Carter McHugh - Open Source Building Performance - Undergraduate Thesis

Thesis: Open Source Building Performance 1
Undergraduate Thesis:
Open Source Building Performance
By: Carter W. McHugh
DSGN74020 | Studio VII | APFM
A. Chatham | Conestoga College | 04/25/2018
C. W. McHugh
Abstract
Open-source technologies and methodologies have achieved wide spread acceptance by the
general public and have even begun to see utility in the building industry as database platforms
for accumulating industry knowledge. This paper aims to outline and test the application of open-
source technologies and methodologies as tools for compiling and developing building
performance metrics, specifically through the development and implementation of a wiki-style
website purpose built for field research in this topic area. The activity of an incentivized focus
group over the course of the research period is analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to
inform the implementation of future open-source building performance projects. This analysis
indicated the focus group was uniformly distributed in their ability to make a significant, error
free contribution to the wiki with approximately equal thirds making significant contributions
without errors, making contributions but containing errors in either information or formatting, or
making little to no effort to contribute whatsoever. The results also indicate that while the
majority of respondents performed only the minimum effort required to earn the incentive a
statistically significant minority appears to have contributed beyond the minimum requirements
and in scenarios independent of the offered incentive, indicating the presence of third party or
internal motivators that cannot be identified from the observational data. Another implication of
the results is that even though the wiki is a platform that lends itself to individual contributions
anytime and anywhere the focus group appears to display a tendency towards offline group
collaboration in short periods of time. These findings present interesting implications for future
research applications regarding the topic of open-source building performance.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is dedicated to…
my advisor Andrew Chatham, who ensured the ideas herein were tried and tested and for
encouraging me to do my best work.
Jenna, for making sure I ate and slept this semester and for proof reading even though she
really didn’t want to.
and Matthew, for inspiring me with his constant reminder, "Consult the wiki."
C. W. McHugh
Contents
Abstract. .......................................................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... 3
Table of Figures .............................................................................................................................. 5
Glossary .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Literature Review: Open-Source and Building Performance ....................................................... 10
Applications of Open Source in the Building Industry................................................................. 10
Current Paradigm: Knowledge Management ...................................................................... 11
Proposed Paradigm: Knowledge Generation & Development ............................................ 12
Limitations & Criticisms of Open-Source .................................................................................... 12
Verification .......................................................................................................................... 12
Adoption .............................................................................................................................. 13
Design Options for a Building Performance Wiki ........................................................................ 15
Levels of Accessibility ........................................................................................................ 15
Contribution Process ........................................................................................................... 16
Styles of Governance........................................................................................................... 16
Strategic Partnerships .......................................................................................................... 17
Field Research: Testing a Building Performance Wiki ................................................................. 17
Research Methodology ........................................................................................................ 17
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Ethics ................................................................................................................................... 18
Strategic Partnership............................................................................................................ 18
Wiki Structure and Content at Launch ................................................................................ 20
Findings and Implications ................................................................................................... 22
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 29
References ..................................................................................................................................... 31
Appendix ....................................................................................................................................... 34
Table of Figures
Figure 1 - Landing Page – By Author ........................................................................................... 20
Figure 2 – Sitemap – By Author ................................................................................................... 21
Figure 3 - Metrics Page – By Author ............................................................................................ 21
Figure 4 - Development Page – By Author ................................................................................... 22
Figure 5 - Table: Types of Contributions ...................................................................................... 23
Figure 6 - Table: Types of Errors .................................................................................................. 23
Figure 7 - Response and Success Rates ........................................................................................ 23
Figure 8 - Wiki Activity: Entire Experiment................................................................................. 24
Figure 9 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 1 ...................................................................................... 25
Figure 10 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 6 .................................................................................... 26
C. W. McHugh
Glossary
Building Performance Metric: a tool or system for quantifying or otherwise measuring a performance
aspect of a building or buildings.
Building Performance Wiki: a wiki created by volunteers among the building industry with the
purpose of creating the largest possible database of building performance metrics
Knowledge Management: the systematic organization of information and experience assets;

consisting of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems that sustain and enhance the
storage, assessment, sharing, refinement, and creation of knowledge.
Metric Organizations: used for the purpose of this paper to denote all entities that generate, develop,
and publish Building Performance Metrics.
Open Access: freely viewable, readable, and otherwise accessible to all; typically, via the internet
Open-Source: originally a computer program whose source code is available to the general public for
use or modification from its original design. Open-source code is meant to be a collaborative
effort, where programmers improve upon the source code and share the changes within the
community. Code is released under the terms of a software license. Depending on the license
terms, others may then download, modify, and publish their version (fork) back to the
community. Commonly used to refer to analogous collaborative efforts unrelated to computer
code.
Open-Source Methodology: non-software applications of Open-Source principles including free use,

