Lack of BIM skilled professionals and lack of education and BIM training are key challenges to BIM implementation. The provision of BIM education in higher education institutions is seen as the main solution to these challenges. This chapter is part of an on-going Ph.D. research about the implementation of BIM in the Dominican Republic, a country with interest in implementing BIM but suffering from many challenges including lack of BIM education. This study aims to present the development of a framework to guide the integration of BIM in university curricula in the D.R., which is part of a comprehensive framework, outcome of the Ph.D. research. The framework was developed from a thorough literature on BIM education as well as an analysis of existing BIM Education frameworks. Moreover, findings of the research about BIM education in the D.R. are presented to describe the presence of BIM education in the country.
TopIntroduction
The Dominican Republic (D.R.) is a Caribbean country whose construction industry is one of the sectors that more contributes to the economy’s growth in the country (Soler et al., 2013). The Dominican construction sector has grown significantly over the last years thanks to the low rate loans and mortgages, and the investment from the public and private sector (Banco Central de la Republica Dominicana, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). Despite this continuous growth, the Dominican construction industry is lacking, in many cases, qualified workforce and innovative and efficient construction techniques (Soler et al., 2013). Other barriers affecting the sector include issues related to the quality of the materials, documenting agreements and procedures, understanding the necessities of internal and external clients, well-defined team focus, and communication between teams (Senior & Rodriguez, 2012). Recommendations to improve this sector include the use of technologies to enhance communication among parties, facilitate the management of the construction process, and implement sustainable principles. The introduction of these technologies involves a process of change and adaptation of the different methods that take part in the construction of buildings, including the knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and activities of the personnel involved (Soler et al., 2013). In the presence of these needs and due to advent and proven benefits of BIM implementation worldwide, BIM comes into view as an appropriate method to improve current practices and open the way for the digitisation of the Dominican construction industry. Currently, the implementation of BIM in the Dominican construction industry is undocumented, and there are fundamental questions that need to be addressed to understand how the implementation of BIM can be realised, including the delivery of BIM education.
BIM education, training and research are vital to propel and motivate the implementation of BIM (Smith, 2014). Sharag-Eldin & Nawari (2010) further considered that education and training are the basis of BIM evolution. To keep the impetus of BIM, it is necessary to effectively prepare the industry’s labour force to respond to current supply-demand (Bozoglu, 2016). Nonetheless, lack of BIM skilled professionals (Eadie, Browne, Odeyinka, McKeown, & McNiff, 2013; Lee & Hollar, 2013; Wu & Issa, 2013; Gardner, Hosseini, Rameezdeen, & Chileshe, 2014) and lack of education and training are one of the most important barriers hindering the implementation of BIM in the industry (Wong & Gray, 2019).
This chapter aims to present the status of BIM education in the Dominican Republic and the development of a BIM education framework to guide the integration of BIM into university curricula in this country. The work presented is a part of a wider researcher entitled “Implementation of Building Information Modelling in the Dominican Republic construction industry”.