Using Virtual Instruments to Teach Surveying Courses: Application and Assessment

HUI-LUNG KUO,1 SHIH-CHUNG KANG,2 CHO-CHIEN LU,2 SHANG-HSIEH HSIEH,2 YONG-HUANG LIN3
1

Department of Construction Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Construction Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

Received 29 August 2007; accepted 5 October 2008 ABSTRACT: This paper presents a feasibility study of using a virtual survey instrument, SimuSurvey, for
surveyor training. SimuSurvey was developed for visualizing and simulating surveying scenarios in a computergenerated virtual environment. In this research, we studied the feasibility of introducing the use of SimuSurvey in regular surveyor training courses. Both quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods were used. The quantitative evaluation method included soliciting responses to a questionnaire from 323 students from four departments in three different schools; and testing 205 students with an in-class quiz that followed a 25-min training session on SimuSurvey. The purpose of the questionnaire was to understand the attitudes of students toward using virtual surveying instruments in a training course. The results show that 91% of the students believe that using virtual surveying instruments in training will benet their learning experience. The results from the inclass quiz indicate that the employment of SimuSurvey can enhance learning outcomes of the students, with approximately two-thirds of participating students being able to answer follow-up questions correctly. The qualitative analysis was obtained from interviewing ve experienced instructors of different backgrounds. They were generally optimistic to the idea of including SimuSurvey in regular surveyor training. 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 19: 411420, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.20291 Keywords: virtual surveying instrument; survey; virtual reality; engineering education

INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of a surveying training course, especially the eld training section, is to help novice surveyors become familiar with surveying instruments. However, to manipulate a survey instrument requires a clear understanding of the spatial relationship between the instrument and the target objects. A surveying task involves many imagined lines and other abstract concepts, such as zenith angle [1], azimuth angle and line of collimination. Instructors often find difficulty in providing clear explanations to novice surveyors. Traditionally, instructors teach a surveying course by following three steps: (1) explain the theoretical background either by using an example from the course notes, or by illustrations on a chalkboard; (2) demonstrate the manipulation of

Correspondence to S.-C. Kang (sckang@ntu.edu.tw). 2009 Wiley Periodicals Inc.

using a real instrument; and (3) ask the students to practice in groups on the instruments. This three-step procedure has several drawbacks. First, many surveying instruments are required because each group of students needs at least one instrument on which to practice. The expense of purchasing and maintaining the instruments can be very high. Second, the effectiveness of the lesson is often inuenced by the weather, location and time of day. Third, because many operations involve dedicated actions, instructors often face the difculty of clearly demonstrating every detailed step to every student in the eld. In order to solve these problems, many instructors have introduced electronic teaching aids in their classes. For example, Bai [2] used videos to demonstrate survey procedures. Yeh [3,4] employed virtual reality technologies to simulate the environment for surveying. Currently, SimuSurvey is being developed by Lu et al. [5] and Shiul et al. [6]. It is a virtual tool that allows the user to simulate survey instrumentation on computers. Recently, the use of virtual tools have also been found in many other engineering courses. For example, Haque [7] introduced web-

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based visualization techniques in a structural design course and found that the virtual tool significantly enhanced students understanding about the flexural and shear behavior of reinforced concrete beams. Peeyush et al. [8] developed a web-based virtual lab to facilitate students learning processes, especially on understanding the behavior of elements under different forces. Timothy and Richard [9] employed interactive software to Mechanics and Material courses in which students benefited from real-time feedback from the virtual tool. Other examples of using virtual tools have also been published by Marias et al. [10], Eckhoff et al. [11], Kukreti et al. [12], Timothy and Richard [9], and Timothy et al. [13].The previous investigators generally have positive attitude toward the introduction of virtual tools in complicated and abstract engineering courses.

COMPARISON BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND ELECTRONIC TEACHING AIDS

Traditionally, surveying educators utilized course notes and surveying instruments in classes to help students effectively understand the surveying concepts and master the skills for manipulating the instrument. The course notes include the manipulation procedures for the instruments and illustrations and photographs to demonstrate overall surveying tasks and the detailed operations respectively. The instructors usually explain the course notes and ask students to follow the procedure when practicing manipulating the survey instrument. Because of safety and convenience considerations, most of the instrument practice usually take place near the classroom. Many instructors start using electronic teaching aids to enhance the teaching processes. We selected three major electronic teaching aids and compared them with the traditional teaching methods described above. The three electronic teaching aids are (1) the demonstration videos produced by Bai [2], a surveying educator with more than 30 years of teaching experience, (2) a virtual reality surveying environment developed by Yeh [3,4], and (3) a virtual surveying instrument, SimuSurvey, developed by Lu et al. [5]. From the interview of five experienced instructors, we summarized the following ten features of the tools that are important in teaching a surveying class. 1. Learning feedback: Whether the teaching aid helps instructors nd individual learning problems of the students during the teaching process. 2. Presentation of abstract concept: Whether the teaching aid effectively assists instructors to explain the abstract concepts.
Table 1 Features Comparison Between Teaching Aids

