IT in CE: Applicative CE/IT Integration Efforts at AUB

Information Technology in Civil Engineering

Applicative CE/IT Integration Efforts at the American University of Beirut

Posted on December 28, 2002

Abstract

This paper explores a diversity of Information Technology (IT) applications that can serve Civil Engineering (CE) and help this sector restore its past glory among peer disciplines. Instead of decreeing in an abstract exposition, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the American University of Beirut (AUB), the efforts poured and steps taken therein towards a more pronounced orientation towards and use of Information Technology, will be used as a case study. Through exemplary CE/IT projects presented by civil engineering undergraduates and fruitful policies enforced by faculty to incorporate IT into their conventional civil engineering courses, this paper will outline a strategic departmental shift towards better CE/IT coupling culminating into: the addition of new IT-related courses to the Civil Engineering curriculum, possibly a graduate specialization in Information Technology track, and the acceptance of all its applicants to the graduate Information Technology track at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

From the standpoint of a civil engineer keenly interested in IT, I will use my experience at AUB and ongoing education at MIT (as a Masters of Engineering in Information Technology student at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department) to voice/justify my opinion on the extent of success such ‘integration’ efforts have attained and recommendations on how that can be better realized and directed towards civil engineering. Finally, a distinctive line will be drawn between the two specialty areas to help steer the civil engineer’s IT pursuits in a way that serves the civil profession without him/her mistakenly wandering out of it.

Contents

Abstract. 2

Contents.. 3

Prelude.. 4

Key Application Areas

Intelligent Infrastructures and Geographic Information Systems 5

Innovative Sensing Technologies for Monitoring and Inspection 7

IT-Related Endeavors at AUB

Water and Wastewater Works Study/Design for Qalamoun (the GIS component therein). 11

AutoFooT – Foundation Design and Modeling Tool 14

ActiveSEEP – CAD Port for 2D Seepage Finite Element Modeling in LISA 16

EasyHighway – Tool for the Design and Modeling of Highways in AutoCAD 20

AutoLabs – CEE Laboratories Database Management System.. 22

Towards Better CE/IT Coupling

Controversy on Nature and Extent of Integration. 24

Necessary Curricular Changes. 27

A Caution Flag.. 30

Acknowledgements.. 31

References.. 32

Prelude

While some assume that computer engineering and information technology are the future and that civil engineering is obsolete, there are many who can touch beyond this and see that such technological advancements, if properly directed, can add a lot to civil engineering, which in turn would proportionally reflect on our quality of life. A guest speaker (Nassif, 2002), in a seminar presentation given at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department (AUB), put it bluntly by raising this caution flag (addressing faculty members and students): “It’s up to you guys to revolutionize this sector and instill novel technology into it; it’s by this and this only that you can put it back on the pedestal off which other engineering disciplines have recently had it displaced.” He also commended the transportation sector people for being the civil engineering pioneers to realize and start implementing this.

It is up to the new breed of civil engineers to attend to this and assess the means to and consequent benefits from such a full-fledged utilization of computerization and information technology in conventional areas/methods of civil engineering. While their fellow colleagues develop those high-tech tools, civil engineers’ efforts should lie in knowing how to successfully exploit such tools in every implicative manner. It is only then that a civil engineer achieves both: the satisfaction from subduing IT and computer technology skills, and the obligation towards his profession through applying them to serve numerous civil needs. The following section is an exemplary, yet by now means comprehensive, overview of two areas in which such utilization is underway, awaiting the energy and enthusiasm of civil engineers to come.

Key Application Areas

Intelligent Infrastructures and Geographic Information Systems

‘Intelligent infrastructure’ development involves the integration of infrastructure building/modeling and information management using modern computer techniques and graphics technology with advanced database management systems (for maintenance and/or customer billing, for instance). Working with spatially networked facilities and land records systems would highly benefit from a tool like a Geographic Information System (GIS).

