construction informatics: definition and ontology

Construction informatics: Definition and ontology

Ziga Turk *

FGG-KGI, University of Ljubljana, Jamova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Received 10 November 2004; received in revised form 5 October 2005; accepted 24 October 2005

Abstract

This paper proposes a definition, scope and topics of construction informatics—a discipline also known as ‘construction IT’ or ‘communication

and information technologies in construction’. It presents its ontology that, together with methodology, epistemology and axiology, constitutes a

formal definition of a scientific field. In philosophy, ontology defines ‘what exists’. In the case of a scientific field—what exists for a discipline,

what is its area of discourse. The given ontology of construction informatics has a shape of a hierarchy. On the top-level, it distinguishes between

(1) core themes and (2) support themes. Core themes create knowledge related either to (a) information processing activities, (b)

communication/coordination activities or about (c) common infrastructures. The support themes address the knowledge transfer process and

include research needs, transfer, deployment and impact of research. The ontology can be used to map a research area, to design a curriculum, to

structure the agenda of a conference, to provide keywords and classifications for bibliographic databases or knowledge management in general.

q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Construction informatics; Information technology in construction; Domain definition; Ontology; Methodology

1. Introduction

1.1. Motivation and requirements

Since the 1960s, when first uses of computers in

construction are reported, an interdisciplinary discipline filling

the gap between computer science and construction has been

emerging. It manifested itself in specialized tracks of

conferences (e.g. ASCE Conferences on Computing in Civil

Engineering and World Congresses on Computing in Civil

Engineering, both since 1994), in specialized working groups

within international organizations (e.g. CIB 78 since 1984 or

IABSE WC6 since 1998), in departments at civil engineering

faculties and research organizations, in the curricula and, of

course, in the specialized IT departments in the industry itself.

It is emerging as a field of science on its own.

Seni and Hodges ([1]) wrote, that any mature field of

science is actually defined with:

† Axiology that defines a value system in the field.

† Ontology that defines ‘what exists’, what is the area of

discourse of a field.

1474-0346/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.aei.2005.10.002

* Tel.: C386 1476 8622.

E-mail address: [email protected]

† Epistemology that specifies what constitutes appropriate

knowledge in the field, where it is and how it can be

represented and transferred.

† Methodology that specifies the appropriate rules of inquiry

and research.

The goal of this paper is to define the ontology of

‘construction IT’ or ‘construction informatics’ and thereby

contribute to its recognition as an applied science. Other

motives include:

† Any scientific field requires a framework for the

organization of knowledge. The applications include

keyword sets and classification systems for various

knowledge bases. Particularly in the fast paced dis-

ciplines, such as construction informatics, the transfer to

through such databases is very important. Several

research projects suggested the use of the Internet for

the job (e.g. Esprit-SCENIC), but few have defined

taxonomies or keyword systems that would enable fast

and targeted searches.

† Construction IT specialists have often been accused of

being solution driven—simply implementing the inven-

tions the technology had to offer. Although it is clear that

([2]) ‘market push’ and ‘client pull’ form a spiral, the

study of the field as such could lead to the identification

of the gaps where opportunities for research and the

application of technology exist.

Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 187–199

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Z. Turk / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 187–199188

† In defining the curricula for under and post-graduate

studies some kind of a map is needed so that relevant

topics could be identified and structured.

† Finally, the need for a clear understanding of a topic was

identified in technology road-mapping projects such as

ICCI1 and ROADCON2. These projects looked at the

current research and were identifying gaps in the research

strategies, which should be focused upon in the coming

years and decades.

1.2. Construction informatics

Several names have been used for the interdisciplinary field

related to both construction and computer science such as

‘computer integrated construction’, ‘computing in civil

engineering’ and ‘information technology in construction’.

The first name narrows the field to an important but not the only

topic that the community is dealing with. ‘Computing in civil

engineering’ is too wide; nowadays every activity in

construction is supported by computers, but this does not

attribute the related knowledge to our field. The most

commonly used term recently has been ‘information technol-

ogy in construction’ or ‘construction IT’. It was coined in the

mid 1990s, at a time of high hopes for recently invented

information technologies such as object orientation and the

Internet.

Years later more sober voices claim that many of the

problems in the construction industry, that could have been

solved by information technology, are not solved, however not

only due to technical issues. It seems appropriate, therefore, to

remove the world technology and leave just ‘construction

informatics’ (CI), construction taken in the broadest sense of

the word to include building, civil engineering, structural

engineering, AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) and

other disciplines dealing with the shaping of the built

environment.

