BLAR13040 - Building Life Cycle Maintenance

General Information

Unit Synopsis

This unit provides an introduction to technical and compliance aspects of commercial sector building maintenance and re-use, and the role of the construction manager including: the application and relevance of Post Occupancy Evaluations; introduction to common building pathologies and their treatment; role of construction detailing in life cycle building maintenance including construction for disassembly; introduction to principles of auditing of both infrastructure and services; retrofitting of building fabric and services (including heritage buildings).

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 3
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites There are no pre-requisites for the unit.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2025

Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Online

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 30%
2. Written Assessment 35%
3. Written Assessment 35%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2023 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 53.85% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 35.14% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student Feedback
Feedback
More in-depth marking criteria would be an advantage..
Recommendation
A slightly more detailed rubrics will be provided, although care is needed not to almost answer the questions. A degree of flexibility is provided for students to incorporate their experience in the answers.
Action Taken
More detail was provided in a rubric and through tutorial examples and discussions.
Source: Student Feedback
Feedback
A lack of continuity in the unit's weekly progress.
Recommendation
The lecture weeks will be reviewed and tied to the study guide chapters. The tutorials connect the weeks logically.
Action Taken
Weekly lectures and tutorials were aligned with the study guide. Progress was reviewed and clarified in each week's tutorial.
Source: Student Feedback
Feedback
The lecturer is very interactive and engaging.
Recommendation
The lecturer will continue to encourage discussion and provide continuous support through the use of MSTeams.
Action Taken
The tutorials were kept light-hearted and interactive, with MS Teams being heavily used.
Source: Lecturers Feedback
Feedback
The review of draft assignments before submission helped a lot of students, especially with the required professional report format.
Recommendation
Reviews of draft assignments will continue to be offered.
Action Taken
Draft assignments continued to be reviewed as a learning aid for all students who took advantage of the support.
Source: Student feedback
Feedback
The assignments were quite broad in what they were asking, and the feedback received for each assignment was specific as to what to focus on.
Recommendation
The assignment questions were deliberately broad and not focused on a specific profession or trade to allow students to formulate an answer more relevant to their situation based on core ideas discussed during tutorials and answers to questions raised in the MS Team that were visible to all students. It will be made clear that students should not rely 100% on the written assignment brief alone, but attend the tutorials and ask questions. A revised rubric was circulated to students before each assignment was due.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student feedback
Feedback
The assignments for this subject do not reflect the construction industry. In four years of working in the industry, a report has never been required. The assignments placed too much weight on the formatting of the report.
Recommendation
This is probably a comment from a junior cadet or tradesperson who has not reached a position requiring formal communication skills. The formatting was minimally weighted, although many track changes comments were provided for guidance. The majority of students recognised the benefit of learning a report presentation. Assignment professional report formatting will continue unchanged in 2024.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student feedback
Feedback
Using MS Teams and not putting all of the material on the CQUniversity online platform was frustrating. The team's page was disorganised.
Recommendation
The primary unit information was and will continue to be hosted in Moodle and duplicated in MS Teams. The impression of disorganisation is aimed at the General comment stream, where many peripheral ideas are discussed and shared. The weekly streams will focus on that week's lecture and tutorial issues.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student feedback
Feedback
MS Teams was very helpful as it is widely used at work. It provided fast responses to questions and created a team environment. Many students and the lecturer always responded quickly, even at weekends, which was very helpful as this was when many students worked on the assignments.
Recommendation
MS Teams will continue to be used for engagement, student support and team building. Core information and learning materials will always remain in Moodle as a primary first point of call.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Lecturer
Feedback
Only as small number of students regularly attended the tutorials or engaged with the MS Team.
Recommendation
This is a continuing concern; all previous attempts to encourage attendance and engagement have not worked. Consideration should now be given to not recording tutorials to promote attendance. The tutorials are run in the evenings to allow students who work to attend. MS Teams does provide individual "tutorials" to students who use it.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Describe the issues affecting ongoing building maintenance and management.
  2. Apply economic appraisal techniques and data management for building maintenance.
  3. Examine issues associated with building refurbishments.
  4. Describe aspects of building pathology and its significance in design and construction methods.
  5. Describe the use of building audits to provide data for future building maintenance and refurbishment.
  6. Describe the impacts of post occupancy evaluation in buildings on design, construction and facilities management.
  7. Use an effective range of appropriate communication modes.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 - Written Assessment • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • •
3 - Written Assessment • • • • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 - Communication • • • • • • •
2 - Problem Solving • • • • • • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • • • • • • •
6 - Information Technology Competence • • • • • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Written Assessment • • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • •
3 - Written Assessment • • • • • •