Property, Construction and Project Management

Transcription

1 Issue #01 - March 2009 Contents: Staff news International news Program news Research New school policies Committees Items of interest Welcome to the first issue of School News. This is a monthly newsletter for the School of (PCPM), covering all staff achievements and staff announcements, program news, international news, new policies and procedures, committee information and any key dates/events. If you would like to contribute to School News, please send your submissions to emma.keen@rmit.edu.au by the 27 th of each month. Staff news Rob Webster retired officially on Friday, 27 February as a full-time member of staff, his retirement function at the Bluestone Restaurant and Bar was memorable way to farewell a valued colleague and friend. Rob will be returning as a casual staff member in Semester 2, Nick Blismas was successful in receiving one of the 2009 Research Leave Award Nick will investigate how housing components manufactured off-site can be better designed to improve efficiency and safety on building sites. Nick will visit the Myers-Lawson School of Construction and the Center for Innovation in Construction Safety and Health Research at Virginia Tech in the US, as well as the Department of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University in the UK. Managing Work-Life Balance in Construction Book by: Helen Lingard, RMIT University Valerie Francis, University of Melbourne Dates for your diary: April: Easter Break (NB: Students have Easter Break from 9-15 April) 7 May: Book Launch Managing Work-Life Balance in Construction 9 Aug: RMIT Open Day 20 Oct: PG Info Session Oct: CIB W099 Construction Conference The book presents stat-of-the-art research, conducted over a period of eight years, and is illustrated with many industry case studies, which highlight important points about the management of work-life balance within the construction industry. This book is ideal for construction and human resources managers of all types of organisation operating within the construction industry as it provides a handy reference to work-life information. The book is also useful to students of construction management, project management and human resource management, who seek to better understand the work-life interface in construction. For more information /booklaunch James Baxter is currently finalising the manuscript for a forthcoming text, Rural Valuation, to be published by the Australian Property Institute (API) later in This text is expected to fill a gap in available valuation texts within Australia. It is expected that it will be warmly welcomed by valuation students, particularly at RMIT University where the course Rural Valuation is a unique inclusion for valuation students, adding to their rounded professional development on graduation. Other Victorian universities offering valuation programs do not include this important area as part of their curricula in the same manner as done at RMIT.

2 International news Infrastructure Development studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University Five fellows from South Africa completed a course in Project Management in Infrastructure Development the in School of Property, Construction Management in November A lot of hard work was involved, and total dedication and determination required, yet the group can t stop singing praises of their experience from the warm reception they received at the hands of PCPM s David Jellie (an external consultant who organised the fellows co-ordination in Australia), the information they received and equipment they used, to visits to organisations in Brisbane and Sydney. They attended lectures three times a week. These were interesting and informative, as well as stimulating the classes featured students from different fields and countries, giving them exposure to diverse perspectives. The program included interaction with organisations involved in infrastructure development in Australia, including the Australian government s Department of Education and Public Works. These meetings gave the fellows a feel for the practical implementation of project management theory and insight into how public sector infrastructure development projects are undertaken in Australia. The fellows say this exposure provided principles and techniques they have taken back to their work places in South Africa. Program news Accreditations The Master of Project Management and Doctor of Project Management (DPM) received accreditation from the Project Management Institute (PMI) in December Thank you to Derek Walker and Ian McBean for all their hard work towards such a great result! The School has been successful in obtaining re-accreditation by the Board of Quantity Surveyors Malaysia for the Construction Management program. RICS external examiners visited the School on March to review all PCPM s undergraduate programs. The visit was a success and we thank all staff for their contribution. Program review Currently under way Some discussions have taken place with discipline teams but further discussions will take place in the near future. If you have any queries, contact your discipline leader. Research Research by David Higgins, Associate Professor of Property Investment has provided the Australian Property Industry with important data on the size and value of investment grade properties by Australian states (see figure 1).

