sem7 IT in the Building Process
IT tools

[home] [education] Last update 2009.05.11 (2009.03.20) [2009.01.04]


Design of user environments and user support systems

IT i Civilingeniørspeciale i Byggeledelse/IT in Building Management. 2008


CONTENT
1. Background
2. Goal
3. Volume/Placement
4. Content
5. Learning Material
   5.1 Lectures
   5.2 Exercises/Mini-project
   5.3 Software
   5.4 Literature
6. Examination
7. Course Participants
8. Lecture Scheme

1. Background

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Since the introduction of the world wide web (WWW) and standardisation of Internet services and communication protocols we can see a huge shift in the way we communicate, collaborate and handle digital knowledge. In the semester 7 course we focused on models and representations of building products and processes. In this course we take an end user perspective on how ICT tools can support collaboration, communication and access to Internet based computer resources.


The anticipated ICT tools are only partly developed and must be designed tested and implemented in close collaboration with the building process end users. This requires that civil engineers get a deeper understanding of some knowledge domains that up till now only has been partly covered in the civil engineering curricula.

The ICT will strongly influence how we take advantage of and interact with the computer resources

  • information storage and interaction media will be more separated (paper is both)
  • it will be easier to adapt human computer interaction to user needs and usage context (multimedia, model access etc.)
  • human collaboration, team work and communication modes will be developed and partly changed
  • collaboration work spaces will get a added virtual dimension being less dependent of the physical room.

The mutual influence between practice and ICT progress is necessary to maintain. Civil engineers must posses both general and some specialised ICT related knowledge to be able to specify and participate in the development of new ICT tools and to be pro-active in the process of changing work routines and company and project organisation.

This course aims at providing general knowledge on how new user environments (UE) can be designed and implemented as well as deeper knowledge in certain key areas such as human computer interaction support, virtual work spaces, user driven user environment (UE) design, and user requirements capture and usability engineering.

2. Goal

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The goal of the 'IT in the Building Process - IT-tools' course is to mediate understanding of principles, methods and technologies for design and evaluation of user environments for computer supported interaction and collaboration as well as team work and knowledge transfer.

Efter kurset skal den studerende have opnået forståelse for principper, metoder og teknikker for design og evaluering af brugermiljøer for computerstøttet interaktion og samarbejde, teamwork, og videnudveksling.

3. Volume/Placement

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This 2 modules course is one of 2 with emphasis on IT during the semester 8 Master of IT in Building Management education (studieweb).

4. Content

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Principles and technologies for computer supported collaboration, decision support and knowledge management.

Properties of ICT tools for collaboration. Collaboration in Virtual Reality environments.

Multimedia (MM) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) history and development. Properties for MM communication channels. Standards and protocols to support HCI and collaboration. Virtual Reality systems.

Tools for graphic editing, Multimedia (MM) design and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Digital video and interactive story telling. Web-based 3D models.

Design of User Environments (UE). Principles, guidelines, the Contextual Design method, incremental prototyping. User models. Usability engineering and evaluation of user environments.

Principper og teknologier for computer støttet samarbejde, beslutningsstøtte og viden håndtering.

Egenskaber for værktøjer for IT støttet samarbejde. Samarbejde i Virtual Reality omgivelser.

Multimedia (MM) og Human Computer Interaction (HCI) historik og udvikling. Egenskaber for MM kommunikationskanaler. Standarder og protokoller for støtte af HCI og samarbejde. Virtual Reality systemer.

Værktøjer for grafisk editering, Multimedia (MM) design og Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Digital video og interaktiv story telling samt web-baserede 3D modeller.

Design af bruger miljøer. Principper, vejledninger, Contextual Design metodikken, inkrementelle prototyping. Bruger modeller. Usability engineering og evaluering af bruger miljøer.

5. Learning Material

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The course content is delivered through the lectures, reading of literatur , and exercises/miniproject. It is impossible to find a set of literature that covers the course content completely. The lectures are supported by lecture slides available on the course web site. The slides with emphasized titles in the navigation bar has the same status as course literature (though not eventual references on the slide).

References to further reading is found in the lecture notes.

The coarse literature consists of both Lecture Slides and literature according to the list below.