Water distribution and wastewater collection networks are the central component of any infrastructure, and GIS have become a popular item on the wish list of many municipalities and water agencies (of course, there is a diversity of GIS applications in other civil sectors too; the most pronounced would be those in transportation & traffic engineering.) The GIS would help the planning group perform estimates of future water demands, evaluate the transmission system utilizing these estimates, and specify subsequent system improvements. Then the engineering group can use the GIS in mapping such expansions, since it provides the spatial analysis tools necessary to efficiently assess the important factors (demographic, geographic, and economic) influencing the siting decisions for a wastewater treatment plant, for example. At a later stage, the O&M group can use it to manage work groups at geographically distributed facilities by using the geodatabase to provide work order management, work scheduling, and work history logging on a daily basis. Its use in this domain can even stretch to setting up hydraulic network models whose ‘input data’ is directly derived from the geographic and demographic aspects of the area under study; this is known as ‘coupled modeling’.

Hydraulic models and modeling software have been used throughout the past two decades for simulating the performance and deficiencies of skeletonized versions of existing networks and for predicting those of expanded or future networks under different water demands, land use conditions, and/or network design alternatives. The greater amount of time and effort has been often spent on setting up those models by preparing and importing the appropriate input data rather than on analysis and design optimization.

With the ‘input data’ (required by a hydraulic model) being directly derived from the geographic and demographic aspects of the area under study, the use of a GIS in minimizing the time spent on preparing and inputting such data is indispensable and should not be underestimated. Inherently, a GIS has the capability of manipulating huge amounts of spatial and nonspatial data along with the luxury of readily displaying, querying, sorting, and filtering this data in tabular and/or graphical format. Although using a GIS for preparing data ‘input layers’ has been adopted and proven highly time-efficient, such attempts focused on the import/export of data from the GIS into the model and vice versa in the form of shared database files:

Fig. 1

Seldom has the same objective been realized through building a complete stand-alone hydraulic modeling/GIS package, where the model and the GIS would share memory and not files:

Fig. 2

Not only would this merger minimize time consumed in the early input data compatibility stages, but it would also permit that data input, model running, results viewing/analysis, and modifications to the model be all carried out in a seamless environment with a single interface. This would also facilitate the regular upgrade and synchronization of the network loading conditions with the constant update of the regional geodatabase (assuming a region-wide GIS is implemented.)

Innovative Sensing Technologies for Monitoring and Inspection

A variety of advanced monitoring and inspection methods are being employed nowadays for maintaining countrywide infrastructures. In pipe rehabilitation, for example, mobile robotic systems (CCTV, ultrasonic sensors, stationary & zoom cameras…) are being used for remote inspection, and many ‘trenchless’ renovation techniques are being employed in refurbishing defective pipes. Advantages of ‘trenchless’ over ‘open-cut’ pipe renovation methods:

§ Minimizing excavation requirements

§ Less working time

§ More economical when depth exceeds 3m

§ Less disruption to surrounding structures and utilities

§ Lower site restoration costs

§ Minimize noise pollution

Real-time monitoring and predictive modeling (to provide reasonable projections of the remaining useful life of a structure before actual failure occurs) of existing infrastructures would help municipalities undergo preventive maintenance and repair/replacement, therefore, minimizing the need for emergency repairs.

Fig. 4

In the area of high-performance structures, monitoring gadgets such as stress-sensors installed into bridge girders for assessing vehicular stresses and frequencies, and infrared reflectors/receivers for monitoring scour at bridge foundations, are also being installed; not only for maintenance purposes, but also to serve as a source of input for undergoing research on relevant topics.

Similarly, actuated signalization and ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) in traffic engineering require real-time monitoring systems (cameras, traffic sensors, etc…) to be able to quantify vehicular demand and characterize traffic patterns. Finally, we need not mention that in the age of the internet, what is recorded in ‘real-time’ becomes also accessible in ‘real-time’ through the luxury of having online databases accessible anytime anywhere, thus adding a whole new dimension to the potential of IT in civil engineering.