collaborative development, and open access.
Wiki: a website which employs Open-Source Methodologies which allow its users to add, modify, or
delete its content via a web browser usually using a simplified markup language or a rich-text
editor
Web 2.0: the second stage of development of the World Wide Web, characterized especially by the
change from static web pages to dynamic or user-generated content and the growth of social
media.
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Introduction
It is now frequently claimed that humanity has entered a post-truth era. In a world of
postmodernist relativism, plagued by fake news and alternative facts, it is easy to conclude that
knowledge is forever beyond the grasp of humanity and that the internet is the strongest weapon
in the arsenal of those who wish to keep it that way. The building industry sees this as much as
anyone; when world-famous architects can claim their LEED certified building performs well
because of “R-11 radiant barrier paint” (Lstiburek, 2015) it is clear that alternative facts are rife
in the industry. While the current situation is frequently linked to the anonymity of the internet,
this same network can also be credited with having generated tools capable of bringing us closer
to genuine knowledge than we have ever been in the history of thought. One of these tools is the
technologically-enabled open-source methodology, a system that allows unprecedented numbers
of human beings to collaborate towards a common goal, such as the “sum of all human
knowledge” (Wales, 2005). The subset of this knowledge database that will be explored in this
paper is the field of building performance metrics; specifically, it will look at the open-source
methodology’s potential application in the development of the world’s most holistic set of
building performance metrics, a goal which has the potential to help the building industry
transcend the post-fact paradigm and unite around a common goal of fact-based building
performance, if it can overcome the restrictions inherent to the medium.
The old adage “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” succinctly summarizes why all
performance objectives and standards are made up of metrics, they bridge the gap between
knowledge and application. Even structures as fundamental to the building industry as Building
Codes are based upon metrics, they specify the measurements you must satisfy in order for the
building to be acceptable. Given their ubiquity you would expect the building industry to have a
well-developed and logically coherent system for generating, improving, and publishing building
performance metrics; and they do, conventionally these metric organizations have been
centralized entities such as governments and corporations that create metrics internally and
release them for use by the general public, only occasionally in consultation with the industry at
large and through limited channels (Yudelson 2016). These systems have worked for decades and
undoubtedly similar processes have been employed since the very first buildings were erected.
Through various power structures (government authority, acknowledged expertise, status quo,
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etc.) these metric organizations have fulfilled the vital role of creating measurements so the
industry can effectively manage the performance of built environments (Yudelson 2016).
The problem is that these systems, the conventional metric organizations, were themselves
generated in an age and society much different from our own. The technological revolution that
was triggered with the advent of the internet changed the way the world works on an
unprecedented scale, things change and grow faster than ever before and this rapid change and
growth is seen most clearly in information flows, which makes knowledge management an
essential tool in the internet age (Bartling & Friesike, 2014). Information and knowledge are the
two cornerstones of Building Performance Metrics, as they are essential for all knowledge-based
processes (Handzic, & Bassi, 2017).
It’s not that the conventional metric publishers don’t recognize the internet’s importance in
today’s society, they certainly do and for many the internet is now integral to the operations of
their metric related activities; BOMA BEST is an example of a metric that is almost entirely
internet based. However, the processes employed by these metric organizations for delivering
their core service has not kept up with the technological advances since the dawn of the internet
(Yudelson, 2016). If developing a metric is the synthesis of industry knowledge to overcome
poor performance (Sands, 2010), then the tools we have available to us today via web 2.0 could
create a paradigm shift in these processes if only they were adopted (Bartling & Friesike, 2014).
We see these technologies being adopted by other industries: science and governance for
example have both seen the rise in recent years of open-source movements. Open governance
has seen many prominent examples in recent years including an attempt to collaboratively draft a
new constitution for the nation of Iceland (Zareva, 2011). Open science is a model that attempts
to form comprehensive knowledge management systems to enable a paradigm shift in research,
collaboration, and scholarly publishing (Bartling, 2014). All of this is in addition to mainstream
Open-Source applications like Wikipedia, Linux, and the Android Operating System. These types
of Open-Source applications indicate an increasing societal appreciation of the wisdom of crowds
and the power of online community collaboration to organize tremendous amounts of information
in an agile and reliable manner (Serrat, 2017).
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This paper will explore the possibility of an open-source platform for the development of
building performance metrics by first briefly outlining the existing body of literature surrounding
this topic, describing the potential applications open-source holds for this type of platform, the
limitations of open-source and the criticisms often levelled against the methodology, and the
options a potential building performance wiki would have available to it for designing this type
of system. From all of this background knowledge a real-world model of a building performance
wiki will be created, populated with content to get it started, and then released to a focus group to
generate quantitative and qualitative data regarding the manner in which actual people would
interact within this type of online environment.
It is assumed that the readers of this paper are familiar with the terminology relevant to the
subject matter; specific key terms have been appended in the form of a glossary. Terms contained
in the glossary have been italicized throughout the text to indicate that the specific definition in
the glossary applies to their usage. It is also assumed that readers have a general understanding
of common building performance rating systems like Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method
(BREEAM), and BOMA BEST.
Aims and Objectives
This paper aims to explore the potential for established Wiki technologies and Open-Source
Methodologies to be applied in the building industry to generate more agile and accurate systems
for measuring the performance of buildings. The objective is to determine whether these
technology-driven modern approaches could ever become adopted as a mainstream method of
building performance metric development. Specifically, the objective of the research in this
paper is to examine the utility of strategic partnerships and incentives in generating an open-
source building performance metric database, or wiki and analyze a microcosm example of one
of these applications to determine their characteristics and potential as a building performance
tool to inform future open-source building performance projects.
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Literature Review: Open-Source and Building Performance
This section outlines the key findings from an extensive review of the body of literature
regarding the Open-Source movement; particularly as it relates to considerations for the built
environment with the goal of informing future research into the application of Open-Source
Methodology in the development of building performance metrics. It explored the nature of the
Open-Source movement and how it has influenced the building industry as well as the paradigm
in building performance and what can be learned from Open-Source Methodologies. Books and
articles relevant to these key themes were analyzed for prominent trends to form a holistic
picture of the relevant academic literature.
The literature review showed that the building industry has been slow to adopt the tools of the
Open-Source movement and Web 2.0 but the nascent efforts (Yudelson 2016, Bassi & Handzic,
2017, Trench, Harvie, & Winward, 2018) accompanied with applications in adjacent industries
(Zareva, 2011, Kloby, 2012) provide sufficient context to extrapolate a much closer dependence
between these two realms in the near future. In analyzing the existing body of literature, it is
clear that there are problems with the way building performance metrics are currently developed
by metric organizations, specifically in their limited results (Lstiburek, 2008) and the prosaic
nature of their scope (Berardi, 2011, Braham, 2015, Morton, 2015, & Yudelson, 2016). Based on
their performance in similar applications outside of the building industry it seems that Open-
Source Methodologies have the potential to provide at least partial solutions to some of the key
concerns (Serrat, 2017 & Cunningham & Mehaffy, 2014). This demand for technology driven
progress in the development of building performance metrics (Yudelson, 2016), as well as the
apparent gap in the literature for works specifically identifying Open-Source Methodologies as a
possible solution to that demand, suggest a topic ripe for further research and development. It
remains to be seen whether Open-Source Methodologies will disrupt the building industry but
literature indicates that the potential is certainly there and waiting to be explored.
Applications of Open Source in the Building Industry
Some building performance rating systems have open access metrics and standards that
are generally available to the public (USGBC, 2008). However, these systems are not editable by
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the community so they do not meet the criteria for being considered an application of full open-
source methodology like a true wiki. The closest thing existing building performance standards
have to Open-Source development is the public consultation periods and membership voting that
the USGBC has held for various LEED updates (Katz, 2012). While they have not yet been
applied to the development of building performance metrics true open-source technologies are
already finding their way into the building industry. However, the range of their applications are
until now devoted solely to the collection and curation of knowledge that already exists; like
Wikipedia, they are simply tools for showcasing information from other sources in a condensed
form. This section will outline these current applications as well as the proposed next step for
open-source technologies: the wiki as a platform for knowledge generation and development.
Current Paradigm: Knowledge Management
Open-source methodologies could prove vital for the effective accumulation, compilation,
curation, and prioritization of building industry knowledge, indeed, there are already initiatives
beginning this work. By virtue of population growth alone there are more people in the building
industry now than ever before and each one can be thought of as a discrete element of knowledge
and experience that grows daily; the key to effective knowledge management in the industry
would be to integrate all of these discrete elements into an interconnected system so that rather
than working in parallel, which is massively redundant, they can work cumulatively towards
common goals. Even more so they are invaluable for aligning interests and enabling
collaboration, “An interactive online platform is key to revealing and interlinking different
parties’ priorities” (Beer, 2017). Wikis are the quintessential network platform for connecting
large groups of people and facilitating their productive collaboration via the internet
(Cunningham & Mehaffy, 2014).
Rivka Oxman has argued for two and a half decades that industry knowledge should be
organized in memory libraries so that experiences accumulate rather than dissipate over time
(1994). Some examples of a real-world application of wikis as a tool for building industry
knowledge management is the content related to buildings on Wikipedia, various building
specific wikis such as the Designing Buildings Wiki, WikiArquitectura, and FMpedia wiki.
Handzic & Bassi identified the increased reliance on web 2.0 technologies for project managers
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(2017), and Li & Poon identified a trend in construction of web 2.0 technologies being used for
sharing construction safety information (2013).
Proposed Paradigm: Knowledge Generation & Development
The wiki has powerful implications for the process by which the building industry manages
building performance metrics, specifically it can provide a platform for discussing these metrics,
editing metrics that already exist for efficacy and clarity, contributing input regarding existing
metrics, brainstorming new ones to be developed, performing research to determine how metrics
could be improved, and testing proposed or existing metrics to verify their efficacy. The concept
is not entirely novel, Yudelson proposed it as a strategy for reforming green building certification
systems:
“In [the Internet 3.0] scenario… the system lets users contribute to a significant degree to
developing credits and certification protocols… on a platform that easily enables third party app
developers to create ratings for each building industry segment.” (Yudelson, 2016, p.206)
Not only do wikis make it possible to concentrate all of the industries knowledge in one place for
ease of access but they provide a platform through which this body of knowledge can actually
grow and improve through massive open online collaboration (Serrat, 2017).
Limitations & Criticisms of Open-Source
The open-source methodology is not the final solution to building performance and it does not
come free of set-backs and faults. The two major failings of preceding open-source applications
can be organized under the two main categorical hurdles of verifiability and adoption. The
following section will discuss the various aspects of these hurdles and where applicable provide
examples of precedence cases for dealing with them.
Verification
Verifiability manifests in many forms and must achieve many objectives; for a wiki to be
verifiable there must be a way to determine its accuracy, ensure its reliability, create
accountability, account for bias, and protect from dishonesty.
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The open-source model has gained some acceptance as a legitimate, verifiable form of
knowledge management with organizations across the globe considering and adopting it for
applications of progressively more and more responsibility; one particularly striking example is
the nation of Iceland’s open-source constitution experiment that nearly resulted in the country’s
core document being crafted by volunteer contributors and community editing; this initiative
ultimately failed, presumably due to the unreliability of wiki content it could not be trusted for a
project of such national importance (Zareva, 2011).
While Lih notes that Wikipedia is accurate more often than not they also stated that it is clear that
its overall reliability is still highly questionable (2014). Any wiki is vulnerable to validity
degradation if the community is not competent at policing contributions to weed out bias and
dishonesty. It is essential that the system is set up in such a way that minimizes the chance of any
user abusing it; this may include requiring real names to be used to promote transparency and
accountability, tasking trusted users with reviewing the work of new contributors, and various
other internal governance strategies like those developed by Wikipedia and other established
wikis (Lih, 2014). Verifiability is essential for achieving acceptance by the industry; if the wiki
cannot win the trust of the institutions it will get nowhere.
Adoption
If any wiki hopes to make a real impact in the building industry they must first gain buy in from
the industry professionals and institutions, attract a community of content contributors, and
potentially set up revenue streams for funding the initiative and keeping it running.
Possibly the most critical challenge an open-source building performance system would have to
address is that of gaining acceptance in the industry. If the wiki does not have strong support
from building professionals and institutions its impact would not only be limited but non-
existent. Professionals are essential because they are the backbone of the wiki’s content, they are
the volunteers that will contribute to the wiki’s development and the consumers who will use its
metrics as a resource to improve their work, but they will not participate if the wiki lacks
verifiability, they will only want to be a part of it if they can regard the wiki as a reliable source
and a worthwhile project. Industry institutions could also be an essential player in the success of
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a building performance wiki as they include the thought leaders capable of steering the majority
of professional opinion, the standards publishers determining the objectives of the industry, and
the law makers who would have final say over whether such a project could be adopted. An
example of an existing wiki that has been successful at gaining industry adoption is a project
initiated by several organizations in the UK construction industry that set up a moderately
established user generated site known as the Designing Buildings Wiki with the objective of
compiling industry knowledge. Their home page advertises that 3.5 million users contribute to
the Wiki every year and claims that they have amassed 5800 articles since creation (Trench,
Harvie, & Winward, 2018).
A major hurdle for system adoption is the difficulty of attracting a community of contributors to
create the wiki in the first place. One potential solution is incentives (Serat, 2017); for example,
individuals could potentially have their wiki contributions recognized through a patron-based
model such as those already prominent in online communities devoted to content creation
(Bartling & Friesike, 2014). Other forms of incentives include gamification where users earn
points and achievements for their contributions such as the failed WikiMoney initiative (Ayers,
Matthews, & Yates, 2008), credit from recognized institutions such as universities (Bunim,
2013), and social recognition such as the esteem granted by the Wikipedia community to
recognized community leaders (Lih, 2014). Other ways to attract a community might include
peer to peer invitations to collaborate or a word of mouth approach, or more conventional
advertising techniques if funding can be found for such efforts. For some users the incentive
comes simply from the benefit of generating and making available a high-quality resource or
simply the joy of creation, this is what drives most Wikipedia contributors (Rafaeli, & Ariel,
2008).
When it comes to funding this type of project Wikipedia once again provides a valuable case
study; though a volunteer run organization can operate with minimum overhead and expenses it
also means the business strategies employed by the wiki managers run the risk of upsetting the
community and derailing its operations. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales discovered this when
he enraged the Wikipedia community by suggesting that the website begin generating revenue
with ads, the community would not consider erecting a for-profit model on the backs of
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volunteer labour, consequently they operate entirely on donations (Lih, 2010). Alternative
financial models for the open-source movement include micropayments and crowdfunding
(Bartling & Friesike, 2014).
Design Options for a Building Performance Wiki
To avoid the criticisms and minimize the limitations in the previous section great care must be
taken in setting up an open-source platform for collaboration in the building industry; there are a
number of decisions to be made about the format and dynamics of such a system that can
influence its potential for success. This section will summarize the typical design aspects of a
wiki and determine how to best set one up to enable the open-source development of building
performance metrics.
Levels of Accessibility
One of the primary considerations for a wiki is to determine who will have access and editing
rights. This includes selecting the best system design solutions by analyzing the merits of:
various registration processes, prerequisites and qualifications for membership, and
accommodating multiple languages.
An interesting precedence case for determining how accessible an open-source platform should
be is the Wikipedia predecessor: Nupedia. Intended as a web-based competitor for the well-
established, physically-published encyclopedias of the pre-internet era, Nupedia was established
with the lofty ambition of building the world’s largest peer-reviewed encyclopedia out of nothing
but a wiki platform and volunteers (Lih, 2010). Decentralized contributors worked under editors
charged with approving articles for publication, editors were expected to be subject matter
experts, typically requiring a doctorate in the field; as a result of this high hurdle for entry the
project completely failed to launch, producing only 21 articles in its first year (Lih, 2010).
Compare this with Wikipedia’s meteoric impact on the internet of 18,000 articles in year one, a
number which was to grow exponentially for the next 7 years (Lih, 2010). This drastic difference
in the success of two projects having essentially the same goal can be attributed to one thing:
barriers to entry. When Wikipedia launched they embraced the open model of a wiki proper,
allowing all contributors to add and edit content directly, relying on the community consensus to
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ensure quality rather than expert authority. Wikipedia’s success can almost be entirely attributed
to its extreme accessibility, users don’t even need to create an account to submit an edit.
This comparison between the accessibility characteristics of Nupedia and Wikipedia succinctly
summarizes the costs and benefits of the two main wiki models: peer reviewed and community
curated. In the former model the wiki benefits from heightened quality assurance (Bartling &
Friesike, 2014) while the latter encourages transparency and rapid adoption (Lih, 2010).
Contribution Process
A wiki can be developed in many ways and while ultimately the processes used will be fine-
tuned over the lifetime of the wiki by the community the policies written at its outset can have a
major impact on how the wiki will turn out. Some examples of contribution workflow variables
include whether edits are published immediately or proposed and reviewed, reference or proof
requirements, voting or consensus requirements, and discussion formats. See appendix A
Contribution Workflow for an example of a typical wiki contribution process.
The goal of contribution process design should be to balance the two variables of verification
and adoption. Retarding the publication process with proposals, reviews, referencing or proof
requirements, voting or consensus requirements, or protracted discussion will always result in
increased verifiability but reduced adoptability. Simply, there will be more confidence in the
content but fewer people willing to contribute.
Styles of Governance
A true wiki is one where there is no centralized government, the rules are set and upheld by the
community (Serrat, 2017). Decisions to be made about how the wiki is to be governed include
publication policies, dispute resolution, authority hierarchies, and the community’s right to self-
determination.
Ultimately the structure of the community’s internal governance is best subjected to the same
development processes as the wiki itself; that is to say, the goal of the initial planning should be
to set up a framework in which the community has the capacity for self-determination.
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Strategic Partnerships
One way to get the wiki off the ground would be to partner up with established institutions to
obtain buy in, funding, contributors, leadership, promotion, or other forms of assistance. Options
for strategic partnerships include working with academic institutions to encourage faculty and
student engagement, teaming up with an existing building performance institution (LEED,
BOMA, etc.) for integration with existing structures, seeking government involvement or
funding as a tool for improving building codes or generating supplementary standards, working
with the tech industry to provide programming expertise or server space, or approaching online
communities, especially architecture wikis, to gain exposure and tap into existing volunteer
groups.
An excellent example of an open-source initiative leveraging a strategic partnership is the