The 'IT in Civil Engineering' site (http://it.civil.auc.dk/) also gives access to previous years courses and if applicable mini projects. You reach it from the top of this page.

5.1 Lectures

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The lectures are accessed from the lecture scheme below.

Each lecture has a easy to navigate slide bar and an opening slide with short content description, questions for self assessment, references to the literature according to the literure list below and proposals for further reading.

The four hour lecture/exercise followes the scheme
  • 1 hour lecture
  • 1 hour exercise in group
  • 2 hours exercise results presentation and follow discussions

5.2 Exercises/Mini-project

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The exercises are accessed from the lecture scheme below. Student group exercises results are continously updated.

The exercices may well take use cases from the ongoing semester project or even be contained in a mini-project defined by the group.

The following domains will be covered during the exercises

  • Prospects and barriers of future ICT tools
  • collaboration tools functionality
  • interactive web-based 3D-models
  • future User Environments, UE
  • interactive story telling
  • Contextual Design and user needs capture
  • evaluation of usability

5.3 Software

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The following ICT, Information and Communication tools, are available during exercises/minproject activity. (those marked with * only at the Media Lab at institute 5)

  • 3DStudio Viz to produce an interactive WWW-accessible VRML model (*)
  • 3DStudio Max and 3dCult to produce an interactive 3dCult model (*)
  • Cult3D modeller
  • ArchiCad to produce VRML models
  • Macromedia Director 8 (*)
  • QuckTime VR interactive image software
  • Adobe Premier to produce web accessible streaming video (*)
  • Adobe Photoshop for image editing (*)
  • Adobe Acrobat Distiller and Exchange to produce interactive PDF documents
  • Groove, Netmeeting, and Yahoo Messanger to establish shared workspaces

5.4 Literature

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Literature marked *bold is mandadtory.

/1/ Christiansson, P, 1998, " Using Knowledge Nodes for Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining." Published in: Lecture Notes i Artificial Intelligence 1454. Ian Smith (Ed.). "Artificial Intelligence in Structural Engineering. Information Technology for Design, Collaboration, Maintenence, and Monitoring." Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1998. (pp. 48-59). http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/reports/ascona_98/ascona98.html

/2/ Christiansson P, 1997, "Experiences from developing a Building Maintenance Knowledge Node." CIB Proceedings W78 Workshop, Cairns 9 - 11 July 1997, 'Information Technology Support for Construction' Process Re-Engineering, IT-CPR-97'. Cairns, Australia July 9-11, 1997. (pp.89-101).

*/3/ Christiansson P, 2001, "Experiences from Using Internet Based Collaboration Tools". 'Konference om Arkitekturforskning og IT'. Proceedings Conference on Architectural Research and Information Technology. Nordic Association for Architectural Research. Arkitektskolen i Aarhus 27.-29. april 2001. (pp. 103-112).
KEYWORDS: Virtual reality, collaborative work, ICT tools, design, intelligent buildings, knowledge transfer.

*/4/ Mark Billinghurst, Hirokazu Kato. Collaborative Mixed Reality. Human Interface Technology Laboratory. University of Washington http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-98-36/

/5/ Nielsen A, 1998, "VRML programs for Room Ventilation Applications", Paper for ROOMVENT 98, Stockholm, Sweden VRML Programs for Room Ventilation Applications, Paper no 95, Indoor Environmental Engineering, Dept. of Building Technology and Structural Engineering, Aalborg University, December 1998, ISSN 1395-7953 R9846

/6/ Cult3D education material. Cycore 2001. (123 pp.)

/7/ Svendsen J. O. S., 2001, "Video på din PC". IDG Forlag, Valby (pp. 79). [Pages 23-27, chapter 4 'Historiefortælling'].
[education/reports/historiefortalling.pdf]

*/8/ Nedergaard L, 2002, "Fortællingens svære kunst". Børsen, fredag 21 juni 2002 (pp. 3). (delivered).
[education/reports/snowden.pdf]

/9/ Mohr H L, 2001, "De nye medieformater", PCWorld, nr 22. (pp. 73, 74, 76)
[education/reports/mpeg.pdf]

/10/ Christiansson P, Skjærbæk J O, Svidt K, Aaholm R, 2000. " User Requirements Formulations and Human Computer Interface Design in the Divercity project. Context and methods." EU project Divercity. (Draft report, Dec 17, 2000. 31 pages). http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/reports/r_divercity_user_req_2000.pdf

*/11/ Christiansson, P, 2001, "Capture of user requirements and structuring of collaborative VR environments". AVR II & CONVR 2001. Conference on Applied Virtual Reality in Engineering & Construction Applications of Virtual Reality. (eds: O. Tullberg, N. Dawood, M. Connell. 201 pp.) Gothenburg October 4-5, 2001. (pp. 1-17).