IT-Related Endeavors at AUB

It is a blessing that CEE faculty at AUB, namely the younger ones, acknowledge the role IT plays and is yet to play in civil engineering. Accordingly, each in his own way, directs students towards making the computer and software technology a tool indispensable to their coursework through requiring: conventional assignments be done using state-of-the-art/specialized software, students use advanced spreadsheet methodologies to do further parametric analysis of the problem at hand, students develop short programs that would automate the problem-specific solution, and/or that the term project involves an IT component such as a web-based tutorial, expert system, or generic solver tool.

This adopted strategy, along with an intensive graduate course (elective) called Computer Methods in Civil Engineering, helped the IT-inclined of the civil engineering student body refine their computer skills and see that pay off in gratifying CE/IT term projects, and guaranteed that the other civil engineering students had the sufficient grounding in IT they would need for well-rounded strictly civil engineering careers. The focus of the rest of this section is on the successes of senior students who had a keen interest in IT and used the IT-oriented strategy of their professors/courses as an opportunity to develop a number of key software applications clearly delineating: (1) the ‘clear and present’ areas/ways IT can be applied to serve civil engineering, and (2) the ever-escalating concern and success of civil engineering students (still at an undergraduate level) in applying freshly acquired IT skills and computer methods to conventional civil-related problems.

Five key projects have been concisely described below; they traverse different civil engineering areas: water resources, structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, transportation, groundwater hydrology, and civil engineering laboratories/experiments. Those projects, each of which has been developed in a less than two-week time frame, also employ different IT technologies: database programming, interfacing with finite element analysis (FEA) engines, web deployment, spatial analysis and Geographic Information Systems, and advanced development in the CAD environment.

Water and Wastewater Works Study/Design for Qalamoun (the GIS component therein)

As a team of four junior civil engineering students, we worked on the complete design of a water distribution and a sewage conveyance network (in addition to their respective treatment plants and a storage reservoir) for Qalamoun, a coastal village situated in Northern Lebanon (as part of the CVEV523 Water & Sewage Works Design course). This four month venture started with performing field surveys, visiting relevant organizations (governmental, NGOs, etc…), estimating/projecting present & future population and water demand, and establishing our design criteria. After narrowing on to the optimum alternatives with colleagues and the Qalamoun public in a formal presentation of our proceedings, we attended to the detailed design, specifications, BOQs, and cost estimation for the agreed upon infrastructure units.

We also chose to incorporate a GIS (ArcView) for ease of analysis, presentation, and preparing network model-input purposes. Although this was unprecedented and not required by our course instructors, we wanted to bring to their attention the dynamism of using such a tool and demonstrate its numerous applications in the water resources & environmental engineering fields. We had no prior experience in GIS and had to learn all about it while working on the numerous other core components of the project.

With the ‘input data’ (required for our hydraulic model) being directly derived from the geographic and demographic aspects of Qalamoun, the use of a GIS in minimizing the time spent on preparing and inputting such data was indispensable and should not be underestimated. Inherently, a GIS has the capability of manipulating huge amounts of spatial and nonspatial data along with the luxury of readily displaying, querying, sorting, and filtering this data in tabular and/or graphical format.

Using a GIS for preparing data ‘input layers’ proved to be highly time-efficient. The model input consisted of the nodes’ exact location (x, y coordinates – stereographic projection), their elevation at a 0.1m precision, and the corresponding demands as calculated from an elaborate water supply categorization, quantification, and projection scheme. A database link was then initiated between the GIS-based data we had accumulated for the Qalamoun locality and the EPAnet Ver. 2.0 modeling software. The greater amount of time and effort that had been often spent on setting up a hydraulic model by preparing and importing the appropriate input data was now allocated to the analysis and much needed design optimization of the proposed Qalamoun networks.