Informatics studies the representation, processing, and

communication of information in natural and artificial systems.

It has computational, cognitive and social aspects. The central

notion is the transformation of information—whether by

computation or communication, whether by organisms or

artifacts ([3]). This definition can be modified to define

construction informatics:

Construction informatics is an applied science that studies

the construction specific issues related to processing,

representation and communication of construction specific

information in humans and software.

Pure sciences seek to find the truth for its own sake while the

applied sciences try to apply it to practical purposes.

Construction informatics researchers predominantly deal with

1 http://icci.vtt.fi/.2 http://roadcon.vtt.fi/.

practical problems, there are, however, fundamental themes,

which cannot be regarded ‘applied’, for example, the studyof the

theoretical fundamentals of information and activity modeling.

Historically construction informatics emerged form ‘com-

puting in civil engineering’ but since every civil engineering

discipline started to use computers, only two sets of topics

remain affiliated with construction informatics:

† Informatics related topics that are applicable in several civil

engineering disciplines such as product modeling, inte-

gration, concurrent engineering, various analysis and

monitoring methods, distance working and learning.

† Information support for engineering topics and activities

that span several disciplines or life cycle phases, such as

construction documentation, management and economics.

Any other uses of computers, e.g. using a generic tool for a

narrow construction problem, are not in the domain of

construction informatics.

As defined, construction informatics owes its existence to

the ‘construction specific issues’. They require specific

informatics support. These specifics have a business and social

dimension. The specifics of the business dimension of

construction—how doing construction business is different—

include:

† one-of-a-kind products; unlike in other industries, the

products are unique and not mass produced

† one-of-a-kind process; although following some general

common principles, each product has its own unique

production process

† one-of-a-kind group of partners; the group of companies,

consultants, government offices, craftsmen etc. involved is

unique for each product.

One-of-a-kindness requires that the researchers and soft-

ware developers look for repetitiveness at lower levels—which

typically leads to smaller semantic content. While all buildings

are different, for example, all can be represented by lines.

While there are many different tools required to design a

building, most read and write files. So semantically poor file

and document management is a common solution to

information sharing.

The specifics of the social dimension—how human behavior

and interactions are different—include:

† In a construction process partners with different levels of IT

literacy collaborate and often settle for the lowest common

denominator. Additionally, IT literacy in construction is

lower than average.

† The construction industry is bad environment for technol-

ogy transfer. It is comparatively a conservative industry

where there is little innovation in the core knowledge. Life-

time learning is such a must as in many other industries and

not practiced as much.

† Construction professionals, particularly the designers and

consultants are working on many projects at once. An

http://icci.vtt.fi/

http://roadcon.vtt.fi/

Z. Turk / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 187–199 189

introduction of a new technology with a new project would

require working with two different kinds of tools at the

same time.

Knowing the target industry well and following the

advances in the IT in general, construction informatics is

well suited to act as a broker and transfer generic information

technologies to construction. The opportunity of construction

informatics research, however, is to address the specific issues.

Some issues were perceived a problem in construction

informatics well before the general informatics and computer

science started to address them properly. For example,

construction informatics had a dedicated interest in semantic

interoperability throughout the 1990s and contributed strongly

to the ideas behind the STEP standards, IFC standards and the

EXPRESS language. These topics were given focal interest by

the computer science community only after the explosion of

the World Wide Web with the developments around XML,

SOAP and ontology languages. Other such examples include

virtual enterprises and mass customization. While construction

industry has always been working in patterns of virtual

organizations and was producing not mass customized but

even unique products, it never called it by that name. Only after

these keywords were coined in other environments, the

constriction informatics research started using them to label

research that was not new in substance.

1.3. Related work

One of the firsts attempts, to map this field (quite literary), is

a rising coastline drawing from VTT ([4]). It provided a

metaphor for one issue that construction informatics is dealing

with—computer integrated construction. Fenves ([5]) defines

the topic by studying its historical development. Neither of the

two suggests a structure of the field.

