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Assessment of the Computing Component of Civil Engineering Education |
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| Authors: | Osama Abudayyeh Hubo Cai Steven J. Fenves Kincho Law Robert O’Neill William Rasdorf |
| Affiliation: | 1PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Construction Engineering, Western Michigan Univ., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5316. 2PhD Candidate, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC 27695-7908. 3PhD, Guest Researcher, National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), 100 Bureau Dr., Building 304, Stop 8262, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8262; University Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon Univ. 4PhD, Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA 94305-4020. 5PhD, Professor, School of Engineering, Computing and Construction Management, Roger Williams Univ., Bristol, RI 02809-2921. 6PhD, Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC 27695-7908. |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the results of two surveys conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Task Committee on Computing Education of the Technical Council on Computing and Information Technology to assess the current computing component of the curriculum in civil engineering. Previous surveys completed in 1989 and 1995 have addressed the question of what should be taught to civil engineering students regarding computing. The surveys reported in this paper are a follow-up study to the two earlier surveys. Key findings of the study include: (1) the relative importance of the top four skills (spreadsheets, word processors, computer aided-design, electronic communication) has remained unchanged; (2) programming competence is ranked very low by practitioners; (3) the importance and use of geographic information system and specialized engineering software have increased over the past decade; (4) the importance and use of expert systems have significantly decreased over the past decade; and (5) the importance and use of equation solvers and databases have declined over the past decade. |
| Keywords: | Engineering education Computer applications Information technology (IT) Curricula Computer software |