3. Support in-class demonstration: Whether the teaching aid can support instructors to demonstrate the surveying procedures clearly. 4. Measurement reading: Whether the teaching aid helps the training of correctly reading measurements. 5. Detailed manipulation: Whether the teaching aid provides a good training environment, in which students can obtain experience similar to what they would obtain by using real instruments. 6. Weather resistance: Whether this teaching aid remove the inuence of weather. 7. Repetitiveness: Whether this teaching aid allows students to view and practice the surveying procedures repeatedly. 8. Accessibility: Whether students can access and use the teaching aid after the class. 9. Virtual instrument: Whether the teaching aid is built in a virtual environment and can be reproduced easily and with relatively low cost. 10. Owning cost: The cost for obtaining, maintaining, insuring and managing the teaching aid. The comparison result is summarized in Table 1. From the comparison listed in Table 1, we can see that the virtual instrument has advantages in most of the items.

SIMUSURVEY AS TEACHING AID

This research targeted SimuSurvey to investigate the feasibility of introducing virtual instruments in regular survey courses. SimuSurvey was developed to support teaching activities in surveying courses. Three major features were included in the software: (1) a virtual survey instrument and corresponding interface allowing users to manipulate the virtual instrument; and (2) a exible simulation environment which allows instructors to design various teaching activities that satisfy the needs of the survey training, and (3) a learning behavior recorder to record the operation details of students. The following paragraphs will explain the virtual survey instrument and teaching-support functions.

Virtual Survey Instrument

SimuSurvey includes a virtual survey instrument modeled by a simplied geometric form of a real survey instrument. This virtual instrument is treated as an articulated mechanism, in which a series of eleven rigid bodies are connected by joints. The rigid bodies are modeled by a combination of rectangular cubes,
Teaching media

Criteria Learning feedback Presentation of abstract concept Support for instructors demonstration Measurement reading Detailed manipulation Weather resistance Repetitiveness Accessibility Virtual manipulation Owning cost

Text book and real instrument No No No Very good Very good No No No No High

Video No No Good No No Fair Fair Good No Medium

Virtual reality Good Good Good No No Good Good Good No Low

Virtual instrument Very good Very good Very good Good Good Very good Very good Good Yes Low

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cylinders or cones, using corresponding subroutines of the OpenGL graphics library; one of the most popular graphic libraries in computer graphics applications. In order to simulate the motion of the survey instrument precisely, a mathematical model was developed to describe the geometrical relationship between the components (i.e., rigid bodies) whilst the survey instrument is in operation. Developers of SimuSurvey therefore dened eleven reference coordinate systems, one for each rigid body. These allow the model to describe mathematically the motions of the survey instrument by calculating relative linear and angular movements between the referenced coordinate systems in a computer program. The graphical user interface (GUI) provided in SimuSurvey allows the user to manipulate the virtual instrument with precision. As shown in Figure 1, the manipulation functions are grouped into six categories and represented by six tabs. Among them, the control and tripod tabs contain all the functions necessary for manipulating the virtual survey instrument. Figure 1 shows the GUI in the control tab. Users can use a computer mouse to control the vertical motion of the telescope, horizontal motion of the telescope, orientation of the telescope, and leg lengths of the tripod. While users manipulate the virtual instrument by using this GUI, SimuSurvey actually changes the variables in the aforementioned mathematical model and then renders it. The users therefore see the correct motions of the virtual instrument.

Figure 2 Snapshots of SimuSurvey: (a) scope view, (b) top view, (c) perspective view.

window in which users are able to zoom in and out on the scope view by adjusting the telescope focus value on the virtual instrument. In order to better visualize the horizontal and vertical alignment angles of the virtual instrument, two circles named Vcircle and H-circle, are shown on the window for displaying the values of the vertical and horizontal angles respectively. Figure 2b,c shows the scene visualization top view and perspective view respectively. The top view provides an overview of the surveying scene. It can help the students realize the geometrical relationship between the instrument and the surveying targets. Instructors may also nd the top view scene useful when designing survey activities because this is similar to the approach currently taken by most instructors. The perspective view, as shown in Figure 2c, presents realistic visualizations of surveying scenes that help students gain practical skills visually in the virtual world.

