The Elusive Or "Boring" Bore?

2nd IJERW on Hydraulic Structures, S. Pagliara (ed.) ©2008 Edizioni Plus, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy - ISBN: 978-88-8492-568-8 Digital publishing, ethics and hydraulic engineering: the elusive or "boring" bore?

H. Chanson Professor in Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia, email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT: From the "boring boar" of Astérix and Obélix, to the tidal bore of the Indus River that wiped out the fleet of Alexander the Great, the English word "bore" has been used for a broad range of meanings. Similarly, the expressions "digital information revolution" and "electronic publishing" are used broadly. Herein the impact of digital publishing is presented in the context of hydraulic engineering, research and practice, and it is compared with the impact of a tidal bore on an estuarine system. Like a tidal bore, digital publishing is advancing at a fast pace and cannot be stopped, but the advance is fascinating. It is argued that an increased number of unethical behaviours has been recently observed. While these might be linked with the development of open access tools, the open access repositories (OARs) have expanded the freely- accessible bibliographic references available by engineers and researchers. The OARs provide further genuine information on the impact of research publications with challenging outcomes. The development of research metrics is also discussed. Simplistic naive indicators used by commercial databases are inappropriate, and a series of newer weighted research metrics are presented with a focus on the individual scholarship. Digital publishing and electronic "band-aids" will never replace scholarship and critical thinking, although they constitute the new tools of professionals, researchers and academics.

1 INTRODUCTION that the digital revolution brings new tools for professionals and scholars, and it is not boring. In English, the word "bore" has a wide range of meanings, from a boring person, a tunnel bore hole to the action of giving birth (Table 1). Even Astérix joked about Obélix's "boring boar" diet (Goscinny and Uderzo 1968). In hydraulic engineering, a bore is a positive surge of tidal origin propagating upstream in a river mouth as the tidal flow turns to rising (Chanson 2001, 2005a). The tidal bore is a short-lived process in an Eulerian system of reference: i.e., 1 to 2 minutes once, possibly twice a day. It is an elusive, yet beautiful and almost mythical phenomenon (Fig. 1). A bore may be heard from far away, 20 to 40 minutes before it arrives. But animals and humans must run for their life when it surges suddenly (Murphy 1983, Molchan-Douthit 1998, Chanson 2005b). In a somewhat similar fashion, the expressions "electronic age" and "digital publishing" have been broadly used to describe the rapid technological changes of our work environment for Figure 1. Tidal bore of the Sélune River, Baie du Mont Saint Michel the last 30 years. But what does it mean ? What are the implications for a young engineer and a junior Like a tidal bore, these changes are evolving rapidly: researcher as well as senior professionals and these are elusive for those who do not catch up. At academics? Several issues are discussed herein the end, the reader will find a glossary and a including the peer-review process, ethics, open bibliographic list, including audio-visual and access, research metrics and scholarship. It is argued Internet references.

