left me quite satisfied and excited. As mentioned in the previous post, if you're interested in the data, just get in touch with me.
My opinion on the survey and its reception
Shortly after sending the message to the researchers, as I mentioned at the beginning, within a few days I received an email from Prof. Maria Bernadete Barison, which helped me decide to write this post. "Thank you so much for sending us this research! Very interesting. The only thing I have to say is that I would like to read, at the end, your own conclusion about this data...", she said.
Well, to start off my conclusions, I found it very cool that, after the research, I arrived at a figure of 6% of BIM-related publications within the survey's universe, which is a result similar to prof. Kiviniemi's research, which was much more extensive and significant.
As for the data itself, in summary, I'd like to highlight the following:
- Looking at table 2, I was truly astonished to find that not a single BIM-related term was found in the papers classified under the topics "Construction systems and process technology", "Material performance and durability of buildings", "Urban engineering and housing policy", "Construction materials technology", "Environmental comfort and energy efficiency", "Reuse of construction waste", and "Urban, rural, and building sustainability". To me, this is clear evidence that the topic of BIM is probably still seen as something minor and irrelevant by most of the academic community, which is a dangerous mistake. I believe, however, that a good portion of researchers, even if fewer in number, are curious and are looking for quality information (which is scarce) about BIM. Is the lack of BIM studies across several topics cause for concern? I don't think so—I think it's a sign that there is a lot, a whole lot, of interesting and relevant research yet to be done within the scope of these topics, which means there's plenty of work ahead for researchers.
- Almost all the topics that contain papers mentioning BIM show a rate ranging between 4% and 10% of the total papers within each one; the exception is, perhaps obviously, the topic "Information and Communication Technology", which showed 61% of BIM-related content within its own universe. I think it's quite likely that, before long, this rate will get very close to 100%.
- The Southern states, plus São Paulo, together published more than 60% of the BIM-related content; the states of Pernambuco, Ceará, and Sergipe gave the Northeast a 21% share. It's astonishing to see, in my opinion, how states with a large number of good institutions, like Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, have such a proportionally small BIM-related output, in terms of numbers.
- When analyzing public versus private institutions, it's striking to see that only one BIM publication originated from a private university, Mackenzie, in São Paulo. I repeat, just one.
- One statistic that was left out of the previous post, but which I'm publishing now, is that only 13.6% of BIM-related research was done by researchers from different universities on the same paper (3 out of 22). I don't know if that's normal in academia—after all, I'm still learning all this—but it seems to me like a very low rate of inter-institutional collaboration, which could make the evolution of the BIM topic within academia even slower. I imagine that collaboration between researchers from different institutions, jointly producing and publishing research and papers, has a very powerful catalytic effect, the same way we understand that, in order to work with BIM, collaboration is essential to the success of the endeavor.
- I couldn't fail to note that this survey was based on a term search, meaning it measures the quantity of BIM-related papers relative to the whole, but not the quality. Therefore, I believe there's a need for new research and studies, based on more elaborate methods, that can analyze the quality and relevance of what is researched and published about BIM in Brazil. In fact, not just here—I think this is a gap to be filled in almost every country, if not all of them.
- Some researchers sent me links to other seminars, meetings, and events, as a way of suggesting that I could produce other surveys, or simply to recommend them as study material. That was really nice, because it shows how much we lack when it comes to organizing our own output. We're architects, engineers, consultants, professors who study hard and work all the time trying to make better designs, increase process efficiency, point out bottlenecks in any kind of output, study and propose better ways of managing things—and yet we can't read, measure, let alone systematize our own output with any agility or efficiency.
- My intention in doing that survey was not to present myself as some kind of statistics producer; I decided to do it out of curiosity, because that information mattered to me, and it was possible to obtain, of course, with some effort. Judging by the response, I realized that the demand for this kind of information is enormous. I don't know when, or whether, I'll do another survey, but ideally more people could contribute, or the events themselves could (even as a way of promoting the next edition) publish their own numbers.
Tips I received about BIM-related events in 2015
recommendations from Carina Folena, researcher at UFJF - MG
COBENGE 2015 - XLIII Congresso Brasileiro de Educação em Engenharia, from September 8 to 11 at UFABC, in São Bernardo do Campo - SP
CAAD Futures, from July 6 to 10 at UNICAMP, Campinas - SP
recommendation from Frederico Braida de Paula, also from UFJF - MG
SIGraDi 2015, from November 25 to 27 at UFSC, in Florianópolis - SC
recommendation from Miriam Addor, from USP - SP, and Marcelo Maciel, from UFS - SE
TIC 2015, from November 4 to 6, in Recife - PE
recommendation from Nathalia de Paula, from USP - SP
SBQP, from August 19 to 21 at UFV, in Viçosa - MG
SIBRAGEC, from October 7 to 9 at UFSCar - SP, in São Carlos - SP
End of post!
Finally, I want to thank once again everyone who had the patience to follow me this far regarding ENTAC. I hope you'll keep following along, because I'll soon be publishing more posts about what I've been researching and learning about BIM.
Opinions related to the survey and congratulatory messages
Among some of the opinions and comments related to the survey are the words of architect and Dr. João Tales Oliveira, a native of Bahia now based in Japan (his full opinion is in the comments of the previous post). Among other statements, he says (and I agree):
"I'm surprised that two universities from the Northeast are producing more academic papers on BIM than other universities in the Southeast and South", and "In my opinion, Brazil has more BIM "prophets" than other countries do. People who publish and speak about the subject without, however, mastering the use of the tools or having experience running projects based on BIM".