3 Figure 1 Australian States: Investment Grade Property: December 2007 Office Retail Industrial State Area sqm Value $b Area sqm Value $b Area sqm Value $b NSW 6,097, ,497, ,903, VIC 4,044, ,377, ,794, QLD 2,508, ,380, ,630, WA 1,339, ,175, ,924,000 1 Sub Total 13,988, ,429, ,251, Australian Total 16,079, ,474, ,525, Source: Higgins et al 2008 Figure 1 details the size and value of the core Australian investment grade property markets. The main four Australian States (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia) have AU$228 billion, being over 90% of the AU$252 billion Australian investment grade property market. New South Wales is by far the largest State with in excess of 35% of all core investment grade properties. New school policies Research Incentives Policy Following the success of the PCPM policy to encourage staff to publish research in conferences, we are introducing a new policy to reward journal publications. A primary driver of this initiative is the role of journal publications, as a key measure for research activity for universities under the government s new ERA research scheme. The policy will provide a maximum of $5000 per year to any academic staff member who has a journal paper published. The payment will be calculated according to the staff member s contribution i.e. single author - $5000, 2 author - $2500, 3 author - $1667 etc. The journal must be fully peer-reviewed and recognised by DEST and the publication must clearly identify the staff member s affiliation to RMIT University. A condition of payment is that all required DEST-related documentation (such as a copy of the paper, journal details etc) is provided to the relevant Discipline Head and research administrator (currently Nicole). This PCPM policy will operate from the 2009 calendar year for an initial 3 year period or until review notice provided by PCPM, Head of School. Committees* The Learning and Teaching Committee meetings for 2009 will be scheduled shortly. All staff will be invited to attend. Mark Vines will be the Chair for this Committee for Research Committee Nick, David, Jennie, Ron and Nicole are currently reviewing procedures around management of research students. *A calendar of all the School s committee meetings for 2009 is attached.

4 Items of interest Acting HoS - Mark Vines will be acting HoS, whilst Ron is away on annual leave from Thursday, 2 April to Friday, 17 April. Renovations - PCPM new space renovations will start, week commencing 16 March, with completion expected in approx. 7-8 weeks. Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) AUQA is currently undertaking an audit of the RMIT University processes. HoS will be meeting with the external panel on Tuesday, 17 March. PCPM Website The school s website is currently being reviewed, you may notice some changes to the site architecture, however, all information that is current will remain. If you have any information which you would like updated or included, please send it to emma.keen@rmit.edu.au You can register at ( +School+of+Property+Construction+%26+Project+Management) and simply enter your name and address; and then press the register icon on the bottom right of the page. Please feel free to nominate for a team leaders position! Global Corporate Challenge At the request of a few good folk, PCPM has again decided to register for the Global Corporate Challenge in The Challenge commences 21/05/2009 and concludes 22/09/2009 (125 days). If you would like to contribute to PCPM s School News, please send your submissions to emma.keen@rmit.edu.au by the 27 th of each month Once all the participants have registered, the individual teams of seven (7) people can be established. In the event we have insufficient numbers to complete a team; some people unfortunately, may not be able to participate, unless of course additional folk can be recruited. So, I guess it s first in best served. In 2008, PCPM fielded three (3) teams and by and large, people's views were that the experience was beneficial. For further information on the Global Corporate Challenge please visit or contact Alf Camilleri.

5 2009 School Committee Meetings Research Executive School Advisory Learning & Teaching Student/Staff Consultative am pm am pm TBA 30th March 23rd March 20th May 7th April TBA 13th April 6th April 19th August 19th May 27th April 20th April 18th November (future dates TBA) 11th May 4th May 25th May 18th May 8th June 1st June 22th June 15th June 6th July 6th July 20th July 20th July 3rd August 3rd August 17th August 17th August 31st August 31st August 14th September 7th September 28th September 21st September 12th October 5th October 26th October 19th October 9th November 2nd November 23rd November 16th November 7th December 30th November 21st December 7th December 21st December