Collaborative Research: CyberTraining: Implementation: Medium: CyberTraining of Construction (CyCon) Research Workforce Through an Educational and Community Engagement Platform

建筑业是美国经济的主要贡献者。它占美国GDP的4%以上，相当于1.36万亿美元。尽管最近取得了进步，但研究表明，与制造业、电信业和零售业相比，建筑业仍然是计算机化程度最低的行业之一。与此同时，建筑研究界在采用新的数据科学和人工智能（AI）解决方案和技术方面面临着重大挑战。建筑工程的复杂性和独特性、此类技术的快速发展以及传统建筑教师对此类主题的不熟悉等因素造成了这种情况。因此，对于研究人员和学术专家来说，制定新的教育和培训策略来弥合这些研究技能差距，加强建设研究数据素养和数字流畅性至关重要。该项目通过开发一个名为CyCon （Cyber construction）的教育和社区参与平台，解决了建筑工程教育工作者和研究人员面临的上述挑战。CyCon平台专注于最先进的AI/ML技术和云计算解决方案，为CI （CyberInfrastructure）用户、贡献者和建筑研究界的专业人士提供服务。CyCon平台包含以下四个培训和教育组成部分：(1) CI用户资源模块，包括模块化学习课程和课程项目库，用于培训CyCon用户的基本和高级CI研究技能；(2)CI教育者资源模块，提供新颖的策略和在线材料，以有效地培训教育者；(3)CI竞赛模块，帮助CyCon用户实践和进一步提高他们对AI/ML产品和工具的知识，并使用实际的建筑问题。(4) CI众包模块，使用数据仓库提供定义良好的数据管道，以丰富可供公众使用的建筑数据集。CyCon平台被设计为建设CI研究社区的可持续教育和社区参与框架，预计将显著改善CI用户和教育工作者在全国各种建设项目中的学习和教学体验。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The construction sector is a major contributor to the U.S. economy. It represents over 4% of the U.S. GDP, equivalent to 1.36 trillion dollars. Despite recent advancements, studies indicate that the construction industry is still one of the least computerized sectors compared to manufacturing, telecommunication, and retail industries. In line with this, the construction research community faces significant challenges when it comes to adopting new data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions and techniques. Several factors, such as complexity and uniqueness of construction projects, the rapid pace of evolution of such technologies, and unfamiliarity of traditional construction faculty with such topics, cause this situation. As a result, it is crucial for researchers and academic experts to develop novel educational and training strategies to bridge such research skills gaps and strengthen construction research data literacy and digital fluency. This project addresses the above challenges faced by educators and researchers in construction engineering through the development of an educational and community engagement platform called CyCon (Cyber Construction). The CyCon platform focuses on state-of-the-art AI/ML techniques and cloud computing solutions that serve CI (CyberInfrastructure) users, contributors, and professionals in the construction research community. The CyCon platform contains the following four training and educational components: (1) CI user resource modules, including modular learning coursework and course project libraries, to train CyCon users with basic and advanced CI research skills, (2) CI educator resource modules that provide novel strategies and online materials to efficiently train educators, (3) CI competition modules to help CyCon users practice and further advance their knowledge about AI/ML products and tools using real-world construction problems, and (4) CI crowdsourcing modules that provide a well-defined data pipeline using data warehouses to enrich construction datasets available for public use. The CyCon platform is designed as a sustainable educational and community engagement framework for the construction CI research community and is expected to significantly improve the learning and teaching experiences of CI users and educators at various construction programs nationwide.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.