Electronic Document Management in Construction – Research Issue and Results

Electronic document management (EDM) technology has the potential to enhance the information management in construction projects considerably, without radical changes to current practice. Over the past fifteen years this topic has been overshadowed by building product modelling in the construction IT research world, but at present EDM is quickly being introduced in practice, in particular in bigger projects. Often this is done in the form of third party services available over the World Wide Web. In the paper, a typology of research questions and methods is presented, which can be used to position the individual research efforts which are surveyed in the paper. Questions dealt with include: What features should EMD systems have? How much are they used? Are there benefits from use and how should these be measured? What are the barriers to wide-spread adoption? Which technical questions need to be solved? Is there scope for standardisation? How will the market for such systems evolve?

Use of Document Management Systems - a Case Study of the Finnish Construction Industry

Triggered by the very quick proliferation of Internet connectivity, electronic document management (EDM) systems are now rapidly being adopted for managing the documentation that is produced and exchanged in construction projects. Nevertheless there are still substantial barriers to the efficient use of such systems, mainly of a psychological nature and related to insufficient training. This paper presents the results of empirical studies carried out during 2002 concerning the current usage of EDM systems in the Finnish construction industry. The studies employed three different methods in order to provide a multifaceted view of the problem area, both on the industry and individual project level. In order to provide an accurate measurement of overall usage volume in the industry as a whole telephone interviews with key personnel from 100 randomly chosen construction projects were conducted. The interviews showed that while around 1/3 of big projects already have adopted the use of EDM, very few small projects have adopted this technology. The barriers to introduction were investigated through interviews with representatives for half a dozen of providers of systems and ASP-services. These interviews shed a lot of light on the dynamics of the market for this type of services and illustrated the diversity of business strategies adopted by vendors. In the final study log files from a project which had used an EDM system were analysed in order to determine usage patterns. The results illustrated that use is yet incomplete in coverage and that only a part of the individuals involved in the project used the system efficiently, either as information producers or consumers. The study also provided feedback on the usefulness of the log files.

End-User Attitudes Towards EDM Use in Construction Project Work: Case Study

This article reports on a cross-sectional case study of a large construction project in which Electronic document management (EDM) was used. Attitudes towards EDM from the perspective of individual end users were investigated. Responses from a survey were combined with data from system usage log files to obtain an overview of attitudes prevalent in different user segments of the total population of 334 users. The survey was followed by semi-structured interviews with representative users. A strong majority of users from all segments of the project group considered EDM as a valuable aid in their work processes, despite certain functional limitations of the system used and the complexity of the information mass. Based on the study a model describing the key factors affecting end user EDM adoption is proposed. The model draws on insight from earlier studies of EDM enabled projects and theoretical frameworks on technology acceptance and success of information systems, as well as the insights gained from the case study.

Electronic excitations in solids studied using inelastic x-ray scattering

Inelastic x-ray scattering can be used to study the electronic structure of matter. The x rays scattered from the target both induce and carry information on the electronic excitations taking place in the system. These excitations are the manifestations of the electronic structure and the physics governing the many-body system. This work presents results of non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering experiments on a range of materials including metallic, insulating and semiconducting compounds as well as an organic polymer. The experiments were carried out at the National Synchrotron Light Source, USA and at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, France. The momentum transfer dependence of the experimental valence- and core-electron excitation spectra is compared with the results of theoretical first principles computations that incorporate the electron-hole interaction. A recently developed method for analyzing the momentum transfer dependence of core-electron excitation spectra is studied in detail. This method is based on real space multiple scattering calculations and is used to extract the angular symmetry components of the local unoccupied density of final states.

Studies of electronic structure by x-ray Raman and emission spectroscopy: applications to MgB2 superconductors and high pressure physics

X-ray Raman scattering and x-ray emission spectroscopies were used to study the electronic properties and phase transitions in several condensed matter systems. The experimental work, carried out at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, was complemented by theoretical calculations of the x-ray spectra and of the electronic structure. The electronic structure of MgB2 at the Fermi level is dominated by the boron σ and π bands. The high density of states provided by these bands is the key feature of the electronic structure contributing to the high critical temperature of superconductivity in MgB2. The electronic structure of MgB2 can be modified by atomic substitutions, which introduce extra electrons or holes into the bands. X ray Raman scattering was used to probe the interesting σ and π band hole states in pure and aluminum substituted MgB2. A method for determining the final state density of electron states from experimental x-ray Raman scattering spectra was examined and applied to the experimental data on both pure MgB2 and on Mg(0.83)Al(0.17)B2. The extracted final state density of electron states for the pure and aluminum substituted samples revealed clear substitution induced changes in the σ and π bands. The experimental work was supported by theoretical calculations of the electronic structure and x-ray Raman spectra. X-ray emission at the metal Kβ line was applied to the studies of pressure and temperature induced spin state transitions in transition metal oxides. The experimental studies were complemented by cluster multiplet calculations of the electronic structure and emission spectra. In LaCoO3 evidence for the appearance of an intermediate spin state was found and the presence of a pressure induced spin transition was confirmed. Pressure induced changes in the electronic structure of transition metal monoxides were studied experimentally and were analyzed using the cluster multiplet approach. The effects of hybridization, bandwidth and crystal field splitting in stabilizing the high pressure spin state were discussed. Emission spectroscopy at the Kβ line was also applied to FeCO3 and a pressure induced iron spin state transition was discovered.