*/12a/ Preece J, Rogers Yvonne, Helen Rogers, 2002, "Interaction Design - beyond human-computer interacikon". John Wiley & Sons, New York (519 pp). (Amazon Books, 56 US dollars). http://www.id-book.com/. (page 295-306, 313-315)
[education/reports/interaction_design.pdf]
*/12b/ Preece J, Rogers Yvonne, Helen Rogers, 2002, "Interaction Design - beyond human-computer interacikon". John Wiley & Sons, New York (519 pp). (Amazon Books, 56 US dollars). http://www.id-book.com/. (pp. 340 - 358)
[education/reports/interaction_design2.pdf]

*/13/ Faulkner Xristine, 2000, "Usability Engineering". MacMillan Press, New York (244 pp.). (EXTRACTS: pp. 21-28 'Usability - know the user', pp. 157-160 'Cooperative Evaluation', pp. 188-193 'Usability heuristics'.) (http://www.palgrave.com/science/computing/faulkner/)
[education/reports/faulkner.pdf]

/14/ Svidt K, Bjerg B, 2002: "Visualisation of CFD Results in a Virtual Reality Environment". Proceedings of ROOMVENT 2002, 8th International Conference on Air Distribution in Rooms, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2002 pp 77 - 80.
KEYWORDS: CFD, Virtual Reality, Immersive Environment, Visualisation



6. Examination

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Oral individual test based on 15 minutes discussion on a mini project or exercises collection. Thjere are no special preparation time set aside. Assessed with the grade "passed" or "failed" with internal censor participation. There is no time for preparation.

Examination will take place in room 58, Fibigierstræde 14, Tuesday June 2, 2009. Examinator is Per Christiansson and censor Kjeld Svidt.
If you cannot come to examine please tell us no later than Thursday May 28, 2009.

Kl. 08.15 Anders Fynboe
Kl. 08.30 Birgitte Krag Festersen
Kl. 08.45 Joe Jim Jensen
Kl. 09.00 Britta Finnich-Henningsen
Kl. 09.15 Henrik Jensen
Kl. 09.30 Søren Lindhard Thomsen
Kl. 09.45 Steffen Boysen
Kl. 10.00 Rolf Bengaard Gravesen
Kl. 10.15 Kim Møller Kristensen
Kl. 10.30 Michael Lind Lauridsen
Kl. 10.45 Esben Hvelplund Kjærsgaard
Kl. 11.00 Jens Peter Nielsen

7. Course Participants

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7.1 Students

Boysen, Steffen [steffenboysen@yfu.dk]
Festersen, Birgitte Krag [BirgitteFestersen@hotmail.com]
Finnich-Henningsen, Britta [finnich@civil.aau.dk]
Fynboe, Adders [andersfynboe@hotrnail.com]
Gravesen, Rolf Bengaard [rolf~gravesen@hotrnail.corn]
Jensen, Henrik [henrik.jensen.skib@gmail.com]
Jensen , Joe Jim [joejimjensen@hotmail.com]
Kjoersgaard, Esben Hvelplund [esben@kjaersgaard.dk]
Kristensen, Kim Miller [kim@webz.dk]
Lauridsen, Michael Lind [rnlind@civil.aau.dk]
Nielsen, Jens Peter [jens_peter_n@hotmail.com]
Thornsen, Soren Lindhard [lindhard@gmail.com]


2.122

Kim Møller Kristensen, Steffen Boysen, Rolf Bengaard Gravesen,
Esben Hvelplund Kjaersgaard, Michael Lind, Jens Peter Nielsen

Project with HP3 company. Process optimization.
Customer-order-purchace-design-production-transport-build.
This course relevance: Early system development, user needs, conceptual system models, user environment, protoype development, user feed-back and evaluation. Human computer interaction, collaboration support, Contextual Design, usability engineering.