University of California in San Francisco which began offering course credits in exchange for
editing Wikipedia, this type of partnership offers great advantages to both the contributing
students and the wiki (Bunim, 2013).
Field Research: Testing a Building Performance Wiki
Research Methodology
The primary research component of this thesis consists of a web-based field experiment wherein
a sample wiki is established, populated with some building performance metrics that have
already been developed, and distributed to various participants with the aim of encouraging users
to edit and expand it as they see fit. This was achieved using the free wiki hosting service Google
Sites, as well as freely available resources like LEED’s online credit library. Users will be
enlisted through a strategic partnership with an academic institution, specifically, a focus group
will be enlisted with the assistance of a Building Performance Professor at Conestoga College.
The experiment will be run for one week, during which time the participants will have access
and editing rights to the site, and the activity in the wiki over that period will be analyzed. The
analysis of the data will be triangulated with both quantitative and qualitative criteria being
considered.
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While field research is a well-established means of gathering information (Nueman, 2018) this
particular application of the method deviates from the norm on a few counts. First off, the “field”
to which the name refers is in this case the internet, and secondly, while field research is often
criticized for its relatively uncontrollable setting and infinite variables of influence, this
experiment attempts to avoid these notorious features by actually constructing the field in which
the research will occur, this is possible due to the internet based setting of interest, readily
available wiki hosting services, and the fact that the object of the research is not any particular
location but rather the conceptual framework of a wiki. All these criteria being satisfied enabled
the research to confidently proceed in a controlled environment where the social dynamics of the
participants were free to unfold without unpredictable outside influence and in a platform where
the generated data is easily retrievable.
Ethics
No personal data is being collected from the participants in the above described experiment
except that the focus group will be required to provide their official school e-mail address if they
wish to receive credit for participation. Neither the list of participants nor their associated email
addresses will be published with the findings of this experiment and none of the published data
will be directly associated with any participant except for the purpose of awarding the agreed
upon completion credit. See Appendix E for the participation agreement.
Naturally, the findings of this research are to be reported honestly and in an unbiased format. For
this reason the raw data from the experiment will be made open access at the URL previously
used for hosting the Building Performance wiki; that way anyone who wishes can independently
verify the conclusions outlined in the Findings section of this paper.
Strategic Partnership
The strategic partner for this test wiki was Conestoga College’s Architecture – Project and
Facility Management Bachelor of Applied Technology program from which a focus group was
selected consisting of 2nd year students studying Building Performance.
The following instructions were issued to the focus group as a call for participants:
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*Start of Call for Participants*