AutoFooT – Foundation Design and Modeling Tool

As fourth year civil engineering students taking a graduate level course in geotechnical engineering, we were required to do a course project on one of the course-related topics. Of the alternatives available for a project scheme was to develop a computer application that handles the design and/or analysis of an advanced geotechnical task. At the same time, taking another course in structural design, we were to carry out a full concrete building design. In an attempt to facilitate the design process whereby we have a better understanding of the various design features (such as column and beam dimensions), we had to revise the computations in order to reflect changes in the design parameters (such as beam length, assumed section dimensions and beam distribution within a slab). Accordingly, we were inclined to design a computerized system, based on our own conception of the building design process, so that we can improve our design by spending more time evaluating the results rather than computing them. On the other hand, an automated process for the design of building foundations would be strongly based on the aforementioned justification and would be highly compatible with our geotechnical project requirement. It is for all these considerations that we developed AutoFooT, an AutoCAD based application for the design and 3D modeling of different types of building foundations. Foundation design entails calculating intermediary element loading that are not evident in the final foundation design, yet are of great value for the design of other structural elements. Consequently, with little effort, we were able to access intermediate loads on the various elements that serve as a basis for building design.

AutoFooT handles the design of spread, combined, and mat foundations. The user can import already drawn floor plans into the drafting environment to allocate boundaries, columns and beams. Another feature is the flexibility in being able to assign columns different section geometries (rectangular, circular, or rotated). Since footing design is based on loads and moments calculated by tributary area computation for each assigned beam, floor loads are accumulated from the top floor down to the foundation level. However, in case the engineer needs to change the computed loads to consider other loading effects such as lateral loads (wind or earthquake); he/she can view and edit the vertical load and moment acting on each column. The primary design obtained is based on a spread footing basis. To optimize the design a function is provided to locate footings that overlap and therefore combine such footings together in order to fit within the available space and meet the allowable soil bearing capacity at the same time. Foundation sizes and steel reinforcement details can be readily exported to an Excel spreadsheet for different/advanced usage.

ActiveSEEP – CAD Port for 2D Seepage Finite Element Modeling in LISA

We were required to develop a software application revolving around a ‘visual’ component, namely one created/manipulated in the AutoCAD environment, and that would of course tackle a civil engineering application/problem. Accordingly, we took our time skimming through virtually all civil engineering problems involving an inherently ‘visual’ solution methodology to which we were exposed. That is, one that would make of the CAD environment a source of input to the problem under study, and not just a medium for illustrating results or reproducing maps/diagrams; hence making the 2-way interaction with AutoCAD the essence of such a VB/CAD application. Other selection criteria were the topic’s relative originality when compared to current and previous endeavors in this course and/or problem theme, it’s practicality by achieving a notable level of aid to the targeted user (through minimizing the amount of time & effort consumed in tackling the same problem using other means), it’s educational ‘multidimensionality’ that would have us benefit in multiple software development aspects in pursuing such an endeavor, and finally it’s concise and focused scope without which it would be impossible to develop a shrink-wrapped functional product given such a limited time-frame and resources.

The topic we found most intriguing and readily satisfying to most, if not all, of the criteria just mentioned was developing a highly flexible drawing environment for defining 2-D groundwater seepage setup variations to act as a CAD port to ‘LISA’, a finite element analysis engine. Supported problems can be defined in a matter of seconds, after which the user can choose among many of ActiveSEEP’s ‘meshing’ tools to draw/refine his desired finite element grid. The user can then choose to have his analysis results ‘visually’ presented in the form of colorful contour plots using the ‘LISA Graphic Explorer’, or have them reported in spreadsheet format for any additional statistical/numerical manipulation using ActiveSEEP’s export features.

As for ActiveSEEP’s seepage solution methodology, we decided on using either the finite differences analysis (hereafter referred to as FDA) if we were to write the solution algorithms ourselves, or use the finite element analysis engine (hereafter referred to as FEA) of a commercial software that exposes its own algorithms or provides some sort of an ActiveX port to its object model. Hence the challenge was in either writing a less-accurate FDA code that accounts for all possible nodal boundary conditions and have it optimized to avoid draining the host system’s resources, or do an extensive research on available FEA software applications with sufficient documentation on how to access/manipulate their functions or object model. Being uncertain about realizing either of the methods with the limited time frame and resources allocated to the project, we embarked each in a separate direction; one set to deriving the FDA continuity equations for any node at any boundary in any soil layer of a certain seepage problem setup (which has been successfully derived), whereas the other was ‘exhaustively’ experimenting with ‘LISA’, a German FEA commercial software product with a suitable licensing policy and adequate documentation.

