The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on the regular delivery of education and training. At such a critical time for our societies, access to education is proving, more than ever, to be essential and the digital transformation of the educational systems is more than needed. The sudden shift to online and distance learning has revealed the lack/insufficiency of digital readiness and has caused serious difficulties for higher education institutions to provide high quality online education. The integration of digital technology with teaching and learning practices will contribute to the modernization of the educational systems and to the digitization of course contents and by that will give students the possibility to easily share and adopt learning contents anytime and anywhere. The BIMaHEAD project gathers 5 partners from 5 different EU Member States (France, Germany, Sweden, Poland and the Republic of North Macedonia) having complementary profiles allowing them to have the ideal competence-based mix to design and implement a truly impactful collaborative project. Jointly, they have identified three urgent needs in the European Union and its higher education sector: - Lack/Insufficiency of digital readiness of HEIs ; - Low levels of digital literacy among HE students and lecturers; - The need of improving key sectorial digital competences of students in construction related degrees. The main objective of the BIMaHEAD project is to support building digital readiness in higher education institutions and to support students in construction related degrees to adjust to the new online education environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic through integrating digital technology with teaching and learning practices. In addition, the project highlights the importance of digital literacy and subject-specific digital skills for the future professionals in the construction industry (architects, designers, engineers, builders, constructors etc.) and the focus is set on a specific software product, Building Information Modelling (BIM), as it becomes an integral part of the needed qualification of the future workers in the construction sector. Specifically, the project will aim to: benchmark good practices and pedagogical scenarios (WP1 - IO1) ; design of an innovative methodological framework (WP2 – IO2) ; development of a customised content of BIM e-learning material (WP3 – IO3) ; produce an assessment report & guidelines for replicability (WP4 – IO4). As a result the following will be achieved: 4 Intellectual Outputs will be released, 5 Universities in 5 countries (France, Germany, Sweden, Poland and the Republic of North Macedonia) will be engaged in the elaboration of the tailored BIM online course and modules ; 6 Multiplier events (5 national and 1 international) would be organised engaging more than 250 stakeholders ; More than 2000 stakeholders will be made aware of the project and its results. The final result from the BIMaHEAD project is the development of a tailored online BIM course for HE students in construction related degrees and potentially being replicated in other educational contexts. The long-term impact will be to i) support the EU higher education system transition to delivering high-quality online education and ii) empower students to foster their own employability through increased sectorial digital competences and skills. BIMaHEAD will contribute to building a new generation of highly skilled professionals in terms of digital literacy which will positively impact the local, regional, national and European economic development.
The main objective of the BIMaHEAD project is to support building digital readiness in higher education institutions and to support students in construction related degrees to adjust tothe new online education environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic through integrating digital technology with teaching and learning practices. In addition, the project highlights the importance of digital literacy and subject-specific digital skills for the future professionals in the construction industry (architects, designers, engineers, builders, constructors etc.) and the focus is set on a specific software product, Building Information Modelling (BIM), as it becomes an integral part of the needed qualification of the future workers in the construction sector.
The sudden shift to online learning during the pandemic in 2020 revealed the urgency of the digital transition of education systems. Insufficient digital readiness has caused huge difficulties for higher education institutions to provide high-quality online education. The integration of digital technology will contribute to the modernization of education systems and give students the opportunity to easily share/adopt learning content anytime and anywhere. The construction sector contributes significantly to the EU economy, but the built environment is one of the biggest consumers of natural resources, producing CO2 emissions and wasting energy. To improve the built environment towards a more sustainable benchmark, Europe needs a coordinated approach from all professionals involved in the field of construction. These challenges affect the entire sector: designers, architects, engineers, building managers, technicians, workers, plant operators and investors. This sector is complex and increasingly dependent on technology in its progress towards the goals of near-zero energy buildings, smart cities and the implementation of forecasting, quantification and data management methods in order to increase energy efficiency and resource efficiency to combat climate change. Aware of this complex issue, the BIMaHEAD consortium will develop a tailor-made online course integrating the concepts of sustainability and optimized construction and illustrating the practical application of BIM tools, based on real industry needs.