Brandon and Betts ([2]) introduced a technology-oriented

view on IT in construction. They divide the domain into four

topics: visualization, intelligence, communication, and inte-

gration. Probably, the first formal definition of the field is the

INFOMATE model ([6,7]). As the methodology he proposes

formal IDEF0 models of generic construction processes their

sub-processes. There is a recognition that the processes in

construction are of material and of information type ([8]). Turk

([9]) evolved this idea and, based on the work of Winograd and

Flores ([10]), introduced the distinction between processing

activities and commitment-negotiation activities. The latter are

communication intensive and contribute to the coordination of

the work.

Several authors tried a bottom up approach—examining

the published works and trying to invent categories into

which they fit. Lakmazaheri and Rasdorf ([11]) categorized

the papers published in the ASCE Journal of Computing in

Civil Engineering into these categories: (1) expert systems,

(2) software, (3) artificial intelligence, (4) neural networks,

(5) databases, (6) numerical methods, (7) programming, (8)

computer aided design, (9) geographic information systems,

(10) data acquisition, (11) parallel computing, (12) hyperme-

dia, (13) general.

Studying research themes both in Sweden and abroad as

well as taking into account theoretical ontological back-

grounds, Ekholm ([12]) identified these main construction

informatics themes: (1) process and product models, (2)

classification and standardization, (3) software applications,

(4) communication and information environments, (5) work

organization and processes, (6) IT-strategies.

Amor et al. ([13]) identified these major themes: (1)

computer integrated construction, (2) construction process

and (3) decision support. They identified technical themes (4)

process modeling, (5) product modeling and (6) documents.

Other themes they identified were (7) standards, (8) national

strategies, (9) multiple views, (10) classification, (11) ISO-

STEP, (12) IAI-IFC, (13) Internet, (14) object orientation, (15)

virtual reality and human computer interaction.

2. Background

This section briefly presents the scientific and technological

base for this work; it explains different views on ontologies,

how they can be represented and how can they be built.

2.1. Ontology, conceptual model, taxonomy, classification

The word ontology comes from the Greek ontos for being

and logos for word. It is a relatively new term in the long

history of philosophy, introduced by the 19th century German

philosophers to distinguish the study of being as such from the

study of various kinds of beings in the natural sciences ([14]).

Bunge ([15]) understands ontology as the ‘furniture of the

world’—a method with which the world can be orderly

organized. Ontology has been a central topic for phenomen-

ologists like Heidegger. He defines it as ‘hermeneutics of

facticity’—the interpreting the factual world.

Computer science introduced the term ontology to define

‘what exits’ for a community of collaborating agents. In these

circles, a definition by Gruber ([16]) is most referenced: ‘an

ontology is a specification of a conceptualization’. Gruber

explains that he understands it as ‘a description (like a formal

specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships

that can exist for an agent or a community of agents’. Guarino

([17]) extends this definition: ‘An ontology is a logical theory

accounting for the intended meaning of a formal vocabulary,

i.e. its ontological commitment to a particular conceptualiz-

ation of the world. The intended models of a logical language

using such a vocabulary are constrained by its ontological

commitment. An ontology indirectly reflects this commitment

(and the underlying conceptualization) by approximating

these intended models’.

Ontology made a fairly late entry into the vocabulary of

construction informatics. The term ‘conceptual model’ was

used to denote results of very similar studies. In fact there

seems to be a fine line between an ontology and a conceptual

model. Saglio ([18]) writes that in ontologies, we deal with

things, properties, kinds, laws and in conceptual models with

Being

Substance Accident

Property Relation

Inherence Directedness Containment

Quality Quantity

Movement Intermediacy

Activity Passivity Having Situated Spatial Temporal

Fig. 1. Aristotle’s ontology.


objects, attributes, object classes, constraints. Others ([19])

wrote that ‘in general, the accepted industrial meaning of

‘ontology’ makes it synonymous with ‘conceptual model’,

and is nearly independent of its philosophical antecedents’.

But they later introduce this distinction: ‘A conceptual model

is an actual implementation of an ontology that has to satisfy

the engineering trade-offs of a running application, while the

design of an ontology is independent from run-time

considerations, and its only goal is to specify the conceptu-

alization of the world underlying such application. ‘The

developers of the STEP and IFC did not base their models on

an ontology and did not have one concrete running application

in mind which makes their work close to an ontology

development, yet they were using the apparatus and

vocabulary of conceptual modeling.

While in some dictionaries defined as synonyms,

taxonomy and classification have a similar relationship as

ontology and conceptual model. Oxford Dictionary of Science

defines taxonomy as ‘the study of the theory, practice, and

rules of classification.’ while classification is defined ‘as

systematic arrangement in groups or categories according to

established criteria’ (criteria, for example, coming from

taxonomy).

