Improving Construction Education by Sharing Learning Resources Over the World Wide Web

Construction engineering is heavily grounded in practical, real-life experiences, which range from construction methods, techniques, planning, and cost estimating to managing productivity, quality, people, and contracts. Current pedagogies and teaching tools in construction education system are unable to include sufficiently complex, realistic design and construction problems and to contribute for retention of knowledge. Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, and information and communication technologies are perceived to have immediate potential for building high-value learning tools aimed at providing students with knowledge, experience and practice in skills needed by real professionals in the construction industry. This paper describes a research project to develop and validate an integrated platform for delivering just-intime construction engineering learning resources over the World Wide Web whenever a user needs them. This platform comprises a multi-agent system which integrates well-proven instructional/learning theories with techniques and solutions of Artificial Intelligent and Web technology. The system is aimed at having three main instruction roles: (i) a teacher’s role; (ii) a motivating role; and (iii) a supportive role. To perform these roles, the system will use a client/server integrated architecture with multiple intelligent agents that can interact with clients, and with a case-based reasoning knowledge-base.