Graduate Courses

Please refer to the Purdue Course Schedule for a current listing of Polytechnic Institute (former College of Technology) graduate course listings.

CM 51000  Topics in Environmentally Sustainable Construction, Design and Development - This course explores environmental sustainability in all its forms, starting with the historical and theoretical basis and continuing through an understanding of sustainable building construction, design, development, and renewable energy strategies/management tools and how these can be applied in practice. Typically offered Fall Spring Summer. 3 credit hours

CM  51800  Building Information Modeling and Sustainability - This course explores environmental sustainability in all its forms, starting with the historical and theoretical basis and continuing through an understanding of sustainable building construction, design, development, and renewable energy strategies/management tools. In this course students explore Building Information modeling technology to assess and compare the design impact on the environment.  3 credit hours

CM 52500  Managing Construction Quality - Advanced techniques for assessing the success of construction project management including schedule cost, safety and quality measurements. Impacts of pre planning, human factors, and communication systems on quality and productivity. Statistical methods for analysis of construction operations. Typically offered Fall. 3 credit hours

CM 52600  Value Engineering - Functional Analysis of Systems and Techniques - This course applies value engineering principles and life cycle costs to the built environment with particular focus on the effect of the decisions made in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the built environment on the quality and cost.  3 credit hours

CM 53500  Construction Accounting and Financial Management - Accounting techniques, financial methods, and financial management for construction firm management. Analysis techniques for contemporary construction company accounting and finance practice with an emphasis on cash flow analysis and cash management. Typically offered Fall. 3 credit hours

CM 54000 - Law for Construction Managers  A study of the legal system and its impact on the construction process. The focus is on the legal obligations, rights and remedies pertaining to the construction company. Topics include bidding, contracts, and construction changes. See the course schedule for a full list of topics.  3 credit hours

CM 54700: Collaborative Project Delivery Models and Practices  A project-focused course covering advanced topics on collaborative project delivery models such as Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), Design-Build (DB), and Partnering. Collaborative project delivery methodologies aim to integrate project teams, stakeholders, systems, business structures, and practices to facilitate collaboration at all levels within a project and to produce the most optimal project outcomes. Students will develop and expand their interdisciplinary collaborative team working skills, communication, and understanding of essential elements underlying collaborative project delivery models. 

3 credit hours

CM 55000  Risk Management in Construction - This course provides a deep analysis and development of philosophy, principles, practices and techniques for managing risk in projects and procurements, with a particular focus on complex or large-scale project activities. The approaches contained here may also be applied to simple projects as well, purchases of goods and services, although with considerable simplification.  3 credit hours

CM 58100  Optimization Methods - A study of basic methods to find optimal solutions for real world problems. This course will provide graduate students analytical and mathematical tools for providing best solutions in terms of problem formulation, optimal decision-making, and maximizing benefits/effectiveness and minimizing costs. 3 credit hours.

CM 58100SIM  Simulation and Model Construction Operations - This course provides an overview of quantitative and qualitative methods used for the design and analysis of construction operations to maximize productivity and resource utilization through discrete event simulation. The course includes several professional techniques that help to build robust models as Regression, Fuzzy, Artificial Neural Network, and Analytical Hierarchy Process. 3 credit hours.

CM 58100  Construction Information Management - The course will focus on the methods used in building construction process for coordination and clash prevention, 4D scheduling, BIM in field management, and technologies for information sharing, collaboration and communication. The students will gain hands-on experience with Navisworks and Solibri and they will be introduced to Autodesk BIM 360 Field and Glue. Basic knowledge of Autodesk Revit is required. 3 credit hours.

CM 58100  Construction Management - Comprehensive, fast-paced study of professional skills and knowledge essential to the practice of project management in the U.S. construction industry. Develop familiarity or working knowledge of many common construction project terms and processes. Especially useful for graduate students advancing their careers from design and other non-construction studies or careers to the study and practice of construction project management. 3 credit hours.

 CM 58100MEP  Advanced Topics in Mechanical and Electrical Construction -  A project-focused course covering advanced topics on mechanical and electrical construction installation practices and processes. This course teaches the student how to plan, organize, and execute mechanical and electrical construction operations. Student will develop and expand their knowledge about mechanical and electrical work sequencing, coordination commissioning, and relationship to facility operations and management.  3 credit hours 

CM 58100FPIC  Future-proof Construction and Infrastructure  The course provides tools and methods to optimize the maintainability, resilience, flexibility and responsiveness of infrastructure and construction so to ensure that these provide an adequate level of service under uncertain future conditions. This includes methods to rigorously quantify the level of service, model the uncertainty over variable parameters, identify maintainable, resilience flexible and responsive design solutions, run simulations to estimate their impact (i.e. costs of interventions and risk on the service) and identify the optimal balance with the costs of construction.  3 credit hours 

CM 58100CVSI Computer Vision for Smart Infrastructure Management  This graduate-level course is for students who major in Construction Management Technology, Construction Engineering and Management, Civil Engineering, and other related majors in the architecture, engineering, and construction domain. Computer vision technology can play a critical role to construct and manage built environments (infrastructure systems and facilities). It promises to become even more important in the next few decades as a critical technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our infrastructure services. This course provides the students with an advanced level of understanding and knowledge of computer vision in infrastructure and facility management. This includes the principles and utilization of object detection, action recognition, 3D reconstruction technologies. After this course, the students will be able to utilize appropriate computer vision lgorithms and frameworks for various infrastructure management problems by creating their own training data sets and training models.  3 credit hours