Besides this opinion, I also received congratulatory messages, via email, from Adriane Borda, Alexandre Toledo, Aline Schaefer, Fernanda J. Chaves de Souza, Fernando Márcio, Gisele Saveriano De Benedetto, Raphaela Walger da Fonseca, Regina Ruschel, and Ricardo Mendes Junior.
I was very pleased to share the original research data with prof. Dr. Douglas Barreto, from UFSCar - SP; after looking at the tables, he wrote back saying "excellent work, thorough and well detailed", which left me quite satisfied and excited. As mentioned in the previous post, if you're interested in the data, just get in touch with me.
My opinion on the survey and its reception
Shortly after sending the message to the researchers, as I mentioned at the beginning, within a few days I received an email from Prof. Maria Bernadete Barison, which helped me decide to write this post. "Thank you so much for sending us this research! Very interesting. The only thing I have to say is that I would like to read, at the end, your own conclusion about this data...", she said.
Well, to start off my conclusions, I found it very cool that, after the research, I arrived at a figure of 6% of BIM-related publications within the survey's universe, which is a result similar to prof. Kiviniemi's research, which was much more extensive and significant.
As for the data itself, in summary, I'd like to highlight the following:
- Looking at table 2, I was truly astonished to find that not a single BIM-related term was found in the papers classified under the topics "Construction systems and process technology", "Material performance and durability of buildings", "Urban engineering and housing policy", "Construction materials technology", "Environmental comfort and energy efficiency", "Reuse of construction waste", and "Urban, rural, and building sustainability". To me, this is clear evidence that the topic of BIM is probably still seen as something minor and irrelevant by most of the academic community, which is a dangerous mistake. I believe, however, that a good portion of researchers, even if fewer in number, are curious and are looking for quality information (which is scarce) about BIM. Is the lack of BIM studies across several topics cause for concern? I don't think so—I think it's a sign that there is a lot, a whole lot, of interesting and relevant research yet to be done within the scope of these topics, which means there's plenty of work ahead for researchers.
- Almost all the topics that contain papers mentioning BIM show a rate ranging between 4% and 10% of the total papers within each one; the exception is, perhaps obviously, the topic "Information and Communication Technology", which showed 61% of BIM-related content within its own universe. I think it's quite likely that, before long, this rate will get very close to 100%.
- The Southern states, plus São Paulo, together published more than 60% of the BIM-related content; the states of Pernambuco, Ceará, and Sergipe gave the Northeast a 21% share. It's astonishing to see, in my opinion, how states with a large number of good institutions, like Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, have such a proportionally small BIM-related output, in terms of numbers.
- When analyzing public versus private institutions, it's striking to see that only one BIM publication originated from a private university, Mackenzie, in São Paulo. I repeat, just one.
- One statistic that was left out of the previous post, but which I'm publishing now, is that only 13.6% of BIM-related research was done by researchers from different universities on the same paper (3 out of 22). I don't know if that's normal in academia—after all, I'm still learning all this—but it seems to me like a very low rate of inter-institutional collaboration, which could make the evolution of the BIM topic within academia even slower. I imagine that collaboration between researchers from different institutions, jointly producing and publishing research and papers, has a very powerful catalytic effect, the same way we understand that, in order to work with BIM, collaboration is essential to the success of the endeavor.
- I couldn't fail to note that this survey was based on a term search, meaning it measures the quantity of BIM-related papers relative to the whole, but not the quality. Therefore, I believe there's a need for new research and studies, based on more elaborate methods, that can analyze the quality and relevance of what is researched and published about BIM in Brazil. In fact, not just here—I think this is a gap to be filled in almost every country, if not all of them.
- Some researchers sent me links to other seminars, meetings, and events, as a way of suggesting that I could produce other surveys, or simply to recommend them as study material. That was really nice, because it shows how much we lack when it comes to organizing our own output. We're architects, engineers, consultants, professors who study hard and work all the time trying to make better designs, increase process efficiency, point out bottlenecks in any kind of output, study and propose better ways of managing things—and yet we can't read, measure, let alone systematize our own output with any agility or efficiency.
- My intention in doing that survey was not to present myself as some kind of statistics producer; I decided to do it out of curiosity, because that information mattered to me, and it was possible to obtain, of course, with some effort. Judging by the response, I realized that the demand for this kind of information is enormous. I don't know when, or whether, I'll do another survey, but ideally more people could contribute, or the events themselves could (even as a way of promoting the next edition) publish their own numbers.
Tips I received about BIM-related events in 2015
recommendations from Carina Folena, researcher at UFJF - MG
COBENGE 2015 - XLIII Congresso Brasileiro de Educação em Engenharia, from September 8 to 11 at UFABC, in São Bernardo do Campo - SP
CAAD Futures, from July 6 to 10 at UNICAMP, Campinas - SP
recommendation from Frederico Braida de Paula, also from UFJF - MG
SIGraDi 2015, from November 25 to 27 at UFSC, in Florianópolis - SC
recommendation from Miriam Addor, from USP - SP, and Marcelo Maciel, from UFS - SE
TIC 2015, from November 4 to 6, in Recife - PE
recommendation from Nathalia de Paula, from USP - SP
SBQP, from August 19 to 21 at UFV, in Viçosa - MG
SIBRAGEC, from October 7 to 9 at UFSCar - SP, in São Carlos - SP
End of post!
Finally, I want to thank once again everyone who had the patience to follow me this far regarding ENTAC. I hope you'll keep following along, because I'll soon be publishing more posts about what I've been researching and learning about BIM.
