The experiential learning theory is one of the best-known learning theories in education and has been explored and developed for decades through various studies in higher education. This learning method is expected to provide a significantly better learning environment for engineering subjects, such as construction techniques and design methods and alternatives, which may occur in most of the construction engineering disciplines. Nevertheless, the theory has hardly been used in construction engineering courses. In this study, the authors perform an in-depth review of the learning theory and present a case study, formwork design example, wherein the theory can be explicitly applied in construction engineering education. Research findings reveal students’ responses to the learning theory and lessons learned. Correlation analysis is conducted to explore how students’ performance in learning can be influenced by this learning theory.

Scientific publishing has undergone a number of paradigm shifts triggered by new technologies. The last technology leap, the world wide web, has made possible a new form of publishing called open access (OA), which places scholarly publications freely accessible for anyone on the web, using voluntary work and a variety of revenue models (other than subscription income) for sustaining the publishing activities. OA is eminently in line with the basic openness principles of science and the status of scientific results as a public good, and it is also cost effective for society as a whole. Despite its evident advantages OA publishing is still only in its infancy and has had a big impact in only a few scientific communities, such as high-energy physics. In civil engineering, and in construction information technology (IT) research, OA is still a relatively rare form of publishing. In the European Commission funded SciX project a generic system for scientific OA publishing was developed and was tested for running a number of services intended for the IT in architecture and civil engineering research communities. In addition the barriers for more widespread use of OA were studied. In this paper the different forms of open access: the peer-reviewed electronic journal, subject-specific, and institutional repositories, are first presented. After that the paper presents some of the results from the theoretical part of the project. Finally the paper briefly describes the architecture of the publishing platform and illustrates it with some of the pilots from the construction IT domain. It concludes with a discussion of the experiences obtained in setting up the pilots.

As engineering surveying is highly concerned with its intensive involvement in the construction of roads and bridges, drainage systems, buildings, railways, and tunnels in civil engineering, the subject of engineering surveying is being offered by the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics to all undergraduate students who are taking the Bachelor of Civil Engineering Degree Program in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Under the new outcome-based curriculum and work-integrated education requirements, the curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment for the subject are described here by answering the questions of “what are the goals and objectives of the curriculum,” “what should students learn,” and “how should it be learned, taught, and assessed.”

Provision of clean water can improve the lives of many people around the world. In addition, engineering skills are required to conceive, design, and construct water systems. Therefore, an international engineering service-learning project using solar-powered water pumping for the Santa Maria de Guadalupe Orphanage in Guatemala was performed. Project tasks were distributed between two student teams, a design team and an implementation team. By relying on a dual-team model, work was distributed among more participants and enabled students who could not travel to participate. Project objectives were to broaden social, cultural, and international experience of engineering students while serving others as well as to reinforce learning objectives specified by ABET Inc. (formally known as Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). Students engaged in readings, discussions, and journaling that helped them gain a better understanding of cultural, economic, and historical realities in rural Guatemala. In order to assess the project, pre- and posttrip surveys were administered. Students valued the project as supporting development of traditional technical skills, but also saw the project as supporting a broad education. The solar water pump was installed and functioned as designed to meet client needs. The project served as a pilot to support future solar-powered pump installations in developing countries.

Civil engineering is an interdisciplinary field, and most of the projects designed and built represent very complex systems, both during the construction phase and in the built phase. This research describes how a course in land development that included engineering design elements, lectures that also touched on other related fields, and a field journal assignment at a “green” (sustainable) construction site facilitated students’ understanding of complex systems. Results suggest that this course design facilitates the development of students’ proficiencies in several skill sets, and can increase students’ understanding of the complexity involved in civil engineering projects.

Civil engineering departments in the United States were surveyed to ascertain the range of practices for conducting seminars for graduate students. Two separate internet-based survey instruments were developed and utilized. One survey targeted department heads to determine if the responding program had a seminar for graduate students and, if so, details about the program. In the instance where a program did not have a graduate student seminar, the survey solicited reasons for the program choosing to cancel or not have one. A second survey was disseminated to graduate students. It was intended to gather opinions of students regarding their experience with the graduate student seminar. Forty eight civil engineering department heads and 231 graduate students responded. The consensus among respondents is that a graduate seminar can be a valuable part of the student experience.

The job market and skill needs have been expanding for environmental engineers requiring more interdisciplinary training and global citizenship. The 1970s was a decade of regulatory activities, the 1980s was a decade of major environmental disasters, the 1990s was a decade for global awakening, and the first decade of the 21st century is becoming the decade of concern for increasing global environmental stress. In parallel with the environmental trends, the environmental engineering programs have evolved from strictly water/wastewater focus to interdisciplinary programs with a wide selection of courses such as computer science, meteorology, aquatic biology, and ecology in addition to the classical environmental engineering curriculum. Advancements in science and technology, changing demographics, new delivery structures, changes in educational programs and policies, new regulatory requirements, increased global interactions, and recent large scale events with significant environmental impacts have increased the needs for engineers who are trained in environmental engineering discipline with adequate skills for addressing the emerging challenges. This technical note presents the emerging job markets and the corresponding skill needs for environmental engineers to respond to current and evolving environmental challenges both at regional and global scales.

