Minimising content stagnation in construction education: Automating the content update through a shared web repository for distance construction education

With the use of modern information and communication technologies the distance education in construction has become
easier and effective than ever before. However, the focus of the most of the construction distance education systems in
place today is the need of students who are geographically prevented from attending the programmes hosted by an
educational institution established physically or virtually. Generally, this arrangement is based on a model, where the
information is hosted centrally by a single organisation while the geographically apart students access information
asynchronously. One of the shortcomings of this model is the possibility of content stagnation due to the inflexibility in
updating the content. Addressing this issue, as a part of an international collaborative research project, namely European
and Asian Infrastructure Advantage (EURASIA), a virtual environment has been created where the partners (five higher
education institutions from Europe and Asia) are contributing to a central content repository.
Accordingly, this paper discusses the rationale and the technology used for this virtual environment and its development
process. Further it discusses its progress to date and the benefits envisaged by the users to date.