KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND E-LEARNING FROM

RESEARCH PROJECTS IN THE FIELD OF UNDERGROUNG

CONSTRUCTION

M. Casals, A. Fuertes, N. Forcada

Group of Research and Innovation in Construction GRIC, Dept. of Construction Engineering

Technical University of Catalonia, C/Colon,11, 08222 Terrassa, Spain

F. Ballester, R. Diego, J. M. de la Horra

Construction Technology Research Group GITECO, School of Civil Engineering, University of Cantabria

Avda de los Castros, s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain

Keywords: Knowledge management, Underground construction, e-learning, Research project.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to describe a Knowledge management system (SGAC- Active Knowledge

Management System) and an e-learning system that have been developed to manage the knowledge

generated inside a research project, to transfer this knowledge from the research project to society and,

moreover, to facilitate the e-learning tasks. This paper approaches the problem of knowledge transfer from a

case study angle. The systems are implemented in “The Multidimensional City” which is a multi-

disciplinary research project that promotes the development and implementation of Spanish technological

innovation in underground construction. The SGAC system aims at achieving full integration of large set of

contents created in research projects related to underground construction sites. Then, the project has

developed several types of metadata for tagging and enriching contents. All this enriched information

becomes the base of different e-learning courses in underground construction, promoting an updated

education in this knowledge area and the dissemination of the results generated in the research project.

These courses are accessible from an interactive e-learning platform.

1 INTRODUCTION

Currently, there are thousands of research projects

running. The majority have a web page for the

society to know about the project and an intranet for

the partners to exchange documentation, planning

and information. Once the project has finished, this

information still remains in the web but it easily

becomes old because nobody updates it. Moreover,

normally the information is disorganised and

difficult to retrieve.

This paper presents, on one hand, a tool

developed to transfer the knowledge generated in a

very big national research project: “The

Multidimensional City”. The objective is to create a

starting point of generating knowledge and to carry

on once the project is finished. This system is called

Active Knowledge Management System (SGAC)

and pretends, through a single access web portal, to

promote the dissemination of the research results, to

provide tools to make the knowledge management

tasks easier along the lifecycle of the project and to

provide useful and updated information to

academics, researchers and industries in the

underground construction field.

On the other hand, an e-learning platform is also

presented in this paper. This platform has been

developed inside the same national research project

and is aimed at offering useful tools and up-to-date

courses and educational contents in general, as well

as at increasing the dissemination of the research

results in another community of users, such us

academics and industry professionals.

2 THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL

CITY PROJECT

The Multidimenisonal City is a Spanish strategic

187

Casals M., Fuertes A., Forcada N., Ballester F., Diego R. and M. de la Horra J.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND E-LEARNING FROM RESEARCH PROJECTS IN THE FIELD OF UNDERGROUNG CONSTRUCTION.

DOI: 10.5220/0002784201870190

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technology (WEBIST 2010), page

ISBN: 978-989-674-025-2

scientific-technological project from the Ministerio

de Ciencia e Innovación PSE 10-2005. It is a multi-

disciplinary research project that promotes the

development and implementation of Spanish

technological innovation in underground

construction.

The Multidimensional City is a project endorsed

by the “Plataforma Tecnológica Española de

Construcción - Hacia el 2030: Innovación y cambio

eficiente del Sector de la Construcción”. It focuses

on five strategic lines: Underground construction,

Cities and buildings, Safety and Health, Sustainable

construction and Cultural heritage, promoting an

efficiency improvement of the productivity and

safety and a significant reduce of environmental

impacts.

The project´s partners integrate not only the on-

the-field engineering experience and technical

know-how of the industry, but also the research

capabilities and conceptual innovation of the

academic sector.

The Multidimensional City is fully committed to

contributing to an increased quality of life by

reducing construction time and cost of planned and

future underground infrastructures.

3 THE ACTIVE KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

3.1 Introduction

The Multidimensional City project, moreover,

pretends to create a net of knowledge from all the

results and knowledge obtained along all the

research carried out inside the project. This net is

managed by the Active Knowledge Management

System (SGAC in Spanish terms), which is aimed at

boosting an efficient exchange of knowledge and

experiences inside the research project and the

dissemination of the obtained results to all the

underground construction community.

3.2 Objectives

The Active Knowledge Management System

(SGAC) pretends to be an access web portal to all

the knowledge generated inside the The

Multidimensional City project:

 Promoting the dissemination of all the results.

 Providing tools to make the knowledge

management tasks.

 Providing useful and updated information to

academics, researchers and industries.

3.3 The SGAC System

3.3.1 SGAC Contents Classification

Currently, the SGAC contains all the knowledge

generated along lifecycle of the project.

In order to assure efficient searches and to

accomplish the users’ requirements, all this

information has been enriched with different kinds

of metadata.

When analyzing the knowledge, the metadata to

be incorporated in each information object (IO) was

defined. With the aim to create an interoperable

infrastructure with other possible databases, the

system uses as a basis the LOM IEE 1484.12.1

Standard for Learning Object Metadata (IEEE,

2002). Some of the standard fields were adapted to

the specific project needs. At the end, seven types of

metadata were incorporated: Content metadata,

Media metadata, Formal aspects metadata,

metadata and Contextual metadata.

One of the most important metadata is the

content metadata. This metadata contains different

keywords related to the content of each IO. These

keywords are included inside a concept map of the

underground construction field. To develop the

concept map, different classification methods such

as thesaurus for underground construction were

analyzed (AFTES, 1998, AETOS, 1989, CONNET

2008, ITA, 2005, ISTT, 2005, etc.). From this

analysis, it was decided to design the thesaurus

basing on the ITA thesaurus, always bearing in mind

the project purpose.