Adjudication was enacted in the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act (1996) as a means of improving payment practices in the U.K. construction industry. It is a statutory right that can be invoked unilaterally at any time on a construction contract that is in writing and is a quick $\left(28\text{days}\right)$ and usually inexpensive alternative to arbitration or litigation covering all manner of disputes. Construction adjudication has developed from zero in 1998 to 2,000 cases in the year 2002 reducing to about 1,500 cases per annum currently. Construction adjudication produces a decision that is “temporarily binding” and will be enforced by the courts until the substantive issues in dispute are resolved by litigation, arbitration, or agreement. The principles of natural justice apply but the courts apply them pragmatically because of the statutory time scales. The adjudicator may get the decision wrong. The courts will still enforce the Decision. A dispute must exist for adjudication to be invoked. A governmental review of the Act has resulted in recommendations including extending adjudication to oral contracts.

This paper explores what has been the most successful attempt to date to introduce an “escape hatch” into the adjudication process for those on the wrong end of decisions: the area of natural justice. The decisions of the Technology and Construction Court relating to this area reflect the complexity of the key policy consideration underlying them: the extent to which judges should second guess adjudicators when it comes to matters of procedure. The paper argues that the Technology and Construction Court has in recent years reached a high water mark of intervention before being reigned in by the then senior judge of that court and by the Court of Appeal. It suggests that a more stable and predictable position now prevails. That certainty, common approach, and balance have been welcomed by the construction industry. This paper suggests that welcome is a better benchmark of whether the intervention/nonintervention debate has been correctly resolved than any academic or theoretical approach.

This paper reports on the rapid growth in the use of this form of dispute resolution and its apparent decline. It considers how this novel form of dispute resolution has changed in nature from its original limited role of providing a speedy and inexpensive process of resolving disputes so that cash could flow in the industry and be of help primarily to those in the lower reaches of the subcontracting chain into a highly developed legal process which has increasingly been utilized for large and contractually complex disputes. Statutory adjudication is still used extensively in the U.K. construction industry as the method of choice to resolve disputes, many of which would previously have gone to court or to arbitration. Data for this study were provided by the Adjudication Reporting Center at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Dispute resolution in the construction industry in Ireland is about to change radically with the introduction of the new Public Works forms of contract. Traditionally, Ireland has had an image of being able to resolve disputes by the use of informal channels and recourse to formal dispute resolution was seen as something to be avoided. Will this now change? This paper reviews the forms of dispute resolution which have traditionally been used in Ireland and details the new form of dispute resolution which is to be introduced. The new form of dispute resolution is unique and does not fit easily into any standard dispute resolution category. How will this dispute resolution procedure operate in practice and how will it affect the ability of parties to resolve disputes? This paper intends to provide an insight into the answers to these questions.

Adjudication was introduced into Singapore under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act of 2004. The Singapore regime is the seventh of its kind, taking after the precedent regimes in the United Kingdom, Australia (in the states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia), and New Zealand. The adjudication regime in Singapore most closely resembles the regime in New South Wales under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act of 1999. Based on the statistics currently available, it would appear that the Singapore regime has enjoyed some success thus far in achieving its policy objectives of expediting payment and improving cash flow within the construction industry. There is some indication that this has been due to a positive change in the underlying mindset towards payment in the construction industry. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether this success can be sustained and improved upon. This may have wider implications including a possible reduction in the use of litigation and arbitration proceedings for resolving construction payment disputes in Singapore.

For over 2 decades, and in response to complaints that arbitration was too expensive and too time consuming, the American construction bar has been energetic and innovative in developing a broad array of dispute resolution tools for resolving construction disputes. These “tools” have included “partnering,” mandatory negotiations, interim decision making by design professionals, mediation, standing neutrals and dispute resolution boards, minitrials, early neutral evaluation, and expert determinations, all developed as alternatives to arbitration and litigation. More recently, in 2006, a voluntary “fast track” process for resolving construction disputes within $100\text{days}$ has been proffered by the CPR Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution. Yet, there are certain dynamics or “tensions” inherent within, and associated with, all construction disputes that continue to resist efforts to speed up dispute resolution processes; these tensions must be reconciled or taken into account before any fast track or “adjudication”-type process will be generally accepted in the United States construction industry. Thus, for now and in the foreseeable future, there will continue to be a smorgasbord of dispute resolution processes for resolution of construction disputes. This is a good thing, because parties to construction disputes come with a great variety of appetites and needs. The focus of attention should be, not so much on development of the ideal or best dispute resolution tool, but having a willingness to select the “best tool for the job,” after the nature of the dispute is known.