Being able to subdue ‘LISA’, redirect its capabilities to serve our problem, and enforce a seamless CAD->LISA->ASCII Editor->EXCEL linkage, we finally decided on adopting ‘LISA’ as ActiveSEEP’s core FEA engine. Better put; ActiveSEEP becomes an AutoCAD port for 2-D FEA seepage modeling in ‘LISA’. ‘LISA’s OLE-Interface (object linking and embedding) is then invoked via its ActiveX port to solve the finite element grid produced by ActiveSEEP.

Of course, our initial attempt at deriving the necessary equations manually for an FDM solution did not go in vain. For, it provided us with insight on how ‘LISA’ works, what continuity & boundary conditions exist at different nodes/elements, and an appreciation for the amount of time, effort, and precision it takes to develop a complete FEA/FDM solver; all of which are definitely beyond the scope of ActiveSEEP.

Taking this a step further, ActiveSEEP was used in an Applied Foundations course project that involved the experimental versus finite element modeling of a series of precisely defined groundwater seepage problem variations. Each model was first constructed in an experimental setup (using the ‘Seepage Tank’ available in the hydraulics lab), and then imported into ActiveSEEP.

The modeled setups were of a steady-state confined flow nature, where different combinations of impervious structures were used: a pile, a cut-off wall, and a sinking dam. Piezometer readings were taken at random points throughout the soil body. On the other hand, FEA grids of varying complexities were constructed on an adaptation of the experimental setups in ActiveSEEP. Grid lines were chosen to intersect at nodes corresponding to those at which piezometers were paced in the seepage tank, and head results were accordingly extracted and compared with the experimental ones.

Finally, the experience of designing, building, and testing a given scenario experimentally and then using an in-house software tool to model the same system and reach comparable results is very gratifying. One gets to touch on the overall and interrelated conception of governing theory, different solution methodology, experimental means and skills, and the potential of information technology to correctly depict real-life scenarios.

EasyHighway – Tool for the Design & Modeling of Highways in AutoCAD

EasyHighway, an AutoCAD based application, was developed to serve the purpose of changing the time consuming highway design process to a flexible and efficient practice. The program, developed using Visual Basic for AutoCAD, performs a sectional analysis of a highway alignment based on an imported data file containing grid elevations of the studied region. We implemented three dimensional drawing methods, which are supported by AutoCAD, to produce rendered models of a proposed highway as viewed in an intact terrain condition. Consequently, we have provided the basic design concepts as well as a fully functional prototype that demonstrates the effectiveness of the implemented techniques. Through the employment of AutoCAD’s built-in geometric computation capabilities, the final product represents a low-cost application that offers a fully featured and user-friendly design environment.

EasyHighway optimizes route location by balancing cut/fill of necessary earth or rock work. Upon specifying the desired route characteristics (lane width, number of lanes, road cross slope …), EasyHighway generates a 3D model of the designed highway with side slopes/trenches and displays it in an intact terrain appearance as shown below (Fig. 9). Eventually, the engineer has a virtual perception of the proposed highway with respect to the original terrain conditions before performing earthworks at highway segments requiring excavation. After running the project, all relevant data can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet summarizing cut and fill quantities per station.

VBA for AutoCAD has been chosen as a development tool, both here an in the cases of ActiveSEEP and AutoFooT, for reasons related to both the development phase and the final user-software interface. Concerning development, AutoCAD proves to be a very efficient tool for performing geometric calculations, of which the most important are: area computation, intersection point location, and region creation. As to the interface produced in the AutoCAD environment, it allows for a multi-viewport working area, whereby the user has a better conception of his actions through the display of more than one design feature simultaneously.

