Abstract:

Civil engineering builds the territory. Although its activity is essentially related to the place and the landscape where it’s located, most of the subjects of the Grade and Master curricula are technical or mathematics courses abstracted from their relation with the place. Therefore, it’s particularly interesting to emphasize on the importance of territorial character in civil engineering.

To fill this gap, we propose a system of collaborative work joining the students' and teachers' works at different subjects in one application. This application conforms a database in which all the contributions have in common a georeferenced identifier.

We carried out a pilot project during three academic years collecting the students' works about various subjects (Landscape of Civil Engineering, Art and History of Construction). The activity aims to work on skills and knowledge areas supported by information and communications technology. The proposal is to make a free educational application in which the students fill an online database that allows access and information to works and contents.

The system goes beyond the organization of the database of student’s works. It helps to understand directly and effectively the territorial importance of civil engineering. It also proposes a collaborative process in which the participation and contributions add meanings and identity to the place where the works are located.

This application is based on actual works and researches on landscape and territory, were these possibilities of collaborative documentation and georeferenced position have been effective.

Keywords:

Database, collaborative work, georeferenced works, civil engineering, landscape.