Simulation Environment
SimuSurvey provides functions for users to customize various simulation environments for performing different surveying tasks. In general, because simulation environments are on computers, users are often confused by the rendered threedimensional scenes, especially when they are trying to perform complex surveying tasks. To facilitate the three-dimensional navigation, SimuSurvey provides a view controller to allow users to change the viewpoint of the scene. User may select the top view, front view, right view, or perspective view anytime during operation. Since the surveying tasks can be easily shown in different views, this function can also assist instructors in demonstrating examples and explaining surveying concepts more clearly. SimuSurvey also supports the training of two of the most important surveying skills: aiming toward a target and reading through the telescopic eyepiece. It provides a scope view window that visualizes what a user will see when operating an actual survey instrument. Figure 2a shows a snapshot of the scope view

Learning Behavior Recorder

Traditionally, the instructor of surveying courses assigns trainees a surveying task, and then examines whether or not they have successfully completed this task. However, this method only allows the instructor to check whether the nal state of the instrument is presenting a correct answer. Should the surveying result be incorrect, instructors have few clues to nd when or where the task was carried out incorrectly. Therefore, in SimuSurvey, a function that records the history of the users performed operations was provided. Figure 3a shows the interface of the Learning Behavior Recorder. This interface allows users to record and playback operations performed on the virtual instrument. Instead of recording the animation frame by frame, SimuSurvey parameterizes the operations and stores the data on the computers hard disk. In this way, the required storage space is signicantly reduced. While users replay the operation, SimuSurvey will read the time history of the parameters, as shown in Figure 3b, decode

Figure 1

The interface for controlling the virtual instrument.

Figure 3 Learning behavior record in SimuSurvey: (a) user interface and (b) time history of the parameters.

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them and generate the animation in real time. This function allows the instructor to review the details of each trainees operations and locate when and where they went wrong. Students can also use this function to review standard procedures and practice them for reinforcement.

expected time for a student to spend in a surveying course learning to use a virtual surveying instrument after class. The second set of questions aimed to nd the expected effectiveness of learning by using virtual instruments. The third set of questions aimed to nd the priority considerations during course selection.

RESEARCH SCOPE AND METHODS

Although virtual instruments can be ideal tools for use in surveying courses, the jury is still out on the result of introducing this new tool into classrooms. In this research, we are particularly interested in the following three problems: (1) the students attitudes toward the novel learning tool; (2) the students learning performance when a virtual instrument is introduced to teach a new concept; and (3) the instructors opinions on using a virtual instrument in a real survey class. We applied both qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate these three issues. We developed a questionnaire survey to identify students attitudes toward the new tool both before and after using it. We also designed a teaching session, in which SimuSurvey was applied to teach students a survey topic similar to the one taught in traditional surveying classes. A follow-up test was conducted immediately after the teaching session to assess students learning performance. To investigate the instructors opinions on the application of the virtual survey instrument in a real class, we interviewed surveying instructors who have different teaching backgrounds, seniority, and gender and summarized the common points obtained from the interviews. The following sections explain the details of the research methodology.

Questionnaire Delivery
Because we would like to compare the students attitude before and after the use of the virtual instrument, the survey questionnaires were delivered in two stages, a pre-survey and a post-survey. The pre-survey focused on students who had no experience with using a virtual surveying instrument. We surveyed 323 students, selected from two vocational high schools and one college (three different schools and four different departments). We sampled 208 students from the same education institutes for the post-survey. The post-survey stage focused on the students who had previously used SimuSurvey. To this purpose, we performed a 3-h SimuSurvey session before the postsurvey. The rst hour was a tutorial for SimuSurvey. In the following 2 h, students worked on computers (one computer for each student) to practice examples which helped them gain hands-on experience on the virtual survey instrument. The postsurvey was conducted after the 3-h session.

Questionnaire Results
We used both descriptive and inferential statistical methods [14,15] to analyze the survey (531 surveys in total). The descriptive statistical methods were used to summarize the data collected from the surveys and the inferential statistical methods were used to draw the conclusions and generalize the results obtained from the surveys to the population. The results from descriptive survey are summarized in the following eight points: 1. The backgrounds of the students are diverse and the distribution is similar between pre-survey section and postsurvey section. In the pre-survey, 68% of the students are male and 32% are female. Eighty ve percentage of the students major in architecture and the other 15% of the students major in construction. In the post-survey, 78% of the students are male and 22% are female. Seventy three percentage of the students major in architecture and the other 27% of the students major in construction. 2. Students experiences in taking surveying courses are mixed and the grades in these courses are varied. In the pre-survey, 60% of the students have taken a basic surveying course. Their grades are: 53% of the students obtained A, 20% obtained B, 15% obtained C, and the remaining 12% failed. In the post-survey, because we conducted the survey at the end of the survey course, all of the students have taken a basic surveying course. Their grades are: 60% of the students obtained A, 18% obtained B, 14% obtained C, and the remaining 8% failed. 3. The time students are willing to spend on learning surveying skills with real instruments after class are distributed as follows: 18% of the students are willing to spend less than 1 h per week, 57% are willing to spend 110 h per week, and 25% are willing to spend more than 10 h per week.