Taxonomies are a vital part of conceptual models, because

they provide some way of how to organize the different

concepts. Geometrically, they shape of a classification can be

a hierarchy.

Unlike the ontology of the construction industry, which

could be a common baseline for both the product and process

model standards as well as for the classification systems,

ontology of a field of science will not be used mostly by

software but by humans. Philosophical definitions of ontology

seem more useful. A descriptive, rather than a formal ontology

is the desired result. The Bungean furniture that provides the

(labeled) drawers and shelves into which we can place the

papers and research projects that the scientific community is

working on.

2.2. Representation of an ontology

The representation of an ontology defines how an ontology

is documented and what are its basic building blocks. The

ontologies of the ancient philosophers as well as some modern

examples have a form of a tree, which was either drawn or

written (Fig. 1).

To be useful in software engineering, the ontologies need to

be represented in a machine readable format. The tools for

constructing, validating, merging, exporting, etc. ontologies

are numerous. A good survey was done in the frames of the

onto-web project ([20]).

The ontology of construction informatics will be used to

define the field, map its structure and provide a system to

organize the related knowledge. A standard for the represen-

tation of exactly these kinds of ontologies is ISO ISO/IEC

13250 Topic Maps [26]. This standard ‘provides a standar-

dized notation for interchangeably representing information

about the structure of information resources used to define

topics, and the relationships between topics’ (ISO 13250).

2.3. Methodology

Ontology can be built top down, bottom up or by a

combination of the two approaches. Typically, the grand

ontologies of the philosophers have been built from first

principles top down. Ontologies that the programmers

required were built bottom up, by defining the data structures

of the individual applications and then gradually abstracting

and merging them, looking for higher level concepts.

In the presented work, a bottom up analysis of the themes of

construction informatics was conducted (Section 3.1). Some

higher level theories that can offer a base for ontology are

presented in Section 3.2.

3. Analysis of the domain of construction informatics

In this section, the domain of construction informatics is

analyzed, so that themes and topics could be identified. The

domain analysis can be made in two ways—bottom up and top

down.

3.1. Bottom up analysis

The structure of the field in which the researchers of

construction informatics are working is implicitly represented

in the sessions of conferences and the keywords that the

authors select to label their work with. The themes by Brandon

and Betts ([2]) were mentioned already:

† visualization

† integration

† communication

† intelligence.

Some results of our own analysis are shown in Figs. 2

and 3. They are based on the papers published in the

product andprocess modeling,classification systemsthesaurii, vocabularies, ontologies

neuralnetworks, AI, www, XML,Internet, Mobiledesigningplanningmanagementsimulationconformance checkinginformation managementknowledge managementrisk management

2D, 3D, 4D, xDCADGISgeometric models

visualizationconcurrent engineeringcomputer integratedconstructiondocument managementproject webs …educationknowledge transferIT strategies

Fig. 2. The analysis of the seven recent conferences and seminars related to

construction informatics revealed the themes shown. The grouping and the

order is author’s interpretation.


proceedings of the CIB W78 workshops from 1996 to 2001

and ECPPM 1996, 2000 and 2002.

3.2. Top down analysis

Topdownapproacheswould start at some (existing) theory of

construction, designing, knowledge transfer, etc. and use that as

the first principle for the ontology of construction informatics.

3.2.1. Definition of construction informatics

The definition of construction informatics—an applied

science that studies the construction specific issues related to

processing, representation and communication of construction

specific information in humans and software—would suggest a

multifaceted ontology where the themes are combinations of

these attributes:

† representation

† processing

† communication.of information

in

† natural

† artificial systems

aspects

† computational

CONCEPTUAL MODELLING

PROCESS MODELLING

PRODUCT MODELS

GEOMETRIC MODELS

STANDARD MODELS

EDUCATION

KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENT

CONFORMANCE CHECKING

SIMULATION ANDPLANNING

WEB SERVICES

MOBILE COMPUTING

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

PROJECT DATAMANAGEMENT

e-BUSINESS

VIRTUAL ENTERPRISEENVIRONMENTS

COLLABORATIVEENGINEERING

CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

Fig. 3. The themes of ECPPM 2002 ([27]). They are grouped (clockwise from

top left) into modeling, technology, business and knowledge life cycle.