Not only content metadata was organized in

different classes and subclasses, but also media

metadata. Media metadata contains keywords related

to the type of information included in each IO.

Technically, metadata is stored in a relational

database implemented in PostgresSQL. This

database contents 35 tables. The physical support is

a Dell Power Edge 1950 server.

3.3.2 SGAC Tools

The SGAC system is composed by two different

tools, both of them accessible from the SGAC web

portal (http://www.lcm-gac.es) with a previous

user’s validation: the Introduction of contents tool

and the Search of contents tool.

The Introduction of contents tool enables the

user, with a previous validation, to upload the

desired IO to the system and enrich it with the

defined metadata fields (12 from 30 fields are

compulsory). These metadata fields are grouped in

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the seven LOM standard categories (General,

Lifecycle, Technical, Educational, Rights, Relation

and Classification).

On the other hand, the Search of contents tool

provides three different kinds of searches: Simple

search, Filtered search and Conceptual search. The

Simple search can search by title and/or description.

The Filtered search filters the results by their source,

the format, the language and the year of creation.

And finally, the Conceptual search enables the

search of contents through the different categories

and subcategories of both Media thesaurus and

Content thesaurus.

4 THE E-LEARNING PLATFORM

4.1 Introduction

As aforementioned, inside the research project The

Multidimensional City, a big amount of research

works in the field of underground construction is

being carried out. All the obtained results not only

are interesting from a scientific or technologic point

of view, but also from an educational point of view.

For this reason an e-learning platform has been

developed with the aim of taking profit of all the

knowledge generated inside the research project,

already introduced and classified in the SGAC

system, to be included in e-learning courses for

academics, researchers and industries in the

underground construction field. Moreover, the

preparation of these e-learning courses will highly

contribute to the dissemination of all the research

project results.

4.2 Objectives

The e-learning platform pretends to be a versatile

educational and training tool for academics,

researchers and industries in the underground

construction field:

 Providing e-learning courses for different

levels of competences, contexts of application

and end users.

 Providing a wide range of useful and updated

information in the field of underground

construction.

 Providing different user-friendly e-learning

tools and repositories to make the learning

tasks easier (images repository, 3D models

repository, interactive three-dimensional

scenarios,..).

 Disseminating the results obtained in The

Multidimensional City research project

through the underground construction

community of practice.

4.3 The e-Learning Platform

4.3.1 e-Learning Platform Contents

The e-learning platform contains some e-learning

courses, a wide repository of images and videos, a

repository of 3D models and a group of interactive

three-dimensional scenarios, all of them related to

the underground construction field.

The e-learning courses are addressed to a wide

range of users and levels of difficulty. Most of their

contents come from the knowledge already included

and classified in the Active Knowledge Management

System (SGAC), assuring the transmission of up-to

date information and promoting the dissemination of

the results obtained in the research project between

the underground construction community of

practice.

Currently, a basic tunnelling course is introduced

in the e-learning platform and is being carried out by

a wide group of engineering university students.

On the other hand, the e-learning platform

provides a repository of images and videos. On the

other hand, each image and video has its own

description.

Moreover, the repository of 3D models is also

available from the e-learning platform and it is

pretended to be accessible from the SGAC.

And finally, the platform contains different

interactive three-dimensional scenarios that consist

of 3D visualisations where the student can select

some of the objects and find out related information.

These objects are called intelligent objects.

4.3.2 e-Learning Platform Tools

The e-learning platform is composed by four

different tools, all of them accessible from the e-

learning platform web portal, with a previous user’s

validation: the e-learning courses platform, the

repository of images and videos, the repository of

3D models and the interactive three-dimensional

scenarios platform.

The e-learning courses platform currently

contains a basic course of underground construction.

The repository of images and videos contains a

wide up-to-day images and videos in the

underground construction field. All of them are

classified in different categories and subcategories,

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND E-LEARNING FROM RESEARCH PROJECTS IN THE FIELD OF

UNDERGROUNG CONSTRUCTION

189

coming from the Content thesaurus developed in the

SGAC.

Both the repository of 3D models and the

interactive three-dimensional scenarios are also

available and easily visualized in the e-learning

platform, using a web system without any specific

software. The interactive three-dimensional

scenarios consist of 3D visualisations where the

student can move in using the keyboard and interact

with some of the objects that constitute the 3D

model.

The discuss forum is a user meeting point for

stakeholders of the Multidimensional City Projects

Research.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Currently, the majority of the research knowledge is

shared in face-to-face interactions (project

presentations, meetings, etc.) and it is dispersed in

different supports (paper based, on line, etc.). With

the development of the Active Knowledge

Management System (SGAC) all this knowledge is

centralized and accessible for all the project

community from a unique web portal. All this

information has been analysed and codified with

metadata to assure efficient searches and to

accomplish the users’ requirements. From the study

of all this knowledge the users have realized that

some of them are working in similar or

complementary research areas. Therefore, the SGAC

helps all project partners to know what is being done

in other sub projects. On the other hand, the system

is becoming a useful tool to manage all the

knowledge generated in the project along its

lifecycle.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work has been partly funded by the Spanish

Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PSE 10.2005).

The authors wish to acknowledge the Ministerio for

their support. We also wish to acknowledge our

gratitude and appreciation to all the project partners

for their contribution during the development of

various ideas and concepts presented in this paper.

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