3 early stages before sandbanks had attained final Word Description shapes. Bore v. To make someone feel bored, especially by The occurrence of tidal bores has a significant talking too much impact on river mouths and estuarine systems. Bed To make a deep round hole in a hard surface To make by digging away material (to bore a erosion and scour take place beneath the bore front tunnel) while suspended matters are carried upwards in the To make one's way steadily esp. against ensuing wave motion. The process contributes to resistance significant sediment transport with deposition in To look at somebody in a way that makes him upstream intertidal areas (Donnelly and Chanson feel uncomfortable (to bore into) 2005). Basically tidal bores induce strong mixing Bore Past To be equipped or furnished with and dispersion in the river mouth. Evidences of Bear To behave, conduct well To give birth encompassed repeated impact and damage to field To support the weight of measurement equipments: e.g., in Rio Mearim To thrust, press (Kjerfve and Ferreira 1993), in the Daly River To exert influence or force (Wolanski et al. 2004), in the Dee River (Simpson et Bore n. Someone who is boring al. 2004). Further demonstrations included major Something that you have to do but do not want to damage to river banks and navigation. For example, Measurement of the inside size of a gun barrel Positive surge of tidal origin more than 220 ships were lost in the Seine River Bore hole A deep hole made into the ground to get water or "mascaret" (tidal bore) between 1789 and 1840 in n. oil out the Quilleboeuf-Villequier section (Malandain Boar n. Wild pig 1988); Captain Moore lost almost his survey ship Male of any of several mammals (as guinea pig and two steam cutters when he inadvertently or raccoon) anchored in the Qiantang River estuary in 1888 (Moore 1888, Darwin 1897); the Qiantang River Table 1. Meanings of the word "bore" banks were repeatedly damaged and overtopped by the tidal bore for centuries (e.g. Dai and Zhou 1987). 1.1 The elusive tidal bores Other tragic evidences included numerous drownings in tidal bores and "whelps" : e.g., in the In macro-tidal estuaries, a tidal bore may form Fly River (Papua New Guinea) (Beaver 1920), in the during spring tide conditions when the flood tide is Seine River (Malandain 1988). All these are confined to a narrow funnelled channel that supported by recent unsteady turbulence amplifies the tidal wave. The inception and measurements in positive surges (Koch and Chanson development of the positive surge are commonly 2006, 2008, Chanson 2008b). predicted using the method of characteristics and The existence of tidal bores is based upon a fragile Saint-Venant equations (Barré de Saint Venant hydrodynamic balance which may be easily 1871b). After formation of the bore, the flow disturbed by changes in boundary conditions and properties immediately upstream and downstream of freshwater inflow. Man-made interventions led to the front must satisfy the continuity and momentum the disappearance of several bores with often principles (Rayleigh 1908, Henderson 1966, Liggett adverse impacts onto the eco-system : e.g., the 1994, Chanson 2004a). mascaret of the Seine River (France) no longer exists A tidal bore on the Indus River wiped out the fleet of and the Colorado River bore (Mexico) is drastically Alexander the Great in B.C. 325 (or B.C. 326 ?) smaller after dredging. Although the fluvial traffic (Arrian 1976, Vol. 2, pp. 156-161, Anabis of gained in safety in each case, the ecology of Alexander, VI, 19; Quintus Curcius 1984 p. 233, estuarine zones were adversely affected. The tidal Book 9, [9]). Both accounts gave a very detailed and bores of the Couesnon (France) and Petitcodiac accurate description of the tidal bore process. The (Canada) Rivers almost disappeared after best documented tidal bores are probably those of construction of an upstream barrage. At Petitcodiac, the Seine River (France) (Fig. 2) and Qiantang River this yielded the elimination of several diadromous (China). Another majestic bore is the "pororoca" of fish species, including the American shad, Atlantic the Amazon River in Brazil. Interestingly, tidal salmon, Atlantic tomcod, striped bass and sturgeon bores attracted a lot of scientific interests during the (Locke et al. 2003). 19th century: e.g., Darcy and Bazin (1865), Barré de There are visual accounts of tidal bores, but field Saint-Venant (1871a,b.), Boussinesq (1877). Cornish measurements are rare. Most studies recorded a (1907) indicated that Professor Osborne Reynolds limited number of parameters with relatively coarse also conducted experiments with model estuaries resolutions in terms of time scales, spatial and observed sometimes tidal bores formed in the