BUILDING PERFORMANCE Week X, 2018
2% TASK FM Codes & Standards
Names: __________________________________________________________________
The development and publication of building performance metrics and standards have
traditionally been the domain of centralized organizations. However, the widespread adoption of
collaborative web-based technologies has enabled a shift to open-sourced building performance
metrics and standards created by people in the industry that the traditional method has until now
ignored.
The goal of this assignment is to learn how to interact with these new technologies and
simultaneously provide a proof of concept
1. This TASK is to be completed individually but communicating and collaborating on the wiki
is encouraged.
2. Go to www.sites.google.com/site/buildingperformancewiki/
3. Sign in by clicking the button at the bottom of the home page and entering your Conestoga
email address, if you have not already done so you will need to link this address to a google
account.
4. Make a significant contribution to the wiki, this may include:
a. Finding a metric from a traditional publisher that the wiki does not yet cover and
transferring it over (ie. An IFMA space utilization benchmark, a LEED Credit, or a
BOMA BEST Practice)
b. Beginning the development of an entirely new metric (something that you think we
should be measuring and managing to improve the performance of our buildings)
c. Improve an existing metric to make it more clear, accurate, or effective (this may
include formatting or otherwise editing a metric under development so it can graduate
to a published metric)
d. Organize metrics into categories (ie. Energy, Space Use, Materials, IEQ, etc.)
e. Anything else that brings the wiki closer to its goal of becoming the most complete
source for building performance metric and standards on the web.
*End of Call for Participants*
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Following the issuance of the call for participants a brief introduction was held to show the focus
group the site, explain its purpose, and ensure that everybody had editing rights; ongoing tech
support was also offered to ensure that no one would be unable to participate due to
technological issues. The introduction consisted of a demonstration of the Google Sites log in
process, trouble shooting for those who had issues logging in, and an overview of the editing
functionalities of the site through a brief demonstration of how they could complete the first type
of contribution listed on the call for participants (integrating a metric from another publisher).
With these simple instructions and the incentive of 2% of bonus marks towards the final grade in
the course the focus group was given one week to interact with the wiki.
Wiki Structure and Content at Launch
The Building Performance Wiki was created using Google Sites as the wiki hosting platform; it
was chosen due to its simple interface, security, and its ability for the site owner to easily review
and analyze the data generated by activity on the site.
Figure 1 - Landing Page – By Author
The wiki is designed with all of the familiar aspects that most users would recognize from
popular resources like Wikipedia; the most important aspects included were the navigation
sidebar and search bar at the top right. While the site was based off of Wikipedia due to the
C. W. McHugh
drastically different demands of content volume and scope of the wiki the Building Performance
Wiki has a significantly simplified structure and interface, the hope was that this would make the
site less intimidating to interact with to encourage free collaboration.
The main branches of the site’s structure are, in the order in