SURVEY OF STUDENTS ATTITUDE Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire was designed to gain an understanding of students attitudes toward using the virtual surveying instrument in the surveying class. The survey subjects were expected to answer all the questions within 20 min by themselves in an indoor environment. The 79 questions were separated into three sections. The rst section had 12 questions designed to understand the background of the students, including gender, age, department, year of studies and experiences in survey-related courses. We wanted to see the distribution of the students background, and also would like to build good fundamentals for performing statistical analysis. The second section of the questionnaire had 37 questions that focused on investigating students learning attitudes toward a surveying training course (without the involvement of virtual instruments). We particularly surveyed three issues: (1) the average time students spend on learning the skills required to operate the surveying instrument once leaving the classroom; (2) the degree of interest students have in learning how to operate the surveying instrument; and (3) the main challenge students face in learning how to operate the surveying instrument. The third part of the questionnaire had 30 questions. They were designed to identify students attitudes toward computerbased training in a surveying course. The questions in this part included three sets. The rst set of questions aimed to nd the

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4. The degrees of interest the students have in learning how to operate the surveying machine is similar between presurvey and post-survey. Both survey results slightly tend toward the positive. In the pre-survey, students rate their attitude as slightly positive (averaging 2.85 out of 4 with a standard deviation is 0.84) in the 13 questions that related to students attitude toward the survey class. In the postsurvey, students also rate their attitude as slightly positive (average 2.69 out of 4 and standard deviation is 0.82). 5. Using the samples in the pre-survey and post-survey section, we summarized that the ve main challenges that prevented students from learning the instrument operations are, in order of signicance: (1) afraid of making mistakes or breaking the instruments (average 3.11 out of 4 with a standard deviation of 0.81); (2) cannot practice with the instrument after the class (average 2.95 out of the 4 with a standard deviation of 0.74); (3) the teaching speed is too fast to master the operation skills (average 2.84 out of 4 with a standard deviation of 0.78); (4) lack of learning aids before using the complex instrument (average 2.83 out of 4 with a standard deviation of 0.80); and (5) the uncomfortable outdoor and weather conditions (average 2.81 out of 4 with a standard deviation of 0.78). 6. Under the assumption that the virtual instrument can be downloaded for practicing on personal computers, the times students are willing to spend on learning the surveying skills after class are distributed as follows: 21% of the students are willing to spend less than 1 h per week, 54% are willing to spend 110 h per week and 25% are willing to spend more than 10 h per week. 7. In the pre-survey, although they have no experience with using a virtual surveying tool, 39% of students strongly agreed that the virtual instrument is helpful for their learning; 52% agreed with the argument; 7% disagreed; and 2% strongly disagreed with the argument. In the postsurvey, students had experienced using the virtual surveying tool; 35% of them strongly agreed that the virtual instrument is helpful for their learning; 56% agreed with the argument; 7% disagreed; and 2% strongly disagreed with the argument. 8. The rst three considerations of taking surveying courses are: (1) passing the course (average 3.22 out of 4 with a standard deviation of 0.85); (2) the score of the course (average 3.15 out of 4 with a standard deviation of 0.81); and (3) the availability of electronic learning material (average 3.10 out of 4 with a standard deviation of 0.82). We employed inferential statistical methods on the survey results to study the relationship between the students background and their attitudes. The following conclusions were drawn: 1. The reliability of the questionnaire is high (Cronbachs a 0.740.88). 2. By applying a t-test [14,15], we found that gender has a significant influence toward the preference of surveying courses before using SimuSurvey (P 0.004) but an insignificant influence after using SimuSurvey (P 0.68). 3. We also found that both male and female students had positive attitudes toward using the virtual surveying instrument in the survey class (P 0.81 in the pre-surveys, P 0.96 in the post-surveys).

4. By applying a one-way ANOVA [14,15], we found that it is insignificant that students who had a higher GPA in a surveying course also had a more positive attitude toward using SimuSurvey in both pre-survey and post-survey (P 0.76 in the pre-surveys, P 0.07 in post-surveys). 5. Using a t-test, we found that students who have experience with e-learning do not show a more positive attitude toward SimuSurvey (P 0.55 in the pre-surveys, P 0.26 in the post-surveys). 6. Using correlation-checking methods [14,15], we found that students who are interested in the surveying course are more likely to spend more time practicing the operational skills after class (r 0.30 in the pre-surveys and r 0.11 in the post-surveys). The details can be found in Table 2.

STUDENTS LEARNING PERFORMANCE

To investigate the effect of introducing virtual instruments on students learning performance, we observed 205 students in six regular surveying classes in which the instructors used SimuSurvey. Two classes (77 students) were in the department of architecture in Hwa Hsia Institute of Technology, two classes (55 students) were in the department of construction in Hwa Hsia Institute of Technology, one class (38 students) was in the department of architecture in JuiFang Industrial Vocational High School, and the other one (38 students) was in the department of architecture technology in Daan Industrial Vocational High School. To study student performance, we designed a training session and a follow-up test. The following paragraphs introduce the details.