4 resolutions and velocity magnitudes at a fixed-point. subjective interpretation. They cannot use or However a tidal bore is a very dynamic process disclose unpublished information, arguments nor which extends over several kilometres, sometimes interpretations contained in a manuscript under tens of kilometres, and it can last a couple of hours review. in a Lagrangian system of reference. 2.2 Ethical standards Some contributions in civil and hydraulic engineering have involved unethical behaviour, and the trend seemed to have accelerated because of introduction of digital publishing and the proliferation of publications. Recent journal editorials presented some experience of unscrupulous activities (Henze 2005, Mavinic 2006, AIAA Journal 2007). Each researcher and Figure 2. Tidal bore of the Seine River at Quilleboeuf (Photo professional should read these. Cheating and Collection Hauchard, Pont-Audemer, Courtesy of J.J. dishonesty are serious matters because they discredit Malandain) the profession. As a senior expert reviewer, editorial board member and editor, the writer is regularly engaged in peer- 2 DIGITAL PUBLISHING AND ETHICS reviews. He experienced an increasing trend in the last 8 years, among which the following unethical 2.1 Peer-reviewed publications examples are drawn (Chanson 2007a, 2008a). This A R&D engineering project is only completed when alarming trend is believed to be driven by the ease to it has been published and shared with the copy/paste, the increasing number of journals and community: "there is no such a thing as an the pressure to publish. In late 2006, the writer unpublished research study" (Chanson 2007a). reviewed a contribution written by three people from Research publications constitute a key element to a prestigious university. The same identical establish the intellectual copyrights. They provide manuscript was submitted simultaneously to two the necessary means to assess the scholarship and journals, containing several misleading and intellectual property. Herein a research publication is deceiving statements. This was simply unethical. In defined as a peer-reviewed publication. 2007, two journal editors contacted independently The peer-review process contributes to the quality the writer to seek independent advice on new control and it is an essential step to ascertain the submissions. In each case, the papers derived from standing and originality of the study (Mavinic 2006, earlier submissions prepared several years before, Chanson 2007a, 2008a). Referees and peer experts rejected at the time and subsequently published in play an important role in research quality, although other lesser journals. The new submissions were their contribution is rarely acknowledged at its true merely a "massage" of published data. level. Peer-reviews are unpaid. Many reviewers The writer experienced first-hand the detrimental conduct their duties after hours, and there is little impact of dishonest actions. In a number of reward but to assist the profession (Nandakumar instances, some unscrupulous individuals copied the 2006). With the ever increasing numbers of journals writer's documents (Chanson 1993, 2002; numerous and conferences, the scientific editors are under photographic works) and published these under their great pressure to find expert-reviewers who are own name(s). In other cases, unscrupulous willing to review objectively and in-depth the individuals used the writer's experimental data manuscripts. It is an honour to be a peer-reviewer, without a single acknowledgement nor citation. but also a duty since each manuscript should be During the recent review of a manuscript submitted typically examined by two to three experts. to the IAHR Journal of Hydraulic Research, a Individuals, who systematically refuse to review reviewer claimed that "this paper included [an] other manuscripts or provide poor reviews, should be researcher's results, but did not show the name of disciplined, and possibly banned from future the researcher". The statement was misleading and publications. incorrect. The work derived from an experimental Importantly a review process is confidential (ASCE study conducted two years earlier by the writer and 2008). The review must be fair and objective. his students, and published as a refereed technical Reviewers must avoid conflicts of interest and report (Chanson 2002). In this instance, the journal editor reviewed the technical report, received an

5 independent advice from the technical report's engineering where the very large majority of referee and discarded the dishonest review. The consulting companies do not have electronic access manuscript was ultimately published (Chanson to commercial publications because they are just too 2007b). expensive. It is further crucial for academics, Altogether these examples demonstrate some professionals and researchers based in developing appalling ethical standards. They underline that countries because the costs of Internet usage and honesty and integrity is a duty of each author, electronic publishing access are prohibitive. expert-reviewer and member of journal editorial Digital publishing and electronic resources have boards. changed our working environment. In the course of civil engineering projects, bibliographic searches are conducted using Internet search engines, electronic 3 DIGITAL PUBLISHING AND OPEN ACCESS repositories including commercial databases and open access repositories. These new techniques yield An important source of academic and professional often too much information that could become information has become the open access repositories useless unless they are critically evaluated by (OARs). These collections of electronic resources experts. At the same time, however, the electronic regroup primarily academically-oriented digital aids have induced a widening gap between resources that are open access and easily searchable. universities and small engineering companies, and In August 2008, there were more than 1,200 open- between developed and developing countries, access repositories regrouping close to a billion of because many commercial services, including peer-reviewed manuscripts (OpenDOAR 2008). The databases and digital publishing, are outrageously repositories tackled the (previous) monopoly of expensive. Many engineers and students can only commercial databases and their prohibitive costs. access commercial search engines like Google Nowadays the OARs' success has been closely ScholarTM and open-access digital repositories linked with the development of specialised search because "it's just much too expensive" to do TM engines like Google Scholar and Academic otherwise. Therefore the open access repositories are TM Live , as well as new research funding rules essential to provide quality scientific data in a requesting the open access publication of funded "digital world" filled with "blogs", personal research outcomes in North-America, Europe and webpages and unreliable information. Australia. 3.2 OAR statistics 3.1 Why deposit in an Open Access Repository? The commercial databases and open access For an academic researcher, the motivation to repositories record some information on the data deposit research works into an open access usage. The formers do not release these details repository is multiple (Chanson 2008a). It may because of a combination of commercial secrecy and encompass (a) open access for undergraduate technological challenges (e.g. EPS 2006). But the students and postgraduate coursework students, (b) OAR statistics are freely accessible and the the availability of research materials to research outcomes are challenging. students and junior researchers, (c) the access to At the University of Queensland, the institutional quality research publications by professional open access repository, UQeSpace, records the file engineers worldwide, and by academics and download statistics as well as the geographic access researchers in developing countries, (d) some of the data. The retrieval statistics are based marketing of his/her own research work, and (e) typically upon the number of file downloads. For some knowledge of the impact of his/her own example, the publications of the writer were research using the OAR's retrieval statistics. downloaded 137,564 times from UQeSpace on 4 The primary academic usage of an institutional OAR August 2008. Figure 3 illustrates the distribution of is the open access of research publications by publication downloads for 2007-08 for the top 50 coursework students, as supporting materials for records. The geographic distributions of document undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. In that retrievals showed a strong demand from North- role, it is essential that the institutional repository America, Europe and Middle-East, but little interest comply with the relevant copyright act(s). More from Far-East Asia and Africa. While the low generally, an open access repository allows the open retrieval rate from African countries may be linked access of research publications by research students, with financial limitations, the lack of interest from researchers and professionals based worldwide. This Japan, Korea and China must be associated with is especially important in civil and hydraulic cultural and linguistic barriers.

