‘Grade 1’ BIM events offered by relaunched London and SE BIM Regions

The London and South East BIM Regions are hosting a series of seven events for BIM beginners, using a new “grading” system for BIM events that could be adopted more widely.

The series is hosted by the University of Westminster and is the first to be organised by the London and South East Regions following their rebranding – previously they were known as the London and South East Regional BIM Hubs.

Rob Garvey, senior lecturer at Westminster and chair of the London BIM Region, believes that grading events on a 1 to 5 scale will help participants judge whether they are appropriate for their own understanding of BIM. 

Garvey explained: “This is not a criticism of what people have done before, but we have moved on from the early stages where all events were aimed at one group. Now it is often not quite clear who events are geared at and what they are offering.

“If you are organising an event then you need to be clear who you are doing it for. We envision a system where events are graded from 1 to 5, with 1 being the entry level and 5 being a black belt or expert.”

Garvey’s proposed grade system

The initial series of events would be Grade 1, aimed towards people within any discipline of the built environment with no or limited understanding about BIM.

Garvey continues: “Ideally if you attended all seven events, you would come into the series with a basic understanding and leave with a real grasp of what you need to do to progress your BIM journey.”

Each event will involve a variety of experts with different perspectives of BIM, who will make a brief presentation and a subsequent question and answer session.

The events are:

• 14 October 2015: What is BIM? 
• 11 November 2015: Why adopt BIM?        
• 9 December 2015: How to implement BIM          
• 20 January 2016: Utilising BIM technology
• 10 February 2016: What good data looks like
• 2 March 2016: BIM and contracts      
• 23 March 2016: Level 3 BIM, Digital Built Britain

Another of the aims of reorganised BIM Regions is to have greater collaboration between the different groups and Garvey hopes that this series of lectures and the grading system could be rolled out to the BIM regional groups across the country.

Garvey says: “This is a replicable model. I’ve shared the content structure and framework with the other regions, so there is no reason why each region couldn’t replicate these seven events.”

If you are organising an event then you need to be clear who you are doing it for. We envision a system where events are graded from 1 to 5, with 1 being the entry level and 5 being a black belt or expert.– Rob Garvey, senior lecturer, Westminster University