which they are shown in the navigation pane: Home, How To,
Metrics, Development, and Sitemap. These are the parts of the
site that all users will need to access to contribute. The other
branches of the site are Announcements and Templates which
are needed to facilitate the collaboration process but do not need
to be accessed by the typical contributor on a regular basis and
are therefore only accessible through a search or by navigating
Figure 2 – Sitemap – By Author
through the site map, again this serves to simplify the interface.
Prior to launch, the site was populated with exemplar content (see appendix F for an exemplar
metric), a number of existing building performance metrics were taken directly from publicly
available sources on the internet like the LEED Credit Library.
Figure 3 - Metrics Page – By Author
C. W. McHugh
As a way of maintaining the quality of the metrics posted to the Metrics page while encouraging
low-pressure contribution a second-tier page was created for metrics that have been proposed
and started but do not yet meet the publication requirements.
Figure 4 - Development Page – By Author
Several “How To” pages were created to instruct the participants and provide them with the
requisite knowledge to complete the assignment. See Appendix B, C, and D for “How To” pages
on Creating Performance Metrics, Editing a Google Site, and Google Site Sign-in respectively.
Findings and Implications
This section will outline the activity in the Building Performance wiki over the course of the
research period. The analysis will consist of quantitative and qualitative aspects of said activity
and will attempt to draw conclusions about the viability of this type of platform for the
applications outlined in the previous sections. The data will also provide insights regarding
aspects of building performance wiki design characteristics including strategic partnerships and
incentives for contribution. This section will also comment on the implications each finding has
on the design of future open-source building performance projects.
Quantitative Analysis
Of the 22 members of the focus group the call for participants attracted 15 contributors to the
Building Performance Wiki. Of these 15 participants, 7 made significant contributions to the
C. W. McHugh
development of the wiki without any identified errors in formatting or information. The
following table breaks down the types of contributions attempted by the research participants.
Types of Contributions
15 Proposed a metric for development
2 Proposed multiple metrics
1 Edited somebody else’s metric
1 Graduated a metric under development to a published metric
Figure 5 - Table: Types of Contributions
Of the 15 participants, 8 were identified as having made an error in either the information
that they contributed or how they formatted that information. The two types of formatting errors
made were participants who filed metrics in the wrong part of the wiki and participants who did
not follow the provided templates. The two types of information errors made were duplication of
an existing building performance metric and creation of an irrelevant page, meaning a page that
contained information that could not be considered development of a building performance
metric. The following table breaks down the types of errors that were made by the research
participants as they attempted to make their contributions to the wiki.
Types of Errors
6 Filed a metric in the wrong place (Format)
5 Duplicated an existing metric (Information)
2 Did not follow templates (Format)
2 Made irrelevant pages (Information)
Figure 6 - Table: Types of Errors
The following chart summarizes the response and success rates of the experiment as they have
been described above:
Response and Success Rates
Not Complete, Complete / Error Free,

7, 32% 7, 32%
Complete / With Error(s),

8, 36%
Figure 7 - Response and Success Rates
C. W. McHugh
This fairly even distribution, while interesting, only gives some indication of the response and
success rates one might expect given students in programs similar to that of the focus group who
are offered an incentive similar to 2% bonus marks. It is derived from a relatively small sample
size with a variety of identifiable peculiarities including selection bias, incentives provided, and
the design of this specific building performance wiki. These response and success rates should
therefore not be construed as typical for open source building performance projects and cannot
be generalized to other groups or the population at large until further extensive research is
conducted. It is, however, important to document these ratios as they provide context for the
other findings laid out in this section.
In total, 47 edits were made to the wiki over the course of 11 days. The following chart illustrates
the activity in the Building Performance Wiki following the call for submissions, specifically it
shows the cumulative number of edits that were made.
Wiki Activity: Entire Experiment

1 week
50
45
Number of Edits
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
730
1,460
2,191
2,921
3,652
4,382
5,113
5,843
6,574
7,304
8,035
8,765
9,496
10,226
10,957
11,687
12,418
13,148
13,879
14,609
Time (Minutes)
Figure 8 - Wiki Activity: Entire Experiment
Interesting characteristics of the wiki activity that this chart highlights include the major jumps at
time = 0 minutes and time = 8,750 minutes (Day 6, +/-1:00pm), as well as the edits at time =
15,160 minutes (Day 11, +/-11:45pm), which was 4 days after the submission deadline of 1 week
from the introduction. These telling abnormalities will be analyzed in detail throughout the
remainder of this section.
C. W. McHugh
The first jump can be attributed to the opening of access and the brief introduction provided to
the students; presumably this introduction gave the students enough confidence to attempt the
assignment, they wanted to earn the incentive while the process was fresh in their memory, and
to they didn’t want to forget to do so before the deadline. This jump consisted of 6 participants,
in other words: over a quarter of the focus group and over a third of the participants who
responded. This trend could benefit future building performance wiki projects with the
knowledge that deadlines and training sessions may be useful for eliciting contributions in short
time frames; however, it is worth noting that this short time frame may have contributed to the
quantity and magnitude of errors documented previously in this section. The following chart
further breaks down the activity that occurred during this first jump which took place over the
course of 45 minutes (scaled to match Figure 10).
Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 1