† cognitive

† social.

For example, product models would be labeled as a three-

tuple with values: representation, artificial, cognitive.

3.2.2. Negropontes role of computer

Theories of construction and design, and their anticipated

role of computers offer another set of top-level categories.

Based on [21] the top-level categories would be based on:

† computer as media—themes related to communication and

visualization

† computer as a tool—themes leading to new kinds of

software found useful by the architects

† computer as an assistant—a more independent, proactive

role of machinery that would include AI topics.

3.2.3. Schoen’s model of designing

Schon ([22]) claimed engineers and architects are reflective

practitioners in constant conversation with themselves and their

co-worker. In that respect construction informatics would

support:

† conversation with the co-worker(s)

† distance working

† communication

† collaboration etc.

† conversation with oneself

† sketching

† modeling

† playing with a CAD tool

3.2.4. Life cycle of software or information systems

Another criterion for the creationof top-level categories for the

construction informatics research is looking at the life cycle of

information systems—a typical result where construction

informatics knowledge is implemented. The typical life-cycle

stages are:

† visions, strategies, requirements

† design, analysis

† development

† deployment, migration

† use, support, modification

† replacement

Related themes are shown in Fig. 5.

3.2.5. Models of architectural end engineering design

Gero and Maher ([23]) suggested a framework of design

computing research focusing on the research methodologies that

include (1) empirically-based research (cognitive models), (2)

axiom-based research (computational models) and (3) con-

jecture-based research (computational models) and suggest

several models of designing such as axiom based design and

case based design.

Technologies, standards, guidesTechnologies, standards, guides

ModellingModelling

OntologiesOntologies

Applications & infrastructuresApplications &infrastructures

Implem-entation

Implem-entation

Methodology Methodology

BusinessoperationBusinessoperationModelsModels Operational

ICT environmentOperational

ICT environmentModelsModels Operational ICT environment

OperationalICT environment

Configu-ration toolsConfigu-

ration tools

Enterpriseapplicatio ns& interfaces

Enterpriseapplications& interfaces

Infra-structuremodules


Configu-ration tools

Configu-ration tools

Enterpriseapplicatio ns& interfaces

Enterpriseapplications& interfaces


VERAM:Re-usableknowledgefor VEsl

Particularlevel

ICTconcepts

ICTconcepts

ICTreference

architecture

ICTreference

architectureICT

conceptsICT

concepts

ICTreference

architecture

ICTreference

architecture

StandardsStandards Techno-logies

Techno-logies

Imple-mentationmethods


StandardsStandards Techno-logies

Techno-logies



ICTReference

Models

ICTReference

Models

ModellingLanguagesModellingLanguages

Modellingmethodology


Modelling tools

Modelling tools

ICTRefer nce

Models

ICTReference

Models

ModellingLanguagesModelling

Languages



Modelling tools

Modellingtools

GuidelinesGuideliz


e-Worke-Worke/m-Commercee/m-Commerce

e-Learninge-Learning

SecuritySecurity

Eco-buil dingsEco-buildings

Energy efficiencynergy efficiencyEnergy efficiency

TrustTrust

Knowledge mgtKnowledge mgt

New processesNew processes

e-Businesse-Business

Coll aboration pl atformsCollaboration platforms

WorkflowWorkflow

InteroperabilityInteroperability

Smart buil dingsSmart buildings

Produc t dataProduct data

Assessment toolsAssessment tools

Building modelsBuilding models

Design toolsDesign tools

......

Material dataMaterial data

Meta dataMeta data

Decision suppor tDecision support

Know ledge librariesKnowledge librariesAnalysis toolsAnalysis tools

VisualisationVisualisation

OptimisationOptimisation

Planning toolsPlanning tools

FM toolsFM tools

Service supp ort toolsService support tools

ICT integrationICT integration

AutomationAutomation

......

......