ISO 13567 - The Proposed International Standard for Structuring Layers in Computer Aided Building Design

Layering is a widely used method for structuring data in CAD-models. During the last few years national standardisation organisations, professional associations, user groups for particular CAD-systems, individual companies etc. have issued numerous standards and guidelines for the naming and structuring of layers in building design. In order to increase the integration of CAD data in the industry as a whole ISO recently decided to define an international standard for layer usage. The resulting standard proposal, ISO 13567, is a rather complex framework standard which strives to be more of a union than the least common denominator of the capabilities of existing guidelines. A number of principles have been followed in the design of the proposal. The first one is the separation of the conceptual organisation of information (semantics) from the way this information is coded (syntax). The second one is orthogonality - the fact that many ways of classifying information are independent of each other and can be applied in combinations. The third overriding principle is the reuse of existing national or international standards whenever appropriate. The fourth principle allows users to apply well-defined subsets of the overall superset of possible layernames. This article describes the semantic organisation of the standard proposal as well as its default syntax. Important information categories deal with the party responsible for the information, the type of building element shown, whether a layer contains the direct graphical description of a building part or additional information needed in an output drawing etc. Non-mandatory information categories facilitate the structuring of information in rebuilding projects, use of layers for spatial grouping in large multi-storey projects, and storing multiple representations intended for different drawing scales in the same model. Pilot testing of ISO 13567 is currently being carried out in a number of countries which have been involved in the definition of the standard. In the article two implementations, which have been carried out independently in Sweden and Finland, are described. The article concludes with a discussion of the benefits and possible drawbacks of the standard. Incremental development within the industry, (where ”best practice” can become ”common practice” via a standard such as ISO 13567), is contrasted with the more idealistic scenario of building product models. The relationship between CAD-layering, document management product modelling and building element classification is also discussed.

The Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon): An Open Access Journal Using an Un-paid, Volunteer-Based Organization

Introduction This case study is based on the experiences with the Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon), founded in 1995. Development This journal is an example of a particular category of open access journals, which use neither author charges nor subscriptions to finance their operations, but rely largely on unpaid voluntary work in the spirit of the open source movement. The journal has, after some initial struggle, survived its first decade and is now established as one of half-a-dozen peer reviewed journals in its field. Operations The journal publishes articles as they become ready, but creates virtual issues through alerting messages to “subscribers”. It has also started to publish special issues, since this helps in attracting submissions, and also helps in sharing the work-load of review management. From the start the journal adopted a rather traditional layout of the articles. After the first few years the HTML version was dropped and papers are only published in PDF format. Performance The journal has recently been benchmarked against the competing journals in its field. Its acceptance rate of 53% is slightly higher and its average turnaround time of seven months almost a year faster compared to those journals in the sample for which data could be obtained. The server log files for the past three years have also been studied. Conclusions Our overall experience demonstrates that it is possible to publish this type of OA journal, with a yearly publishing volume equal to a quarterly journal and involving the processing of some fifty submissions a year, using a networked volunteer-based organization.

Publishing in the Networked World: Transforming the Nature of Communication, 14th International Conference on Electronic Publishing 16-18 June 2010, Helsinki, Finland

The title of the 14th International Conference on Electronic Publishing (ELPUB), “Publishing in the networked world: Transforming the nature of communication”, is a timely one. Scholarly communication and scientific publishing has recently been undergoing subtle changes. Published papers are no longer fixed physical objects, as they once were. The “convergence” of information, communication, publishing and web technologies along with the emergence of Web 2.0 and social networks has completely transformed scholarly communication and scientific papers turned to living and changing entities in the online world. The themes (electronic publishing and social networks; scholarly publishing models; and technological convergence) selected for the conference are meant to address the issues involved in this transformation process. We are pleased to present the proceedings book with more than 30 papers and short communications addressing these issues. What you hold in your hands is a by-product and the culmination of almost a Year long work of many people including conference organizers, authors, reviewers, editors and print and online publishers. The ELPUB 2010 conference was organized and hosted by the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. Professors Turid Hedlund of Hanken School of Economics and Yaşar Tonta of Hacettepe University Department of Information Management (Ankara, Turkey) served as General Chair and Program Chair, respectively. We received more than 50 submissions from several countries. All submissions were peer-reviewed by members of an international Program Committee whose contributions proved most valuable and appreciated. The 14th ELPUB conference carries on the tradition of previous conferences held in the United Kingdom (1997 and 2001), Hungary (1998), Sweden (1999), Russia (2000), the Czech Republic (2002), Portugal (2003), Brazil (2004), Belgium (2005), Bulgaria (2006), Austria (2007), Canada (2008) and Italy (2009). The ELPUB Digital Library, http://elpub.scix.net serves as archive for the papers presented at the ELPUB conferences through the years. The 15th ELPUB conference will be organized by the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University and will take place in Ankara, Turkey, from 14-16 June 2011. (Details can be found at the ELPUB web site as the conference date nears by.) We thank Marcus Sandberg and Hannu Sääskilahti for copyediting, Library Director Tua Hindersson – Söderholm for accepting to publish the online as well as the print version of the proceedings. Thanks also to Patrik Welling for maintaining the conference web site and Tanja Dahlgren for administrative support. We warmly acknowledge the support in organizing the conference to colleagues at Hanken School of Economics and our sponsors.