56 Among the top 50 most downloaded articles resurgence of interest in these countries for included in Figure 3, more than 60% were not listed hydraulic engineering and hydraulic design. They in Thomson Scientific ISI Web of Science1. These also supported the decision to organise the second were book chapters, scientific papers in journals not international workshop on hydraulic structures in listed in ISI Web of Science1, international refereed Europe. At the same time, the statistical usage data conference papers including keynotes and refereed showed little interest from Far East Asia (< 4%) and research reports. Altogether, these 50 contributions Africa (< 1%), and the findings challenged were downloaded 59,344 times in 18 months. The suggestions of a demand for hydraulic structure statistical results suggested that the impact of a expertise in these parts of the world. researcher is not simply characterised by commercial databases (citation report, h-index), and that the 'true' impact of a research publication could be assessed in terms of the number of file retrievals additionally. The statistical information may be used by the researchers themselves. One example is the selection of a suitable journal. At the end of a Ph.D. project, the writer and his student were looking for a suitable place of publication for a journal contribution with a large professional readership. The file download statistics available at UQeSpace led to the selection of a refereed journal which was not listed in Web of ScienceTM and where the writer previously published. The new journal article was published in April 2007 (Gonzalez and Chanson 2007). Since it was downloaded more than 1,440 times. Another usage of the statistical information is the geographical interest for a deposit. The proceedings of the first International Junior Researcher and Engineer Workshop on Hydraulic Structures (IJREWHS'06) were published in December 2006 (Matos and Chanson 2006). 19 months later, the proceedings deposit was downloaded more than 4,600 times (Fig. 4). The retrieval statistics showed a strong interest from Western Europe (21%), North- America (11%), Iran (13%), Australia (9%) and India (5%).

Book Book chapter Journal Figure 4. Number of file downloads viewed by country of the Conference workshop proceedings Matos and Chanson (2006) on 8 August Technical report 2008 (http://espace.uq.edu.au/) Others

3.3 Discussion The open access repositories provide an unique platform to secure intellectual copyrights. The rapid deposit of a peer-reviewed publication in an OAR does guarantee some form of intellectual property. It allows world-wide researchers including expert- Figure 3. Distribution of publication downloads in 2007-08 for reviewers and editors to access the original material the top 50 papers by Hubert Chanson (UQeSpace) (e.g. a technical report). From his own experience, the writer always completes each research project The findings were challenging considering that few with the publication of a peer-reviewed technical new hydraulic structures were built in Europe and report. The research report is deposited in the North-America in the last 40 years. They showed a institutional repository, and it is used to support