Training Session
In these classes, SimuSurvey was used to explain the measuring process for obtaining the included angle made by two imagined lines connected from two measurement poles to the location of the surveying instrument. All classes were held in a classroom equipped with computers that had the SimuSurvey software installed. The total instruction time was 25 min, consisting of a 10-min introduction to SimuSurvey and 15 min of practice. The major focus of the training session was to familiarize students with operating the virtual instrument.

Follow-Up Quiz
After the class, a 25-min follow-up quiz was conducted to assess the students learning results. It consisted of a 5-min problem explanation and 20 min for students to manipulate the virtual surveying instrument and answer the problem. This procedure follows the procedure in the ofcial surveyor certication test in Taiwan. The quiz included four similar problems to test whether the students had learned how to operate the virtual instrument to nd the included angles. One of the example problems in the quiz is shown in Figure 4. Given the coordinates of the four poles (numbered 14) and the coordinate of the instrument (point A), students needed to nd the included angle between the poles, that is, 1A2, 2A3, and 3A4. Since a survey instrument can only measure the azimuth angle (the angle measured from exact north)

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Table 2

The Results of the Questionnaire Survey Results

Topics (1) Using Cronbachs  to measure the reliability (2) The background of the students

Pre-survey 1 0.88; 2 0.88 Gender-specic (male 68%, female 32%); Age (85% 18 years old; 15% 21 years old); Department (85% Department of Architecture; 15% Department of Construction Engineering) P 0.004;  xmale 2:9;  xfemale 2:8 P 0.81;  xmale 2:8;  xfemale 2:9

Post-survey 1 0.79; 2 0.74 Gender-specic (male 78%, female 22%); Age (74% 18 years old; 26% 21 years old); Department (73% Department of Architecture; 27% Department of Construction Engineering) P 0.68;  xmale 2:6;  xfemale 2:6 P 0.96;  xmale 2:9;  xfemale 2:9

Explanation If  0.6 means the reliability is well The result is representative

(3) Using t-test to analyze whether the gender influences the learning attitudes toward surveying education (4) Using t-test to analyze whether the gender influences the attitude toward the introduction to virtual surveying instrument (5) Using the one way ANOVA to nd the correlation between score and using the virtual surveying instrument in surveying learning (6) Using t-test to analyze whether students who have e-learning experience find it easier to accept the use of a virtual surveying instrument (7) To nd the correlation between intention to spend more time on surveying learning after the classroom lessons and interest in using a virtual surveying instrument (8) Whether using the virtual surveying instrument in surveying training increases students incentive to take the surveying course (9) How helpful is it using the virtual surveying instrument in surveying training?

Pre-survey: P < 0.05 significant; post-survey: P  0.05 insignificant P  0.05; insignificant;  x2: positive attitudes

P 0.76;  x 2:8

P 0.07;  x 2: 9

P  0.05; insignificant;  x2: positive attitudes

P 0.55;  xoption 2:8;  xNooption 2:8

P 0.26;  xoption 2:9;  xNooption 2:9

P  0.05; the result is insignificant

R 0.3

R 0.11

R > 0; the result appears to have a positive correlation

 x 3:0

 x 3: 0

 x2; positive attitudes

Very unhelpful 2%; unhelpful 7%; helpful 52%; very helpful 39%

Very unhelpful 2%; few unhelpful 7%; helpful 55%; very helpful 36%

Point ratings: 4, strongly agree; 3, agree; 2, disagree; 1, strongly disagree.

of the poles, that is, jA1, jA2, jA3, jA4, students needed to know how to calculate the included angle from azimuth angles.

Learning Results
From the 205 attempts of the quiz, 126 students (61%) obtained full marks (answered all four questions correctly), 12 students (6%) obtained 75 marks (answered three questions correctly), 8 students (4%) obtained 50 marks (answered two questions correctly), 3 students (1%) obtained 25 marks (answered one question correctly), and 59 students (28%) obtained zero marks (no correct answers). The results are shown in Figure 5. Because

Figure 4

Example problem for finding included angle.

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of them are male and two of them are female. One interviewee teaches in a department of construction engineering while the others teach in a department of architecture.

Interview Process
During each interview, we rst overviewed the concept of the virtual instrument, and then demonstrated the major functions of SimuSurvey. The interviewees were encouraged to ask questions and try out the functions of SimuSurvey. Once the interviewees became familiar with how to apply this tool in the surveying course, we asked them to compare the differences between using the virtual instrument as a teaching aid and the traditional teaching method. We also asked them to provide their thoughts for how to integrate the innovative tool with existing education methods to improve students learning performances.