50
Number of Edits
40
30
20
10
0
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
34
36
38
40
42
44
46
Time (Minutes)
Figure 9 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 1
The next jump is also interesting because, even though this was an individual assignment that
could easily be completed independently at any time over the course of the week, the data
indicates a tendency to collaborate; it is likely that a group of the participants convened to help
each other navigate this unfamiliar digital environment, possibly feeling reassured that they had a
better chance of completing the assignment error free if they could compare their process with
one another. This group consisted of 6 participants, over a quarter of the focus group and over a
third of the participants who responded. One may conclude from this finding that future building
performance wiki projects may benefit from providing non-technologically mediated social
avenues to encourage participation, to appropriate yet another idea from the field of computer
science this would be akin to the social phenomenon known as hackathons (Komssi et al., 2015).
C. W. McHugh
The following chart further breaks down the activity that occurred during this second jump
which took place over the course of 35 minutes (scaled to match Figure 9).
Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 6

50
Number of Edits
40
30
20
10
0
8,756
8,758
8,760
8,762
8,764
8,766
8,768
8,770
8,772
8,774
8,776
8,778
8,780
8,782
8,784
8,786
8,788
8,790
Time (Minutes)
Figure 10 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 6
Finally, the activity that occurred four days after the one-week deadline is interesting because it
implies that at least one person decided to edit the wiki independently of the incentive, a
conclusion that is supported by the data in Figure 5 showing that 4 contributors did an extra
contribution beyond the requirement to achieve the incentive. This recurring abnormality
indicates the existence of an internal or third-party motivator beyond the controlled variables of
the experiment. It is possible that these contributors were merely trying to ensure that they
qualified for the incentive, covering their bases so to speak, but it is also possible that the
concept had some kind of appeal to them and they wished to explore it a bit further. Regardless
of their motives, the wiki reached a state of further development than it would have had
contributors restricted themselves solely to achieving the strict requirements of the incentive.
Qualitative Analysis
A key theme, which was identified through analysis of the contributions made to the wiki, was in
the type of contributions the participants chose to make. The call for participants outlined four
specific types of contributions, which would satisfy the requirements for receiving the incentive,
and indicated that other contributions would also be accepted. However, every participant chose
to complete the first option that was listed in the instructions:
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“Finding a metric from a traditional publisher that the wiki does not yet cover and
transferring it over (ie. An IFMA space utilization benchmark, a LEED Credit, or a
BOMA BEST Practice)” (Call for Participants, by author)
This tendency is related to the next key trend that was identified, namely, resources the
participants chose to draw from. Almost every contributor chose to transfer an existing metric
from the LEED Credit Library, an open-access resource published by the USGBC. These two
trends are interesting and apparently connected because they are the exact combination of
contribution type and resource used by the experimenter, in the introductory demonstration, to
showcase the functionality of Google Sites. The participants’ tendency to emulate the exact
actions that were demonstrated has interesting implications to consider when designing future
open-source building performance projects. First, it is likely that when confronted with an
unfamiliar digital environment, like Google Sites or any other wiki hosting service, as well as a
tight deadline, the contributors would not feel comfortable experimenting and take the perceived
path of least resistance, especially when an incentive is on the line. This tendency would likely
dissipate as regular contributors become more familiar with the wiki functionalities and
objectives however it is likely that newly recruited contributors would always default to the types
of contributions for which there is easily accessible precedent and instruction. Therefore, rather
than providing one demonstration of a specific type of contribution, the open-source community
should populate the website with a variety of recorded tutorials and demonstrations that the
contributors could peruse at their leisure. A sufficiently sophisticated project could even steer
certain contributors towards the types of contributions that the project is most in need of at that
moment, like how Wikipedia has lists of articles and categories that need attention and sort them
whether this attention should be from an expert or if any contributor can attempt it (Ayers,
Matthews, & Yates, 2008).
Another interesting trend in the wiki activity can be found in the types of errors made by research
participants that were described previously in the Quantitative Analysis section. They provide
valuable insights regarding the social dynamics inherent to the development of an open-source
building performance project. For example, the tendency for participants to duplicate existing
metrics shows that they did not try searching the key terms using the search box present on every
page, a simple and effective process that was demonstrated in the assignment introduction. Since
the process of searching for a metric to ensure it does not already exist is so simple and effective
C. W. McHugh
it may be safe to assume that the participants who did not do so were not incentivised enough to
ensure they were completing the task thoroughly. As in their selection of contribution type these
participants once again chose the path of least resistance. Future open-source building
performance projects must remember to scale their incentives according to the desired level of
effort and the desired breadth of contributors. Alternatively, they can take the approach of
Wikipedia, who offers no incentives to its contributors besides the benefit of generating and
making available a high-quality resource or simply the joy of creation (Lih, 2014). It is plausible,
and even likely, that allowing contributors to self-select ensures that the type of people
contributing are the kind who will be internally motivated to ensure that the wiki remains a high-
quality resource for building performance metrics, perhaps the presence of incentives
undermines that integrity.
C. W. McHugh
Conclusions
This paper has attempted to synthesis the potentials of the open-source methodology and the
objectives of the building industry to create a system for generating an extensive set of reliable
building performance metrics via the accumulation and curation of the collective knowledge of
the industry. The primary research sought to provide a proof of concept that such a system was
possible and to test out the various mechanics of how it might operate. With consideration to the
applications, limitations, and design options for an open-source building performance
development platform an experimental wiki was developed and launched.
With the help of a strategic partner, a focus group was incentivized to interact with this building
performance wiki and the results were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively for insights that
could inform further development of the concept. It was found that the majority of participants
could be incentivized to contribute to the development of the wiki with varying degrees of
success, that contributors appear to seek out non-technologically mediated avenues of
collaboration when contributing, and that the types of instructions given to amateur contributors
have a strong limiting influence on the types of contributions they produce, even when
alternatives and creativity are encouraged. While there is some evidence to suggest that a few of
the research participants chose to interact with the wiki for internally motivated reasons the vast
majority of participants appear to have followed the path of least resistance to qualifying for the
incentive which ultimately resulted in some fairly low-quality contributions. This suggests that
the future projects should either scale up incentives to match desired effort levels or allow
contributors to self-select based on their internal motivation.
These findings set the stage for a variety of intriguing future research opportunities. Specifically,
it would be interesting to compare the efficacy of various wiki design characteristics, especially if
this could be undertaken with more rigorous methods than this paper allowed, such as a double-
blind study with significantly greater sample sizes. The concepts explored in this paper also open
the door to a slew of intriguing future potential applications, such as the possibility that this type
of building performance wiki could be integrated into a semantic generative algorithm and used
as a design tool, as has been discussed by Rivka Oxman (1994). Cutting edge technologies are
changing the landscape of human potential constantly and who knows what kind of applications
C. W. McHugh
may arise from the synthesis of open-source building performance with advancements in fields
such as generative design, or even artificial intelligence.
Buildings are complex systems with a suite of performance characteristics so vast it is certain
that not one organization has ever compiled a definitive set of metrics for quantifying and
managing them all, nor is it likely that one ever will. While this lofty ambition may never be
reached, this paper laid out a system that leverages technology in a way that may potentially
allow the building industry to get as close as is currently possible to its attainment. The potentials
of open-source building performance metrics may be great, but the road to achieving these
potentials is blocked by the hurdles of verification and adoption. Much further research and
testing may be needed to ensure that these ideas are implemented in a way that maximizes the
benefits while minimizing the threats and limitations.
“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more
dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has
the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and
merely the lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one.”
(Machiavelli, 1513)
C. W. McHugh
References
Ayers, P., Matthews, C., & Yates, B. (2008). How Wikipedia works: And how you can be a part of
it. San Francisco: No Starch Press.
Bartling, S., & Friesike, S. (2014). Opening science: The evolving guide on how the internet is
changing research, collaboration and scholarly publishing. Springer Verlag.
Beer, S. (2017). From Citizen Participation to Real Ownership. Architectural Design, 87(1), 58-
63. doi:10.1002/ad.2132
Berardi, U. (2011). Beyond sustainability assessment systems: Upgrading topics by enlarging the
scale of assessment. International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban
Development, 2(4), 276-282.
Braham, W. W. (2015). Architecture and systems ecology: thermodynamic principles of

