“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it,” Samuel Johnson.
A goal of our substantial performance blog is to be a source of continuing education to those in construction contract administration. We believe that for good architectural design to be realized, a strong understanding and organization of the building process and contract administration is required.
Strong construction contract administration knowledge and experience provides confidence to effectively design details, write specifications, review quality of work on site, negotiate change orders, keep organized the many files and submittals, and confidence handling many other construction contract administration tasks.
So if you don’t already know the subject of contract administration yourself, we have compiled a list of websites where we believe you can find the information upon it.
1. CSI – The Construction Specifiers Institute website and the official magazine website The Construction Specifier magazine is a great place to start your quest for knowledge. A wealth of information can be found on both of these websites with no end of great articles, news clips and resources. We particularly like the CSI Youtube channel with presentations from practise groups, webinars and much more. Who would have thought that a bunch seasoned contract administrators could be so hip!
2. CSC Construction Specifications Canada the Canadian equivalent of the American CSI website above. Similarly, it provides a wealth of information and “is committed to ongoing development and delivery of quality education programs, publications and services for the betterment of the construction community in Canada”. The official publication for the CSC is the Construction Canada magazine The articles are interesting and by knowledgeable practitioners and they offer a free subscription to the magazine online. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a youtube channel for them yet.
3. AIA –The American Institute of Architects Whether you’re a practicing architect or not this website is a valuable reference. We liked the great sections for Practicing Architecture, Knowledge communities , Education section or Best Practises. Unfortunately access to some parts of this site requires paid membership.
4. Architectural Record in our opinion is a leader in offering online continuing education and provides online AIA CEU’s and tracking. The course Library can be sorted many ways, includes courses that range from envelope design, to safety codes, to new products. It has never been easier to obtain free continuing education credits online. Not to mention the many links that are provided to manufacturers websites are also great resources for information.
5. Building Science Corporation is a unique website in that Building Science Corporation is a building science consulting and full service architecture firm with clients throughout North America. They provide a wide range of information and articles on many building science topics and we especially like the links to the Building Science Digests. These digest are considered Canadian classics and are a must read for any architect, technologist or contract administrator.
So there you have it, our pick of five websites that are great sources of information to help further your knowledge and excel in construction contract administration. We know that there are many more websites out there that could be added to this list, and we would love if you could send us links to them and any reasons to support your likes. We also welcome any other comments you may have on this topic.
