Abstract:

The Construction 4.0, as a new concept derived from the fourth industrial revolution Industry 4.0, is bringing considerable transformations in the construction sector. Digitalization, automation, human-like cognitive technologies and other emerging technologies are bringing new benefits, challenges and solutions and are changing the ways in which buildings, civil engineering and transport structures are designed and produced. By reason of the required knowledge and expertise to implement these new technologies and solutions, the Faculty of Civil Engineering (FCE) in Košice has a huge ambition to establish changes in educational curriculum in order to have teachers and graduates who are reflecting the new concepts and technologies and are sufficiently educated and skilled for these new concepts of designing and managing construction projects. The academic research project “Supporting the platform Construction 4.0 through adoption of digital technologies in the learning process”, granted by the Cultural and Educational Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, raised as one of responses to activities of the European Community on the platform Industry 4.0 that aim to promote competitiveness, employment and quality of life. The aim of the project is to upgrade curricula of selected courses and to prepare and realize several non-teaching optional activities for students, which are profitable in adopting knowledge, skills, critical thinking and key competence of graduates of two study programs at the FCE in Košice so that they will be successful in coming world of construction industry in Slovakia. Despite the difficult period for universities under Lockdown, the members of the project team have made efforts and realized a number of steps to meet as many of the objectives set for the first phase of the project period (January 2020 - June 2021) as possible. The most important results of their efforts, achieved thanks to this grant in the mentioned period, are presented in detail in the submitted article. Moreover, the planned implementation outputs of the project and a specific proposal of the procedure for achieving the individual tasks and goals in the next period of the project period are also outlined in the article.

Keywords:

Academic project, Construction 4.0, skills, civil engineering, digitalization.