AutoLabs – CEE Laboratories Database Management System

AutoLabs is an attempt at helping laboratories in the civil and environmental engineering department at AUB lever up their administrative and data storage/manipulation tools, both of which, if realized, would favorably reflect on their overall productivity, efficiency, and reliability when it comes to attracting new clients and better serving old ones. As to its scope, from the perspective of lab work, we have been asked to have AutoLabs accommodate all 3 main CEE laboratories: the soil mechanics lab, the concrete and materials lab, and the environmental sciences and water quality lab; and covers/automates all administrative (client profiles, experiment orders, invoice archives, result reports, etc…) and experimental (experiments inventory, results calculation, storage, & retrieval, experimental data aggregation, etc…) duties of the respective labs. Technically, however, this endeavor has become more and more involving as its IT scope stretched to include fluency in automating MS Access via Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), advanced querying with Structured Query Language (SQL), and a database-driven web outlet to the AutoLabs using Active Server Pages (ASP) and various web scripting technologies.

The online window to the AutoLabs is meant to facilitate both: (1) order placement online, invoice calculation, and price listing for registered clients, and (2) the luring of new local or regional clients to a laboratory that has a presence on the world wide web, and uses a state-of-the art DBMS to organize/sore its data.

For security reasons, it was agreed upon that updating the database from the web should be minimized, and that no access should be given to the client over experiment results and/or dates in which they were completed. However, the pages have been designed to support such functionality, yet still be configurable from the database to enable/disable it. This brings us to the most important feature of the AutoLabs website, and it’s the fact that it’s totally database-generated or database-driven, form and content wise. That is, all aspects are parameterized and query-based, inheriting their value from the database every time a page is requested from the server. For instance, the backgrounds, banners, and bullets can all be configured from within the database by choosing another picture file for each. All order forms, category dropdown boxes, prices, etc. are synchronized in with the database via select queries. Even more, any literature and/or pictures of experiments can be added, removed, or modified (even the format can be edited as HTML, and not necessarily plain text) from the database by the DBA; no prior knowledge of HTML or the ‘Internet’ is required.

Below is a schematic of the DBMS components and connectivity (currently up & running on the AUB servers):

Towards Better CE/IT Coupling

Discerning and specifying the best strategies to incorporate IT into the civil engineering curriculum, and more importantly into the civil engineer’s role and job function, would require a paper/research devoted in whole to the subject. This, at most, is only meant to highlight the general CE/IT integration trends and provide personal recommendations for a more worthwhile CE/IT linkage based on a modest and young experience in both areas.

Controversy on Nature and Extent of Integration

I think the majority of civil engineers, scholars, and educators speaking of the clear connection between IT and CE and the numerous areas the former can serve the latter speak from the viewpoint of IT being only a ‘tool’, and see no more than the applicative aspect of IT in civil engineering. That is, all the applications mentioned so far in this paper fall under this category of ‘IT for civil engineering’; be that in the form of a software application automating the solution of some conventional civil engineering design/analysis task or a database management system dealing with strictly civil engineering logistics and subtleties, hence appreciating (if not requiring) the conventional civil engineering grounding of the developer.

On the other hand, many believe that the IT domain, in whole, should be made part of civil engineering, as it intrinsically is not but about providing another infrastructure (mostly ‘information’-based, partly telecom) requiring planning, design, maintenance, and improvement, which coincides with the essence of what civil engineering is all about. In other words, providing IT solutions to serve civil engineering problems and non-civil problems should be made the responsibility of the civil engineer; it is not ‘what IT should serve’ that dictates its relevance here, but ‘what IT actually is’ that deems it an essential part of a civil engineer’s duties. Many would argue: “But what does IT have to do with civil engineering for it to be placed completely under the civil engineering umbrella?” – Well, IT has as much to do with civil engineering as treating water has to do with sizing a footing or optimizing a traffic signal cycle. In fact, there is not much in common between current major civil engineering disciplines except their prerequisite engineering basics and matching causes: creating the infrastructure needed to sustain the quality of life of current and future generations. Accordingly, it’s not unreasonable to consider IT the latest annex to the civil engineering domain, just as the latter has evolved to encompass the diversity of disciplines it currently contains.