Figure 5

Quiz scores and distribution.

the four questions were very similar, the score graph appears as an M shape, concentrating on both full score and zero. This means those students who learned the measurement skills are capable of answering all four questions correctly. Otherwise, they may not answer any of the questions. From the result, we nd that approximately two-thirds of the students fully understood the procedure for nding the included angle using the virtual surveying instrument. Based on the instructors experiences, this learning result is signicantly better than those obtained using traditional teaching methods. Using the virtual instrument in the training session can potentially help two-thirds of students in a class understand the topic well, while the traditional method potentially only helps less than one-third of the students in the class understand the topic from the experiences of the instructors. Furthermore, the instruction time was only 1 h and without disturbances of outdoor weather conditions or the hassle of equipment setup. From the instructors experience, using traditional teaching method may need approximately 9 h (three sessions) to introduce this topic. In the 9 h, students need to setup and collect the instruments for each session, take turns to practice to familiarize the skills of angle measurement, and nally take turns to take in-class tests. Hence, the use of the virtual surveying instrument for surveyor training is signicantly more efcient and effective.

Summary of the Interviews

During the interviews, all ve instructors, even with their very different backgrounds, have generally positive attitudes toward the use of the virtual instrument. Their comments are summarized as follows:
*

INSTRUCTORS OPINIONS Interview Subjects

We interviewed ve experienced instructors from the three different schools to obtain their opinions on using virtual instruments in regular surveying courses. The backgrounds of these ve interviewees are listed in Table 3. The teaching experience of the interviewees ranged from 4 to 12 years. Three
Table 3 School Taipei Municipal Da-An Vocational High School Hwa Hsia Institute of Technology National Jui-Fang Industrial Vocational High School Hwa Hsia Institute of Technology National Jui-Fang Industrial Vocational High School Backgrounds of the Interviewees Department Architecture Construction Engineering Architecture Architecture Architecture
*

SimuSurvey provides for better interaction between instructors and students when compared with the existing outdoor survey class in related wider areas. The instructors are able to observe and nd each students learning problems by viewing the students monitor and providing feedback immediately. SimuSurvey signicantly reduces the difculty of explaining complicated concepts, especially those involving the geometrical relationship between the survey targets in the scene. The virtual surveying instrument provides highdelity visualizations for instructors to illustrate survey tasks on the computer screen, which greatly benets the explanation processes. SimuSurvey is particularly useful for demonstrating the manipulation of the survey instrument, which involves synchronizing the operation of the instrument with the views obtained from the telescope. Because the telescope can only be viewed by the operator, instructors often nd it difcult to clearly demonstrate operations using a real instrument to up to fty students in a surveying class. The virtual surveying instrument provides functions that can record the operations performed by the students. By comparing this with the standard procedure, students are able to discover their individual problems with operating

Teaching seniority 4 years 8 years 12 years 12 years 12 years

Teaching courses Engineering surveying practice, computer aided drawing Surveying, engineering surveying practice Engineering surveying, advance engineering surveying Engineering surveying practice, computer aided drawing Engineering surveying practice, computer aided drawing

Gender Male Male Male Female Female

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the instrument and can practice until they are familiar with the instrument. The virtual surveying instrument is unaffected by weather or light conditions. Using physical instruments, instructors need to cancel or reschedule the class on rainy days. Moreover, some classes, such as the ones in continuing education, are preferably scheduled to run at night-time. SimuSurvey increases the exibility of course coordination for these special situations. The cost of a virtual instrument is relatively low. With a sufcient number of computers, students can practice their operation skills on individual virtual instruments. If they have personal computers, they can even download the software and practice surveying skills after class. Compared with costly survey instruments and annual maintenance contracts, the virtual instrument is an economical and effective solution for smaller teaching institutes.

It will help students familiarize themselves with the operating-and-reading procedure to obtain the correct result efciently. It would be benecial to develop an interface to import realistic three-dimensional terrain. Although SimuSurvey provides an interface to plan the virtual scene on the plan view, it only allows users to create a two-dimensional scenario, without the height dimension in the terrain. If three-dimensional terrain is added to the system, instructors are able to create various scenarios which students are likely to face while performing surveying tasks in practice.

During the interview, the interviewees also compared survey training with the virtual instrument to one with real instruments. We organized the results in the comparison table in Table 4.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE STUDY

Although having advantages in many aspects, SimuSurvey still needs to be improved to better the support actual surveyor education. These experienced instructors pointed out the additional functions that need to be added. They are listed as follows:
*

Because students need to master the skill of reading the measurement data correctly in the class, it is critical to visualize the scales of the measurement pole in SimuSurvey.

