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。尽管最近取得了进展，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。与此相一致，建筑研究界在采用新的数据科学和人工智能(AI)解决方案和技术时面临着重大挑战。造成这种情况的因素有几个，如建设项目的复杂性和独特性、此类技术的快速演变速度以及传统建筑教师对此类主题的不熟悉。因此，研究人员和学术专家制定新的教育和培训战略，以弥合这种研究技能差距，并加强研究数据素养和数字流畅性的建设至关重要。该项目通过开发名为Cycon(网络建设)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，为建筑研究社区的CI(网络基础设施)用户、贡献者和专业人士提供服务。Cycon平台包含以下四个培训和教育部分：(1)CI用户资源模块，包括模块化学习课程和课程项目库，以培训Cycon用户基本和高级的CI研究技能；(2)CI教育者资源模块，提供新的战略和在线材料，以有效地培训教育工作者；(3)CI竞赛模块，帮助Cycon用户实践并进一步提高他们对AI/ML产品和工具的知识，使用现实世界的建筑问题；(4)CI众包模块，使用数据仓库提供定义明确的数据管道，以丰富可供公众使用的建筑数据集。Cycon平台旨在为CI研究社区的建设提供可持续的教育和社区参与框架，预计将显著改善CI用户和全国各种建设项目的教育工作者的学习和教学体验。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.