Fig. 4. Mapsdeveloped inprojects looking into the research strategies are in indispensable sourceof themes that need tofit into theproposedontology.On theother hand,

ontology could assist in the structuring of such diagrams. Both charts above are working models in the ICCI and the Roadcon projects, drawn by Kazi and Hannus.

softwareengineering

analysis and

visions,strategies,

requirements

Webtechnologies,

constructionas a neweconomy

IT strategies

role oftechnology

productdatabases


Raphael andSmith ([24]) define amodel of engineering design

thatdefines theprocesses that linkbetween theproduct’s function,

the as-designed and as-built structure and the as-required, as-

predicted and as-measured behavior. These processes are

formulation, information synthesis, information analysis, evalu-

ation, prediction, monitoring and, of course, construction.
design
developmentproductmodelling

processmodelling

client-servertechnology

Java, XML

computerintegrated

construction

distance

documentmanagement

modellingmethod

deployment new ways ofworking

thesauriclassification

systems

4. Elements of the ontology

This section presents the current top down approaches to the

structuring of construction informatics themes.

usemanagement

workinginformationretrieval

Fig. 5. Construction informatics themesand information system life cycle stages.

Theoretical themes in clouds, very practical themes in crossed rectangles.

4.1. Life cycle of knowledge

Fig. 6 shows a fairly generic process model of construction

informatics research. Industry needs and general human

constructionbusiness

constr.inf.research

teteaching

problems

tdevelopment

technology

knowledgecuriosity

otherdisciplines

peoplepeople

standardsstandardizationstandardization

methodologyepistemology

axiology

Fig. 6. Simplified IDEF0-ish process model of construction informatics.


curiosity generate problems and questions. It used the IDEF0

notation. Inputs enter the process from the left, outputs leave at

right, control is from the top and mechanism supports the

process from the bottom. The construction informatics research

process, done by academia and other researchers, using the

knowledge from other disciplines and principles of scientific

investigation, results in knowledge (as well as new questions).

The knowledge is then used in (1) teaching, (2) development of

technology and (3) development of standards, codes, best

practices etc. Through these three main mechanisms this new

knowledge reaches the industry and affects the day-to-day

business processes.

The top-level classification of construction informatics

themes is therefore into:

† core themes that create the knowledge

† support themes, in which the need is identified, knowledge

transferred, impacts measured etc.

The core themes include the creation of

† knowledge,

† technology, and

† standards.relevant for construction businesses.

The support themes are related to the knowledge life cycle

and include:

† strategies (planning thecreation/deployment/useof the above)

† transfer (issues related to education/knowledge transfer/tech-

nology deployment/standards implementation)

† impact (measuring of the effects of the above, changing the

enterprise).

The above breakup is the proposal for the top-level

construction informatics themes:

† strategies

† core research

† transfer

† impact.

4.2. Aspects of the core research themes

Most effort and most researchers, of course, work in the core

themes—in creating new construction informatics knowledge.

There are several aspects of this knowledge. Some are listed in

the subsections to follow.

4.2.1. Kinds of works

Construction informatics supports construction business,

more precisely, the human activities in the construction

business. The two main types of activities require different

information support, communication and processing.

Processing activities are those than can be modeled as

processes which (using the IDEF0 perspective, see above) use

inputs, create outputs, have controls and mechanisms. Activities

such as conversations, meetings, discussions, negotiations etc.

can be modeled as processes as well; however, a more powerful

method of modeling those is the so call commitment negotiation

or workflow model. Turk and Lundgren ([25]) compared the

two.

The study of processing activities seems particularly relevant

for the later development of the ontology and is elaborated in

Section 4.3.

4.2.2. Information scope

Information processes or communicated may have different

organizational scopes: international, national, virtual enterprise

and project wide information.

4.2.3. Life cycle scope

Information may be related to a particular phase of the

product’s life cycle such as inception, feasibility, design,

planning, construction, maintenance and use.

4.2.4. Information referrer

The information may be about construction works, materials

and products. Any current classification systems (e.g. Uniclass,

BSE, Talo) would do to provide the top categories according to

this aspect.

4.2.5. Source discipline

Construction informatics is feeding from more fundamental

discoveries of other disciplines. These include computer science,

mathematics and statistics, management, law, social sciences,

philosophy.

4.2.6. Actors benefiting

These are top managers, project managers, knowledge

workers, field workers.

4.2.7. Organizations benefiting

Organizations benefiting are governments, education and

construction organizations. The latter can be broken into

information businesses (design, planning, consulting, facility

management), material businesses (constructing, maintenance)

and the end users.

createprocess

use process

input

output

createprocess

glue process

input

use processoutput

Fig. 7. Process–process relations. Ideally outputs of one process feed as inputs

into the next process (above). Realistically, conversion is needed—the ‘glue’

processes that connect the information creation and information use processes.