SimuSurvey is a virtual surveying instrument that can support the training of surveyors. To study the feasibility of introducing this virtual tool into a regular surveying course, we developed a questionnaire to nd out students attitudes toward the virtual surveying instrument. We also designed a 25-min training session and conducted a follow-up quiz to assess students learning outcomes. Also, ve face-to-face interviews were carried out, with interviewees being experienced surveying instructors but of

Table 4

Comparison Between Traditional Surveying Training and Survey Training With Virtual Instrument Survey training with a virtual instrument The instructors are able to observe and nd individual students learning problems by viewing the students monitor The virtual surveying instrument provides a high-delity interface for instructors to design teaching activities to address abstract concept visually Since virtual surveying instrument allow instructors to demonstrate the surveying process on individual computer screens, students will focus more in the class The developed virtual surveying instrument allows students to read measurement data displayed by character sets easily; but, this method perhaps does not help students to learn how to read the measurement data The virtual surveying instrument provides a simulated environment. Some details about the instrument operation are missing The virtual surveying instrument is unaffected by weather conditions The virtual surveying instrument provides functions that can record the operation history for students The cost for providing a virtual instrument for each student after class is very low The owning cost of the virtual surveying instrument is very low Survey training without a virtual instrument In traditional teaching, the chalkboard and slide provide little functions for interaction and real-time feedback for students Instructors demonstrate abstract concepts by sketching on the chalkboard. Sometimes it is very difcult to present the concept well It is very difcult for instructors to demonstrate operations using a real instrument to as many as 50 students Students read the measurement data on a real surveying instrument. They must be familiar with the procedure for reading the level ruler during training

Compared dimensions Interactive and feedback

Visualize the abstract concept

Class management

The reading training of the measurement data

The detail of the instrument operation procedure

The real surveying instrument provides physical interface for students to learn the operation procedures The real surveying instrument is sensitive to weather conditions The real surveying instrument has a complicated structure making it difcult for students to learn the operational skill or to practice repeatedly It is almost impossible to provide a real instrument for students to practice after the class The purchasing and maintenance cost of real surveying instruments is often expensive

The inuence of weather conditions Tracing learning processes

The use-efciency of the instrument

The owning cost of the instrument

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different backgrounds. The interviews helped us identify the differences between the traditional methods of survey training with the surveying course that integrated the virtual survey instrument. The lessons learned are summarized in the following six points. 1. From the surveying results, we found that the majority of the students (91%) have positive attitudes toward using SimuSurvey and similar electronic teaching aids in surveying classes. 2. The follow-up quiz showed that student learning performance using SimuSurvey is signicantly better than that where traditional teaching aids are used. The reasons for this improvement can be found in the results of our survey of students learning attitudes. By introducing SimuSurvey, students are able to watch the instructors demonstration clearly during the learning processes and practice the use of the virtual instruments as many times as needed. 3. Many experienced instructors agreed that SimuSurvey provides a exible interface to effectively demonstrate abstract concepts related to the manipulation of the instruments. They also found that SimuSurvey indicates when a student has a learning problem on a computer screen, which allows instructors to adjust the teaching speed dynamically. 4. SimuSurvey increases the exibility of course coordination. Because the use of virtual instruments is not constrained by the weather or daylight, instructors may conduct the classes during rainy days or even at night-time. This can be benecial for scheduling survey classes during rainy seasons or for students of continuing education. 5. The introduction of SimuSurvey can increase teaching speed. Because instructors can teach by using SimuSurvey in a computer classroom, students have a longer effective learning time. This comes from the time saved in preparing, setting, and collecting the equipment, which currently takes approximately 1 h for each tutorial session. 6. SimuSurvey allows students to have a personal and portable tool with lower costs. When compared with using real instruments, the introduction of SimuSurvey can save more than two thirds of the total budget. The advantages from the cost saving may greatly benet smaller teaching institutes or short training courses, which need only basic survey training.

purchases and maintenance. The instructors in the investigation also pointed out the limitations of using the virtual survey instruments. Because some features of the physical world are difcult to reproduce in the virtual world, several important skills, such as reading measurement data or decision-making for surveying procedures in a three-dimensional environment, cannot be trained using SimuSurvey, or at least not with the current version. The instructors may need to develop complementary learning sessions or add some classes with real instruments to compensate for these problems.

FUTURE WORK
The authors suggest that more sophisticated course materials that integrate virtual surveying instruments with traditional surveying education need to be developed in order to support a wider range of teaching activities. We also suggest that the current version of SimuSurvey be expanded by adding different types of survey instruments, such as rangender and Global Positioning Systems (GPS). After different types of virtual instruments and related materials have been established, both instructors and students will benet from a richer learning environment with greater diversity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors appreciate the valuable comments from Mr. DeChang Sun, Mr. Cho-Chien Lu, Mrs. Mei-Wen Liao, and Mrs. YuLien Chang.