Perceiving the role of IT in civil engineering from the standpoint of those diminishing the IT domain to only that of which can serve conventional civil engineering purposes would result in:

§ A narrower – or relatively more specialized – role for IT to play and function for CE/IT enthusiasts to serve, as applications will become more technically involved and more focused in scope

§ CE/IT specialists need be well-versed in both areas to the level required for: (1) a sufficient understanding of the civil engineering aspect of the problem at hand, and (2) the development know-how (if not mastery) required to provide efficient and scalable software solutions addressing the problem

§ Smaller job market, in terms of industry options, for the ‘new breed’ of CE/IT specialists due to the focused scope of their specialty, yet perhaps higher pay per engineer

§ Less or virtually no competition with software developers and computer science students over jobs due to the CE-specific nature of the targeted industry. Although such students would generally have a leading-edge in programming and theoretical computer science, they would lack the much needed conventional civil engineering grounding required for those specialized jobs

§ More technically-involved research and innovation in the area of CE/IT due to the engineers’ strong background in both specialties. This would most probably lead into different/better ways of approaching problems, and perhaps revolutionize some conventional solution methodologies (just as numerical solutions, such as finite element analysis, came to be decades ago with the advent of computers)

§ Essential modifications to the typical civil engineering curriculum reflecting a tighter coupling between civil engineering and IT for students pursuing CE/IT specialization (this will be further elaborated in the following Necessary Curricular Changes section)

In contrast, having IT, in its entirety, become an integral part of the civil engineering domain would necessitate/lead to:

§ A wider – or possibly less specialized – role for IT to play and function for IT specialists (hereafter referring to engineers specializing in IT from within civil engineering) to serve, as duties would now diversely range from E-Commerce and networking, for example, to GIS and remote sensing

§ IT specialists need not be well-versed in both areas (civil and IT) to the level required in the former categorization of ‘IT for civil engineering’. In other words, an IT specialist would need to know about wastewater flow in pipes as much as a traffic engineer does; IT would simply be a new track requiring the same basic civil engineering prerequisites as the other tracks and subsequent specialization in IT (the same way an undergraduate would take elective in traffic engineering then pursue graduate specialization in this area)

§ Much larger job market when compared to that in the former CE/IT specialization category. Success in making IT part of civil engineering would on the long run theoretically result in diverting virtually all of the IT market demand (civil and non-civil) to civil engineers specializing in IT

§ Higher competition with software developers and computer science students over jobs due to the non CE-specific nature of most IT jobs and applications in demand. Since such students would generally have a leading-edge in programming and theoretical computer science, there is every reason to favor them over students only specializing in IT after a CE background (of course, this is only in the case of jobs/projects having no CE component to them, which constitute the larger IT demand share). Success in eliminating such competition would be proportional to our ability to draw a clear-cut line between IT and computer science, in terms of both education and job function.

§ Less technically-involved research and innovation in the cross-linked area of CE/IT due to the engineers’ very basic CE background. Such specialists would generally lack the advanced knowledge in a conventional civil engineering area to make significant research contribution.

§ Essential modifications to the current civil engineering curriculum allowing for the advent of a new full-fledged IT specialization track (this will be further elaborated in the following Necessary Curricular Changes section)

Necessary Curricular Changes

The rigidity of current curricula is in sharp contrast with the fluidity and volatility of today’s job market and of the way we conceive the ‘new breed’ of civil engineers. In the light of the distinction made earlier between a partial CE-specific IT assimilation and a full-fledged incorporation of IT into civil engineering, the corresponding curriculum should reinforce either directions. A course load adding up a conventional civil engineering degree to one in computer science/engineering is undoubtedly not our objective, nor is attempting to tackle both specialty areas yet fall short of providing the bare minimum required to make students competent in either area.

It is difficult, if not impossible, after a conventional training in civil engineering (with no exposure to IT) for students to decide on specializing in IT and expect in a 1 or 2-year time frame (regular Masters degree) to provide powerful IT solutions to civil engineering problems. This is simply because there is a great wealth of fundamental IT knowledge for one to gain before reaching the minimal level of qualification required to start tackling CE-specific IT problems. The time allocated for a graduate degree would be consumed in building those IT basics that should have been built in the core curriculum, and consequently one would graduate with a very basic grounding in civil (short of that attained by an engineer who chose to specialize in a conventional civil area) and a mediocre training in IT (short of that attained by a computer scientist/engineer who has this basic IT knowledge as a direct consequence of his training in software development).

