CIOB Australasia Research Grant Announcement

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

CIOB Australasia 2007 Research Grant Winners Announced 

The Chartered Institute of Building (Australasia) is pleased to announce the outcome of its 2007 Research Grants Scheme. These awards were established to develop the research profile of academic staff in Australasian tertiary education active in the fields of Construction Management. The scheme also demonstrates the CIOB’s commitment to the ongoing improvement of the industry through practical research. The eleven proposals were judged by a panel consisting of academic and industry members who sought projects that could demonstrate a clear practical benefit to the management of construction projects. The panel decided to award two grants; one $5,000 grant and one $3,000 grant, to early career researchers from the University of Technology, Sydney and the University of Sydney. Below is a brief description of the successful projects.   CIOB Australasia looks forward to the outcomes of these projects due towards the end of 2008.  

Cynthia Changxin Wang and Igor Hawryszkiewycz

University of Technology, Sydney

‘Industrial Investigation to Evaluate a Prototype Semantic Blogging System for Construction Organisations’Research Grant:  $5,000

Recently web blogging is getting popular and becoming familiar to more and more people. Compared to conventional blogging, semantic blogging is a more advanced technology, as it can offer much better information processing functionalities. A prototype semantic blogging system has been developed for the construction industry. In the proposed research, this prototype blogging system is to be evaluated by an industry investigation. The findings from the investigation will be used to improve the system’s user-interface design and functionalities. This investigation will also promote the use of blogging in construction organizations to improve information and knowledge dissemination. 

Xiangyu Wang

University of Sydney

‘Smart Construction Site:  increasing awareness of construction assets’ Research Grant:  $3,000

It is a critical concern for constructors to protect, track, and manage their on-site construction materials, tools, equipment, and supplies. The CI coins a new concept — smart construction site (SCS) and proposes to conceptualize, develop and implement a smart system for monitoring inventory state data. Ambient display technology will be adopted to increase the awareness and visibility of construction assets to construction managers. The benefits of this project include improved inventory tracking, re-ordering cycles, and maintenance scheduling, improved cost-efficiencies of management of construction assets, and avoidance of multiple risks including theft, misplacement, and unauthorized use of equipment.

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