REFERENCES
[1] W. G. Crawford, Construction surveying and layout, Creative Construction Publishing, Lafayette, IN, 2003. [2] J. C. Bai, The teaching video of the theodolite setting procedure National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan, April, 2007, Available: http://www.geomatics.ncku. edu.tw/lesson-4.php (in Chinese). [3] I. C. Yeh, Virtual reality learning system for surveying practice, National Science Council, Taiwan, Tech. Rep., NSC932520-S216001, July, 2005 (in Chinese). [4] I. C. Yeh, Virtual environment for surveying practice, National Science Council, Taiwan, Tech. Rep., NSC942520-S-216001, July, 2006 (in Chinese). [5] C. C. Lu, S. C. Kang, and S. H. Hsieh, SimuSurvey: A Computerbased Simulator for Survey Training, proceedings of the 2007 W78 Conference, Maribor, Slovenia, June 2629, 2007. [6] R. S. Shiul, C. C. Lu, S. C. Kang, and S. H. Hsieh, Using a user-centered approach to redesign the user interface of a computer-based surveyor training tool, proceedings of the 2007. ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering conference, Pittsburgh, PA, 2007. [7] M. E. Haque, Web-based visualization techniques for structural design education, Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 1619, 2002. [8] B. Peeyush, A. John, C. Christine, and Z. Alan, Web-based virtual torsion laboratory, Comput Appl Eng Educ 14 (2006), 18. [9] A. P. Timothy and H. H. Richard, Animated instructional software for mechanics of materials: Implementation and assessment, Comput Appl Eng Educ 14 (2006), 3143. [10] M. E. Marias, V. M. Cazared, and E. E. Ramos, A virtual laboratory for introductory electrical engineering courses to increase the

CONCLUSIONS
We have investigated the application of SimuSurvey, a virtual surveying instrument, to real classroom surveying lessons. The results indicate that using a virtual surveying instrument in surveyor training is valuable to both students and instructors. Students, regardless of their experiences on computer-aided education tools, have positive attitudes toward the introduction of virtual instruments. They also showed better learning performance when the instructors use SimuSurvey to teach a new topic. From interviews with experienced instructors, the authors concluded that using a virtual surveying instrument can signicantly improve the explanations of the abstract concepts required in surveying classes. The virtual surveying instruments not only allow for class arrangement with greater exibility, but also solve the problem of the high cost of bulk instrument

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student performance, Proceedings of the ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, October 1013, 2001. [11] E. C. Eckhoff, V. M. Eller, S. E. Watkins, and R. H. Hall, Interactive virtual laboratory for experience with a smart bridge test, Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 1619, 2002. [12] A. R. Kukreti, M. Zaman, K. Gramoll, and J. H. Lee, Virtual laboratory modules for undergraduate strength of materials course, Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering

Education Annual Conference & Exposition, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 1619, 2002. [13] A. P. Timothy, H. H. Richard, H. Nancy, and E. F. Ralph, Using games to teach statics calculation procedures: Application and assessment, Comput Appl Eng Educ 13 (2005), 222 232. [14] R. P. Robert Understanding, statistics in the behavioral sciences, 7th edition, Thomson, Inc., Taipei, 2005. [15] E. Babbie, The practice of social research, 10th edition, Wadsworth Pub Co, Inc., Belmont, CA, 2004.

BIOGRAPHIES
Hui-Lung Kuo is a lecturer in the Department of Construction Management at the Hwa Hsia Institute of Technology. He received a master degree from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in 1997,and currently is a PhD Candidate there. He teaches Construction management, Construction surveying and layout, Construction estimate, Reinforced concrete structures design and Project management. Shih-Chung (Jessy) Kang is an assistant professor in Department of Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University (NTU). He received PhD degree from department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University in 2005. Dr. Kang specializes computer visualization and human-computer interaction. He is interested in using the innovative visualization tool to enhance engineering education. From 2006, Dr. Kang participated in the development of SimuSurvey, a computer-based training platform for surveying. From 2008, he and his research team started building a virtual lab for hydraulic experiments. Current, five virtual experiments have been created. Cho-Chien Lu was born in Chiayi City, Taiwan, in 1978. He received his MS and PhD degrees in department of Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University, in 2002 and 2008 respectively. He is currently a teacher in the Department of Architecture Technique at Taipei Municipal Da-An Vocational High School. His research interests include, CAD, CAI, user-centered design (UCD), Data mining, and their industrial applications. In 2006, he participated in the development of SimuSurvey, a computer-based training platform for surveying. Shang-Hsieh Hsieh obtained his MS and PhD degrees from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University in 1990 and 1993, respectively. From 1993 to 1995, Dr. Hsieh worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. He returned to Taiwan and joined NTU in 1995. He is now a professor in the Computer-Aided Engineering Group of Department of Civil Engineering at NTU. Dr. Hsieh has a wide range of research interests, which include engineering & construction simulations, engineering information & knowledge management systems, computer-aided instruction in engineering and parallel/distributed engineering computing. Yong-Huang Lin is a professor in the Department of Construction Engineering at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and the director of The Construction Safety and Health Center. He received a ME degree from Waseda University, Japan in 1974. He teaches Project Management, Safety and Health Management, Construction Management, Quality Management.

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