Exploring the Relationship between Research and BIM Standardization: A Systematic Mapping of Early Studies on the IFC Standard (1997–2007)

It has long been argued that the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data model standard is the key to unlocking the potential of interoperable Building Information Modeling (BIM). Despite a wealth of published research literature incorporating IFC, there have been no attempts at systematically summarizing the literature related to the standard. Targeting both summation and analysis of thematic developments over time, we performed a comprehensive systematic literature review of IFC‐related research published between 1997 and 2007: the first 11 years of research on the standard. Through a systematic web‐retrieval process, 170 unique publications were collected, read, and mapped to a custom framework. The results reveal that journals and conferences have been an integral part of the technical evaluation and development of the standard. The full classification data is provided as an appendix to facilitate future research on IFC and other standards.