4.3. Construction processes

The construction processes are observed on two levels. On

the very crude level, we make a distinction between material and

information processes; the firsts having material items as main

inputs and outputs and the seconds having information as main

inputs and outputs ([7,8]). This allows the classification of any

otherkindofconstructionprocesses into informationprocesses (e.g.

designing, planning) and material processes (e.g. construction).

Processes are broken down into sub-processes and these

recursively into sub-processes etc. IT controls the material

processes and is the main input and output of the information

processes. Observing these more closely we can make a

distinction between processes that create information, processes

that use information and the processes that we call ‘glue’

processes that provide the interface between the two (Fig. 7).

Information creation can be broken into the following steps:

† Create. Information is created, most likely by processing the

input. Typical approaches to information creation are

createinformation

edit & QAinformation

input

methods forinformation

synthesis and analysis

workflowtechnology,

ISO9000support,

reviewing etc.

Fig. 8. Generic sub-processes of the information creation processes. The information

are shown as mechanisms (arrows from below).

analysis (of available data, e.g. of the mechanical model’s

behavior under stress) and synthesis (creation of information,

e.g. a new architectural model of a house). Monitoring and

evaluation (using the Raphael and Smith classification) can

be regarded special kinds of analysis while prediction is a

special kind of synthesis.

† Edit. Editing involves quality control of the information,

checking it against standards, requirements. The create and

the edit steps may form a local loop.

† Record. Information which is finalized in the create and edit

step should be recorded, for example, into a file, printed out

on paper etc.

† Distribute. Information is distributed to the potential users. It

can be sent directly to a person or placed on theWeb, product

database, library or company archive. In some cases, the

record and distribute steps are joined.

For example, a draft plan is first drawn, then reviewed, then

plotted on paper, and finally distributed to the engineers, who

should know about the details in the draft (Figs. 8 and 9).

The glue process can be broken into the following steps:

† Find. Information needs to be found, for example, by

searching a project database, the Web, local library.† Retrieve. Information is retrieved. The location of the

information changes.

† Convert. In order to be useful in the information use process,

the information often needs to be converted.

4.4. Communication

Communication is the other perspective on human work.

Communication may differ by several criteria: Session topology

defines the number of parties communicating (1:1, 1:M, M:N).

Identity defines if the parties involved are know to each other.

recordinformation

outputpublish

information

standardformats

andschemas

FTP sites,project Webs,

Grids …

use process is the same as the information creation process. Some technologies

findinformation

retrieveinformation

informationneed

convertinformation

usable information

classification,product models,

indexing

communicationtechnology

neutral product models,schema matching,

ontologies

Fig. 9. Generic sub-processes of the glue process. Some technologies are shown as mechanisms (arrows from below).

Table 1

Research themes in construction informatics compared to other topic lists

Proposed in this paper Amor and Betts Lakmazaheri and Rasdorf

Communication and

coordination

Person-person Internet Hypermedia

Person-software Virtual Reality and Human

Computer Interaction

Software-software Internet, computer

integrated construction

Software-machine

Information processing and

management

Creating information From human Computer aided design

From machine Data acquisition

From information

algorithmically

Decision support Numerical methods, parallel

computing

From information

knowledge based

Decision support Expert systems, artificial

intelligence, neural networks

Managing information Representation (syntax,

structure, semantics)

Product modeling,

documents, standards,

multiple views, ISO-STEP,

IAI-IFC, Object Orientation

Databases, geographical

information systems

Publishing and sharing Documents Databases, geographical

information systems

Searching and retrieval Classification Databases, geographical

information systems

Common infrastructures Collaboration and concurrent engineering Construction process,

process modelling

Commerce and e-business

Legal

Social

Support themes Needs Roadmaps

Strategies National strategies

Transfer Best practice

Education

Software Software, programming

Standards Standards, ISO-STEP, IAI-IFC

Deployment

Impact Economic

Environmental

Social


Fig. 10. Hierarchy of topics.


Actor type distinguishes communication according to the who

the parties are—human, software, machine. Timeliness dis-

tinguishes communication where there is not time lag between

the sender and receiver (phone) and that were is such a lag

(written word). Location defines if the sender and the receiver

are near by or miles away. Mobility defines if, during

communication, the sender and/or receiver are at fixed location

or not. Encoding and format define the media of communication.

Carrier may be material or electronic.

The steps ‘publish’, ‘find’ and ‘retrieve’ can be considered

communication activity; so are most of the efforts in the

coordination activities.