environmental building design, in three parts. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Bunim, J. (2013, September 26). UCSF First U.S. Medical School to Offer Credit For Wikipedia
Articles. Retrieved March 20, 2018, from https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/09/109201/ucsf-
first-us-medical-school-offer-credit-wikipedia-articles
Cunningham, W. and Mehaffy, M.W. (2014). Wiki as Pattern Language. Proceedings of the 20th
Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (PLoP'13), Monticello, Illinois, USA
Handzic, M., & Bassi, A. (2017). Knowledge and project management: a shared approach to
improve performance. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Katz, A. (2012, October 02). Fifth Public Comment Period Now Open for Update to USGBCs
LEED Green Building Program. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from
https://www.usgbc.org/articles/fifth-public-comment-period-now-open-update-
usgbc%E2%80%99s-leed-green-building-program
Kloby, K., & D'Agostino, M. J. (2012). Citizen 2.0: Public and governmental interaction through
Web 2.0 technologies. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
C. W. McHugh
Komssi, M., Pichlis, D., Raatikainen, M., Kindstrom, K., Jarvinen, J., (2015). What are
Hackathons for?. IEEE Software, Software, IEEE, IEEE Softw, (5), 60.
doi:10.1109/MS.2014.78
Li, R.Y.M., Poon, S.W. (2013) Construction Safety. Risk Engineering. Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg
Lih, A. (2010). The Wikipedia revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s greatest
encyclopedia. London: Aurum.
Lstiburek, Joseph W. (2008). Insight Prioritizing Green: It’s the Energy Stupid. ASHRAE
Journal, 1-8
Lstiburek, J. (2015, June 02). BSI-062: Thermal Bridges Redux. Retrieved March 3, 2018, from
https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi062-thermal-bridges-redux
Machiavelli, N., & Wootton, D. (1995). The prince. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co.
Morton, J. (2015). Support occupant health with the WELL Building Standard: this certification
enhances wellness using the built environment. Buildings, (9). 19.
Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Basics of social research: Qualitative and quantitative
approaches. Don Mills, Ontario: Pearson Canada.
Oxman, R. (1994). Precedents in design: a computational model for the organization of

precedent knowledge. Design Studies, 15(2), 141-157. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0142-
694x(94)90021-3
Sands, M. S. (2010). Standards and Measures -- Whole-building Metrics Driving Innovation and
High Performance. Lean Construction Journal, 1-17.
Serrat O. (2017) Collaborating with Wikis. In: Knowledge Solutions (pp. 609-613). Springer,
Singapore
Sheizaf Rafaeli & Yaron Ariel (2008). "Online motivational factors: Incentives for participation
and contribution in Wikipedia." In Barak, A. Psychological aspects of cyberspace: Theory,
research, applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 243–267.
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Trench, D., Harvie, G., & Winward, R. (2018). Designing Buildings Wiki. Retrieved February
10, 2018, from https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Home
USGBC. (2008). LEED credit library - U.S. Green Building Council. Retrieved January 24,
2018, from https://www.usgbc.org/credits
Wales, J. (2005). The Birth of Wikipedia [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.ted.com/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia
Yudelson, J. (2016). Reinventing green building: why certification systems aren’t working and
what we can do about it. Gabriola, BC: New Society
Zareva, T. (2011, June 13). Crowdsourcing Iceland's New Constitution. Retrieved January 24,
2018, from http://bigthink.com/design-for-good/crowdsourcing-icelands-new-constitution
C. W. McHugh
Appendix
A: p35. Contribution Workflow
B: p37. Performance Metric How To
C: p40. Edit a Google Site How To
D: p41. Google Site Sign-in How To
E: p44. Participation Agreement
F: p45. Example Metric
G: p46. External Advisor Meeting Minutes
C. W. McHugh
C. W. McHugh
C. W. McHugh
Before You Begin
Ensure you have identified a Performance Metric that is NEW (make sure you search the wiki for all
relevant search terms, if something similar exists consider integrating your ideas into the existing
metric), that it corresponds with a REAL performance aspect of the building industry, and that you have
the KNOWLEDGE to bring it up to the community publishing standards. Remember that metrics that are
not up to the community publishing standards must be saved under the "Development" list.
Step 1: Sign in / Request Editing Access
If you are unable to sign in or after signing in you find that you are still unable to edit the wiki email
cmchugh7749@conestogac.on.ca
Step 2: Create Page
Click the create page button at the top of the page:
C. W. McHugh
Step 3: Set Up Page
All complete and properly formatted Performance Metrics should be saved under "Metrics"
Be sure to select the "Performance Metrics" template!
Step 4: Populate the Page
Before you begin, be sure to read several other Performance Metrics written by other contributors to get a
feel for the format and tone.
The "Performance Metric" template should look like this:
C. W. McHugh
First describe the intent of your new metric, you might want to begin by asking yourself the following
questions: What are you measuring? What performance aspect does it correspond with? Why is it
important?
Next identify the steps required for utilizing the Performance Metric. This may include description of
design characteristics, calculations, data retrieval, etc.
Finally, remember to cite your sources! If you have used any of the established metric publishers as a
basis for your new metric.
C. W. McHugh
Tutorial
Sources
Amanda Dowdy
Published on Jan 22, 2014
C. W. McHugh
Step 1: Click the Sign-in Button
This can be found at the bottom left of any page on the site.
Step 2: Create an Account
Under More Options select Create Account
C. W. McHugh
Step 3: Link to your e-mail address

Click "I prefer to use my current email address"
... and fill in the required fields (phone number optional).