2.116

Henrik Jensen, Anders Fynboe, Soren Lindhard Thomsen,
Joe Jim Jensen, Britta Finnich-Henningsen, Birgitte Krag Festersen

Project with Kone Vinduer company.Process optimization.
Customer-order-purchace-design-production-transport-build This course relevance: Early system development, user needs, conceptual system models, user environment, protoype development, user feed-back and evaluation. Human computer interaction, collaboration support, Contextual Design, usability engineering.



7.2 Teachers

Prof Per Christiansson (course responsible).

8. Lecture Scheme

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1

Friday 6.2 2009
08.15 -12.00
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58
Aalborg University

(Per Christiansson)
SETTING THE SCENE

IT as communication support.
Human computer communication system form and function
Information content and format
User environment design
How to convey the message
Available IT/Multimedia tools

Literature

Exercise A
2

Friday 13.2 2009
08.15 -12.00
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58
Aalborg University

(Per Christiansson)
COLLABORATION TOOLS

Principles and technologies for computer supported collaboration and competence co-operation.
Properties of IT-tools for collaboration.

Literature

/3/, /4/, /14/

Exercise B
3

Thursday 12.3 2009
08.15 -12.00
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58
Aalborg University

(Per Christiansson)
HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION

In this lecture we will study multimedia human computer interaction. The human computer interface to underlying applications explicitly or implicitly contains models of the users specifying the modes of interaction.

We will also learn how to build and distribute over the Internet compact interactive 3D models.

As a prerequisite you will have knowledge about capture, storage, editing and presentation of graphics and images (from semester 6).

Literature

/5/, /6/

Exercise C
4

Friday 13.3 2009
08.15 -12.00
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58
Aalborg University

(Per Christiansson)
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

We explain why Knowledge Management issues are important to take into consideration as we design and implement the digitally supported user environements. What models (organisation, project, user etc.) are influenced and what ICT tools are available or even missing as focus on knowledge management is increased.

Literature

Exercise D

/1/, /2/
5

Thursday 19.3 2009
08.15 -12.00
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58
Aalborg University

(Per Christiansson)
INTERACTIVE STORY TELLING AND DIGITAL VIDEO

It may be useful to regard a web presentation as a story. You have something you want to tell the 'reader'. It could be something about what services your company may offer, best practice for your intranet/projectweb, or a story to your employees on possible changes in you company to raise quality in services and working environments. Story telling is increasingly used by companies to deliver important information.

We will take starting point in linear story telling using video and move to multimedia based presentations at the same time introducing interactive story telling. You have also get hands-on experience on methods and techniques to plan, capture, edit and include a video element in a web based presentation.

Literature

/7/, /8/, /9/

Exercise E
6-7

Tuesday 24.3 2009
12.30 -16.30
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58

Thursday 26.3 2009
08.15 -12.00
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58
Aalborg University

(Per Christiansson)
CONTEXTUAL DESIGN

We will during two lectures learn about the Contextual Design methodology to incrementally capture user requirements and specifiy a User Environment for accessing computer resources. We also make references to a parallel process with emphasis on the technical modelling and system implementation.

Literature

/10/, /11/, /12a/

Exercise F
8-9

Tuesday 31.3 2009
(NEW TIME)
12.30 -16.30
Fibigerstræde 16,
room 1.208

Wednesday 1.4 2009
08.15 -12.00
Fibigerstræde 14,
room 58
Aalborg University

Per Christiansson)
USABILITY ENGINEERING

During two lectures we explore the field of Usability Engineering including usability testing and evaluation of HCI tools and interfaces to application systems. We also cover alternative methods to defining and building User Environments.

Literature

/12b/, /13/

Exercise G
10

Wednesday 29.4 2008
08.15 -12.00
Niels Jernes Vej 14,
room 3:119

Aalborg University

(Per Christiansson
Peter Skotte)

SPECIAL ISSUES

Questions hour

(Visit to the VRMediaLab, Niels Jernes Vej 14.)

Exercises/Mini project follow-up

Special issues on request.

Literature


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Per Christiansson