Challenges and Perspectives on Resilient Collaboration for Building Information Modelling (BIM) Education in the GCC Context

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is revolutionizing the construction industry and education through digitization. The construction industry expects higher institutions to create graduate students that are BIM-aware and enabled through the understanding of BIM. There are four pillars of BIM, which are people, process, policy, and technology. Less focus is given to the people dimension, as BIM is perceived as 90% technology and 10% sociology, while in reality, it is 90% sociology and 10% technology. This study would embed its focus on people, which are students in the context of the educational implementation, and on female students in the GCC region. This paper aims to identify the complexity of collaboration in BIM education for female students in the GCC region, as many educational institutions create specific atmospheres for female students aligned with the local customs of the region. The investigation focuses on identifying the challenges in BIM collaboration in education in this specific context through a multifaceted theoretical investigation with a comprehensive literature review. The findings of this paper include identifying the multivariate factors involved in the collaboration of BIM education. The recommendations involve the inclusion of resilient strategies to integrate the long-lost 'soft' attributes of people in technology in the realm of optimization and efficiency. This study would be a significant milestone in the region and a promising approach to utilizing local and indigenous tools, approaches, and contexts to meet educational excellence.