Educating AEC professionals for e-construction

Appropriate education for AEC professionals is a key factor in translating research into practice, but this area has not been given the attention it deserves. This paper discusses the role of education in bridging the gap between research and practice in the AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) industry, with a particular focus on process and process modeling, and eBusiness. Past efforts and developments in these areas are reviewed, and these are set in the wider context of the education of AEC professionals in information and communication technology (ICT). The paper concludes with a description of how areas such as product and process modeling and the development of eConstruction can be integrated into appropriate educational programs, and briefly describes how these ideas are being implemented in a new MSc in Digital Architecture at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.