4.5. Discussion

The taxonomies discussed above are orthogonal to each

other. Any core construction informatics research project could

be positioned into this six or seven dimensional space.

Undoubtedly, more criteria could be invented, which would

further increase the number of themes and make an ontology

based on so many facets very complex. Although classifications

can take any shape (tree, lattice, acyclic graph, network)

classifications in a form of a hierarchy are the easiest to

understand and are usually the basis for an ontology. Humans

are comfortable with using hierarchical ordering of things. Good

examples are sections and subsections of books, folders and

subfolders in a file systems, bookmarks and start menu items in

Windows. In Section 5, the themes of construction informatics

are organized into a hierarchical structure.

5. Ontology of construction informatics

Based on the theoretical background presented in the

previous chapters, particularly the reasoning behind the Fig. 6,

ontology of construction informatics structures the top-level

construction informatics themes into:

† Core themes that create the knowledge

† Support themes, in which the need is identified, knowledge

transferred, impacts measured etc.

5.1. The core themes

Core themes are structured into communication, processing

and common infrastructures for either communication or

processing and are based on the diagrams of Sections 4.3 and

4.4. Some illustrative keywords are given in brackets.

† communication (communication, discussion, collaboration)

† man–man (email, Internet, mobile, chat, conference,

groupware, workflow)

† man–software (user interface, interaction, windows,

mouse)

† software–software (software, program, data exchange,

corba, soap, xml, com, dcom)

† software–machine (software, program, robot, sensor)

† processing

† create information

† analysis (analysis, finite elements, design, structural

analysis, structural design evaluation, monitoring)

† synthesis (drafting, computer aided design, 3D modeling,

cad, machine learning, formulation, prediction)

† manage information

† represent (format, schema, ontology, data structure,

model, standard, STEP, IFC, XML)

Fig. 11. The map shown as a hyperbolic tree.


† publish (database, relational, document management,

project web)

† retrieve (information retrieval, data mining, search,

query, classification, thesaurus, vocabulary, glossary)

† common infrastructures

† collaboration (Internet, web portal, communication)

† commerce (e-commerce, commerce, business)

† legal (legal, standard, law, regulation).

Fig. 12. Same as Fig. 11 but

5.2. Support themes

† needs

† roadmaps (needs, survey, roadmap, vision, future)

† strategies (needs, survey, strategy, plan, business,

reengineering)

† transfer

† best practice (best practice, example, knowledge transfer)

focused on core topics.


† education (education, teaching, learn, knowledge transfer

† software development (software, program, prototype)

† standards (standard, ISO, IFC, XML, bcXML)

† deployment (experience, lesson, learn)

† impact (impact, result)

† economic (impact, result, saving, efficient)

† environment (impact, result, environment, clean)

† social (social aspect, social responsibility, social con-

sequences, community)

5.3. Comparison

Table 1 provides a tabular listing of the construction

informatics themes and compares them to some topic lists that

were referred to in Section 3.

5.4. Graphical representation

There are numerous ways in which hierarchies can be

graphically represented. Fig. 10 shows the hierarchy as folders.

A direct way of the application of the ontology would be to

provide a structured interface to a bibliographic services such as

the http://itc.scix.net/ (Figs. 11 and 12).

6. Conclusions

Term ‘construction informatics’ was suggested to be used to

denote a topic of civil engineering and construction research,

that was to date labeled with terms related to a technology. Its

scope was defined and structured. It is a relatively young and

immature field of applied science. The definition of its themes in

a form of ontology contribute to its maturity, ease the structuring

of knowledge (as in textbooks, curricula, web portals.),

simplify information retrieval and perhaps discover topics not

adequately addressed by current work.

The fundamental principle for the creation of the ontologywas

that construction informatics research is a process eventually

providing new mechanisms for the construction industry’s work

and with a potential of transforming the industry as a whole. The

four topmost themes are therefore research strategies, core

research, knowledge transfer and impact. Core research is

supports processing, communication and common infrastruc-

tures.Construction informatics research should particularly focus

on those areas that are very different to other industries. These

differences are particularly evident in the processes that glueother

processes together but less evident in the pure information

analysis and synthesis—decision making—where a lot can be

borrowed from research in other fields.

The ontology presented are being used to structure

papers in a construction informatics bibliography at http://

itc.scix.net/ as well as to analyze the current research and

future efforts and identify the barriers in the knowledge

transfer process.

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