To solve this problem, the civil engineering curriculum must be thoroughly revamped through: (1) allowing for the addition of prerequisite courses in IT fundamentals to all tracks, (2) restructuring conventional course syllabi to include or make better use of IT and new technologies, (3) adding new tightly coupled CE/IT electives designed from the ground up by qualified faculty (IT-enabled professors) or visiting professional from industry, and/or (4) establishing a major specialization in IT branch with equal resources and ‘rights’ to those of other conventional branches (if a full-fledged incorporation of IT is the goal)

The first objective would be identifying and eliminating obsolescence in current curricula. This would make room for adding the fundamental IT courses common to all tracks; just as all civil engineering students are required to take a course in fluid mechanics even if structural analysis is their end specialty. Those IT prerequisites are to serve: (1) the all-inclusive IT enrichment of conventional civil engineering branches affecting all civil engineering students, (2) the more advanced IT-specific courses for students specializing in IT , and (3) the more advanced CE-oriented IT electives for students specializing in IT, namely ‘IT for civil engineering’.

Second, current conventional civil engineering courses should better infuse IT and computer techniques through encouraging/enforcing the use of the computer (specialized software, advanced spreadsheets, automation programming, etc…). The IT-Related Endeavors at AUB section of this paper makes profuse reference to such recently adopted strategies by AUB faculty and the in-house IT applications resulting therefrom. It cannot be overemphasized how much this fashion of learning/applying IT enriches students’ IT literacy, as it involves the direct application of IT, and it’s application to an area no other than civil engineering!

As for the CE-specific IT electives (ideas would be sensor-based monitoring of infrastructure, hydraulic modeling from within a GIS, etc…), such courses would require highly qualified instructors (well-versed in both areas) and meticulously designed courses with up-to-date technologies and clear objectives. It is my experience that courses supposedly of this nature, yet involving not more than related seminars on the subject and/or general theoretical background on the different technologies, result in a more ‘aspiring’ than solid experience of the material at hand.

Finally, returning to the subject of competition between software developers and IT specialists, it would be in everyone’s best interest that the overlap between both areas is reduced or just better understood. While software developers and computer scientists specialize in actually creating those ‘tools’ with heavy reliance on low-level programming, efficient algorithms, computational theory, etc… IT specialists are trained to exploit those software tools in a high-level applicative manner with more reliance on systems architecting and integration, database programming, middleware, deployment, rapid application development (RAD), etc… Perhaps a far-fetched analogy would be physics/mathematics and engineering, where the latter focuses on applying not formulating the mandates and concepts deemed viable by the former. I think that time, advancements in technology, and the needs thereto of society will inarguably make the line separating both areas less hazy.

A Caution Flag

Considering the high-tech nature, aura of modernity, high starting salary, and flexible/informal work environment surrounding the IT profession, it is not surprising that many conventional civil engineers would consider or even look ahead for a chance to switch to careers in the IT field. However, by doing so the damage inflicted on other professions, namely civil engineering, is largely underestimated or perhaps misunderstood. What happens to the perpetual need for domain experts if all students specialize in IT? The impact thereof might not be as pronounced now as it would be in decades to come.

Information Technology, from the viewpoint of a civil engineer, ought not be more than an interface between the two same old bodies of information: (1) the civil engineer and his wide-ranging knowledge, and (2) the diversity of civil ‘duties’ manifested in facilities to erect, problems to tackle, etc… As those two bodies stretch in scope, the need for the interface (engineers’ tools in this context) to evolve arises. However, the newer the interface or tool the more tempting it gets, and by getting over occupied with the ‘tool’ we, as engineers, risk losing perspective on the central goal this tool was originally employed to serve.

Heim said: “The deepest peril of the interface is that we may lose touch with our inner states.” – where the ‘inner state’, in this case, translates into our commitment as civil engineers to enhance the quality of life; we do not want to lose touch with that.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Mazen Manasseh for his unowed assistance, namely on the AutoFooT and EasyHighway sections of this paper.

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