5. An Institutional Economic Analysis on Construction Safety Knowledge Sharing and E-Learning via Mobile Apps

The growth of World Wide Web and mobile technology such as mobile phones and tablets nurture the mobile learning development. Construction workers can now learn anytime and anywhere at affordable costs. Transaction costs of obtaining various information and knowledge can be reduced substantially with various mobile apps. Some workers who work alone can also obtain the knowledge about their jobs or first aid knowledge via wireless devices. Likewise, the popularity of various apps provide an alternative channels to construction firms and safety officers who wish to share the construction safety knowledge with construction workers who may have high time costs to attend safety lectures and tutorials. This chapter reviews the present mobile apps usage in safety knowledge sharing and m-learning feasibility. It is found that many of the safety mobile apps are used for (1) building safety inspection checklists, recording the safety meeting, safety accidents (2) knowledge sharing via videos and (3) calculate safety risks according to different types of indices such as heat and heavy lifting.