The effectiveness of web-based technology platforms in facilitating construction project collaboration: a qualitative analysis of 1,152 user reviews

The construction industry accounts for 9% of global GDP. Efforts at addressing construction’s inherent inefficiencies have over the last decade increasingly involved the deployment of web-based collaborative tools. Consequently, much research has been devoted to assessing these platforms; including interoperability, workflow management and technological limits. What has not been considered to date are the views of web-based tool users themselves as to the functionality, potency and usability of the various platforms available on the market. Currently, there are 5,300,000 documented users of web-based collaborative tools. If web-based collaboration is to be further enhanced, the views of users must be known. This study explores this dimension. Financeonline’s top six tools were considered: CoCostruct, PlanGrid, Autodesk BIM 360, Procore, e-builder and Aconex. Around 200 reviews for each tool were collected from ‘Business Software Reviews from Software Advice,’ resulting in a total dataset of 1,152 complete reviews. Text-mining analysis was applied to this dataset, using RapidMiner Studio 7.5. Thirty key terms with a frequency of over 100 occurrences were retrieved; terms such as software, manage, inform, support, easy use, function, track and friendly. These constitute the subject of the reviews. These terms were then analyzed for sentiment qualifiers; either positive or negative. A total of 804 sentiments were positive, 322 negative and 26 neutral. This study thus highlights that while 70% of user reviews of web-based collaborative tools are positive, there remains much room for improvement. Areas for improvement are also indicated by this study.

Building the Invisible College

This chapter shows how historians learned technical skills, focusing on the changing self-learning ecosystem. The chapter considers the two key problems facing self-learners: what to learn and how to learn it, arguing that many resources focused too narrowly on specific how-to instructions, making it difficult to build up a contextual understanding of the problems technology could help historians solve. Despite the shortcomings, beginning with statistics textbooks (1970s), through software reviews (1990s), and dynamic programming environments (2000s), as well as a myriad of workshops, summer schools, and unconferences, this chapter highlights the thriving and dynamic community supporting colleagues through self-learning. This dynamism was in contrast to a relatively poor provision offered by universities, leaving many to turn to the “invisible college” for support.