CM 58100ACM Automation in Construction Management  This graduate level course is for students who major in Building Construction Management, Design Construction Integration, Construction Management Technology, Construction Engineering and Management, Civil Engineering, and other related majors in the architecture, engineering, and construction domain. The construction industry tends to lag behind other industry in adopting advanced technologies. Yet, recent years have seen increased research and development in adopting advanced technologies in construction projects. This course provides the students with an advanced level of understanding and knowledge of the history and state of the art of automation in construction management. This includes the principles and utilization of various advanced technologies such as building information modeling (BIM), knowledge modeling, artificial intelligence, sensing, virtual reality, augmented reality, and robotics.  3 credit hours

CM 58100HCQC Highway Construction and Quality Control  This course provides students with knowledge of methods, materials, equipment, and procedures used in construction of highways. Students will also learn the concepts and applications of quality control and quality assurance in construction of highways. This course will provide graduate students with a much-needed venue to gain the theory, technology, and practice of highway construction and quality control.  3 credit hours

CM 58100CDDI Computational Design Data and Interoperability  Building Information Modeling (BIM) is transformational way of designing, construction, and operating buildings and infrastructure by providing digital representations and their development process over the project lifecycle. Above all, BIM has provided new ways of engaging with data, information, and tools in construction projects by enabling computational design and interoperability. This course will introduce the fundamental knowledge of computational design and the state of the art of interoperability. The purpose of this course is to provide students with knowledge of how to handle and exchange computational design data to support integrated project workflow. The course content includes parametric modeling, generative design, international standard for BIM data, information query process, and interoperable tools and analysis based upon the digital design data.  3 credit hours

CM 58100ABSA Advanced Building Structural Analysis  The course integrates fundamental knowledge of building construction technologies including construction operations, and maintenance technologies, building system types, building components, building materials with cutting-edge techniques in building construction industry. Advanced building structural analysis cover application of mathematical and analytical tools to model, analyze, and design building system and components. 3 credit hours.  

CM 58100HFCT Human Factors in Construction and Transportation  We will learn knowledge of human factors, and research design problems and safety issues from human factors perspective, especially in construction and transportation.

The objective of the course is for students to:

• Learn the concepts, theories, methods and technologies of human factors (HF), human information processing, cognitive psychology, and applied ergonomics

• Develop critical thinking ability to identify and discuss HF issues in research and real world

• Apply the HF knowledge to explore and solve the research and real-world problems in the areas of their interests in construction and transportation

• Be able to communicate the design and safety from HF perspective.   3 credit hours

CM 58100MRSL - Smart Infrastructure Systems  Applying cutting-edge technologies to civil and construction industry to address traditional infrastructure problems is becoming more popular. One of the very hot areas is smart infrastructure.  The first half of this course will cover the fundamental knowledge of some cutting-edge technologies and smart infrastructure. The second half of this course will focus on smart infrastructure applications. This course aims to help students understand the basic concepts, development, design and operations of smart infrastructure, and polish students’ critical thinking, communication, research skills. This course will be delivered with in-person meetings.  3 credit hours

CM 58100IFM Introduction to Facilities Management  This course introduces the fundamentals of facilities management practices, including core competencies, compliance and standards, operations & maintenance, risk management, sustainability, health & safety, real estate and financial management, human resources management, and workplace and utility management. In addition, topics including emergency preparedness, business continuity, leadership, contracts, capital and maintenance planning, outsourcing, procurement, space planning, occupant comfort and productivity, and energy management will be introduced and discussed in the facilities management processes.  3 credit hours 

CM 58100 Basics of Global Construction Operations  This course will expose students to strategic and operational management topics that support decision making in global expansion of construction operations. This course is designed to provide knowledge and a higher-level understanding of international construction and its regional and global markets.  3 credit hours  

CM 58100 Construction Finance and Company Management  This course provides students with knowledge and research training to construction finance and company management. The objective of the course is for students to: Learn about concepts, principles, and practices of construction finance; Learn about company marketing, customer relationship and trust development; Learn about the methods, technologies and statistical approaches used for construction finance and company management; Apply the accounting knowledge to prepare and analyze financial statements; and Become a critical thinker of current company management practices, and apply what they have learnt to identify and solve challenges of construction management.  3 credit hours       

CM  58100 Advanced Industrial Construction  This course is a study of methods, materials, equipment, and procedures used in the design and construction of industrial systems and processes. Infrastructure for energy, chemical, and water/wastewater systems represents a major portion of the global construction industry and significant employment opportunities. Industrial constructors have been on the forefront of new construction technologies and procedures including Building Information Modeling (BIM), modular construction, lean construction principles, and advanced Engineer Procure Construct (EPC) contract methods. The focus of this course is to understand industrial construction processes and procedures and develop competencies to support the design and construction of these facilities.  3 credit hours

CM  58100 Roadway Infrastructure Management  This is a graduate-level course that provides students with theories and practices of managing roadways to achieve maximum benefit in the system and network level with limited available funds and resources. Students will learn the concepts of roadway performance measures in terms of physical conditions, service levels, and safety. As a graduate level course, this course will introduce basic methods to find optimal solutions for real world problems and provide graduate students analytical and mathematical tools for effectively conducting research related to problem formulation, optimal decision-making, and maximizing benefits/effectiveness and minimizing costs.  3 credit hours