To get credit for the Building Performance assignment students must use their official
Conestoga e‐mail address.
Step 4: Verify E-mail
C. W. McHugh
Go to your e-mail and click the link to complete the sign up.
Step 5: Edit the Wiki
You're good to go!
C. W. McHugh
Please list your official Conestoga e-mail below if you would like to participate in this weeks 2%
assignment for the Building Performance class to be held on Friday March 23rd.
The assignment is related to research being undertaken as part of an APFM fourth year thesis, the
email address is only required to provide you with access to the experiment website and to
confirm your completion of the assignment. None of your personal information will be published
or otherwise shared, you will not be identified in the paper.
If you do not wish to share your e-mail address at this time you will need to coordinate an
acceptable alternative assignment with Jim Bechard prior to the March 30th deadline, failure to
do so will result in a zero on the 2% assignment.
Thank you for your cooperation!
C. W. McHugh
Facility Condition Index (FCI)

Contents
1. 1 Intent
2. 2 Requirements
3. 3 Sources
Intent
A comparative industry indicator/benchmark used to indicate the
relative physical condition of a facility, group of buildings, or entire
portfolio “independent” of building type, construction type, location or
cost.
Requirements
The facility condition index (FCI) is expressed as a ratio of the cost of remedying existing
deficiencies/requirements, and capital renewal requirements to the current replacement
value (i.e., FCI=(DM+CR)/CRV). The FCI provides a corresponding rule of thumb for the
annual reinvestment rate (funding percentage) to prevent further accumulation of deferred
maintenance deficiencies. The FCI value is a snapshot in time, calculated on an annual
basis. Forecasted FCI values for a building in the future, for example, would include the
current deferred maintenance items, plus projected values of capital renewal requirements.
The FCI is represented on a scale of zero to one, or 0% to 100%, with higher FCI values,
representing poorer facility’s condition. While property owners/managers establish
independent standards, a “fair to good facility” is generally expressed as having an FCI of
less than 10-15%.
(FCI) = Deferred Maintenance + Capital Renewal / Current Replacement

Value
Sources
IFMA
C. W. McHugh
Meeting #1
Date: 02/06/2018
Participants: Carter McHugh (Conestoga, APFM Student), Bala Gnanam (BOMA Toronto, Vice
President - Energy, Environment & Strategic Partnerships)
Key Points:
 Introduction
 Description of thesis topic
 Description of External Advisor roles and responsibilities
 Set up phone call for further discussion
Meeting #2
Date: 03/06/2018
Key Points:
 Discussion of thesis structure and content
 Description of primary research methodology and mechanics
 Discuss possible collaboration with BOMA employees
 Recommendation of resources for review
Meeting #3
Date: 04/18/2018
Key Points:
 Progress updates
 Discussion of research results
 Provision of nearly complete draft for final comments
C. W. McHugh

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Carter McHugh - Open Source Building Performance - Undergraduate Thesis

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Thesis: Open Source Building Performance 1

By: Carter W. McHugh

DSGN74020 | Studio VII | APFM

A. Chatham | Conestoga College | 04/25/2018

This paper is dedicated to…

Table of Figures .............................................................................................................................. 5

Literature Review: Open-Source and Building Performance ....................................................... 10

Applications of Open Source in the Building Industry................................................................. 10

Current Paradigm: Knowledge Management ...................................................................... 11

Proposed Paradigm: Knowledge Generation & Development ............................................ 12

Limitations & Criticisms of Open-Source .................................................................................... 12

Design Options for a Building Performance Wiki ........................................................................ 15

Levels of Accessibility ........................................................................................................ 15

Contribution Process ........................................................................................................... 16

Strategic Partnerships .......................................................................................................... 17

Field Research: Testing a Building Performance Wiki ................................................................. 17

Research Methodology ........................................................................................................ 17

Wiki Structure and Content at Launch ................................................................................ 20

Findings and Implications ................................................................................................... 22

Figure 1 - Landing Page – By Author ........................................................................................... 20

Figure 2 – Sitemap – By Author ................................................................................................... 21

Figure 3 - Metrics Page – By Author ............................................................................................ 21

Figure 4 - Development Page – By Author ................................................................................... 22

Figure 5 - Table: Types of Contributions ...................................................................................... 23

Figure 6 - Table: Types of Errors .................................................................................................. 23

Figure 7 - Response and Success Rates ........................................................................................ 23

Figure 8 - Wiki Activity: Entire Experiment................................................................................. 24

Figure 9 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 1 ...................................................................................... 25

Figure 10 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 6 .................................................................................... 26

Knowledge Management: the systematic organization of information and experience assets;

Open-Source Methodology: non-software applications of Open-Source principles including free use,

Aims and Objectives

Literature Review: Open-Source and Building Performance

Applications of Open Source in the Building Industry

Current Paradigm: Knowledge Management

Proposed Paradigm: Knowledge Generation & Development

Limitations & Criticisms of Open-Source

Design Options for a Building Performance Wiki

An excellent example of an open-source initiative leveraging a strategic partnership is the

Field Research: Testing a Building Performance Wiki

*Start of Call for Participants*

4. Make a significant contribution to the wiki, this may include:

*End of Call for Participants*

Wiki Structure and Content at Launch

Figure 1 - Landing Page – By Author

The main branches of the site’s structure are, in the order in

Figure 3 - Metrics Page – By Author

Figure 4 - Development Page – By Author

Findings and Implications

Response and Success Rates

Not Complete, Complete / Error Free,

Complete / With Error(s),

Figure 7 - Response and Success Rates

Wiki Activity: Entire Experiment

Figure 8 - Wiki Activity: Entire Experiment

Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 1

Figure 9 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 1

Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 6

Figure 10 - Wiki Activity: Jump on Day 6

Braham, W. W. (2015). Architecture and systems ecology: thermodynamic principles of

Oxman, R. (1994). Precedents in design: a computational model for the organization of

Wales, J. (2005). The Birth of Wikipedia [Video file]. Retrieved from

B: p37. Performance Metric How To

C: p40. Edit a Google Site How To

Start of Call for Participants

End of Call for Participants