7 manuscript submissions to international scientific Queensland. Figure 5 shows both the total number of journals, as well as a proof of intellectual copyright. journal publications per year written by each At the same time, the open access nature of the researcher of this group, and the weighted number of deposit implies that anyone can access and publications per annum with a weight equal to the download the deposited materials. In that sense, the inverse of the number of co-authors. The data cover OARs may facilitate reproduction, plagiarism and a five year period (2002-06) and are focused on the cheating. journal publications listed in ISI Web of ScienceTM. Figure 6 presents the weighted numbers of citations per year in which the weight of each citation is 4 RESEARCH QUALITY, IMPACT AND inversely proportional to the number of co-writers of METRICS the cited paper, and the m-index which is the ratio of the h-index to the number of years that the Worldwide, governmental bodies and funding researcher has been publishing papers (Hirsch 2005). agencies are developing some form of research Note that the weighted citation rate was calculated assessment metrics to quantify the research quality over the same period of 5 years. and impact. Too often, these exercises tend to be The reader notes some anomalously high total restricted to a simplistic indicator like a journal's publication numbers in Figure 5 : e.g., researchers 2, impact factor, some citation rate, or a h-index. Such 5, 12 and 19. Their weighted number of publications naive indicators are artificial and biased, and they is only about 1/4th of their total number of lack objectivity. Further these disregard the number publications. These are individuals who co-wrote of co-authors and the individual contribution. Are regularly with 4 or more co-authors. It is often the multiple-authored publications representative of same group of co-authors. Such a deceiving practice individual scholarship, especially with more than 4 is used to inflate the individuals' publication records co-writers? Is the individual research comparable to and citation numbers, as well as those of their the scholarship involving a single-authored paper? friends, through numerical artefact and self-citation. There is no simple metrics of research quality and Figure 5 shows also five researchers who did not impact. A research quality assessment must be publish any journal articles over this 5 year period. focused on the reputation and impact of each They are struggling researchers. For this particular researcher based upon his/her contributions in group, two researchers are new academics who premier peer-reviewed publications. While some should be encouraged to develop their research field. Internet tools provide new means to disseminate But the others are mature researchers whose some research information, the quality and impact of publication record shows a lack of research strength the research remain closely linked with a thorough and scholarship. expert-review process (see above). Publications of Figure 6 highlights some low citation numbers per international scientific journals and books are the year for some individuals with relatively high premier standards, and some fairer metrics are number of outputs: e.g., researchers 5, 6, 9, 10, 19. needed. These poor citations rates relative to the number of publications tend to highlight some researchers who 4.1 New and fairer research indexes have little impact on their peers. A comparison between Figures 5 and 6 illustrates also a researcher A new combination of two individual research who does not publish much but has had a strong output metrics was proposed recently (Chanson impact on the research community for the last 20 2008a). The first indicator is defined as the weighted years: i.e., researcher 14. Lastly a comparison number of journal papers published per year, in between the m-index and the weighted citation rate which the weight of each contribution is the inverse indicates some contrasting metrics (Fig. 6). For of author number: e.g., 0.20 for a paper co-written example, the researchers 2, 5, 8 and 13. It is believed by five people. This indicator is equivalent to the that the discrepancy between the indicators derives number of single-authored articles per annum. A again from some multiple-authored publications second indicator is the weighted number of citations which are not truly representative of individual per year where the weight of each article citation is scholarship. inversely proportional to the number of co-writers of the paper that is cited. Figures 5 and 6 illustrate a comparison between 4.2 Discussion some conventional metrics and the new indexes for This new research metric, combining weighted the same group of civil and environmental publication and citation indicators, assesses the engineering researchers at the University of individual scholarship, using the single-authored

8 publication as a reference. It provides a global significantly contribute to the technical work" perspective of both quality and impact of each (AIAA Journal 2007). individual researcher. In engineering, a majority of The problem of authorship is especially acute for publications are co-written by two authors, typically junior researchers, young engineers and research a research student and the supervisor. But a fringe of students who may feel, wrongly, that they do not individuals co-write systematically with an have the standing to make scholarly judgments. A unusually large of colleagues to boost their related issue is the order of the authorship. The order publication outputs. of authorship should reflect the level of contribution of each author, from the major contributor to the lesser contributor. But, in some countries, the junior researcher who does the bulk of the work is too often Number of publications pa by an individual 8.0 Weighted number of publications pa the last author. 7.0 Lastly, note that the output of any metric is linked to 6.0 the source of the data and the period covered by the 5.0 data. It may be applied to a range of databases : e.g., 4.0 ISI Web of ScienceTM (Fig. 5 and 6), Google 3.0 ScolarTM, ScopusTM, although each data set has some 2.0 TM 1.0 flaws. ISI Web of Science regroups leading journal publications, but it excludes book

Nb of journal publications per year for 2002-2006 for per year publications journal of Nb 0.0 TM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 publications and invited keynote papers. Scopus regroups book and journal publications but it is Figure 5. Number of journal publications per year published restricted to a publishing group (ElsevierTM). The between 2002 and 2006, and listed in ISI Web of Science1, by civil and environmental engineering researchers at the period covered by the data must be carefully University of Queensland selected. On one hand, it must extend over several years to smooth small discrepancies. But it must be relatively short to analyse long-term trends and to

0.9 m-index 16.0 assess fairly the junior researchers. That is possibly Weighted number of citations pa 0.8 14.0 over 3 to 8 years, with several research quality Weighted number 0.7 assessment exercises using a 5 year period. of citations pa 12.0 0.6 10.0 0.5 8.0 0.4 5 FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS 6.0 0.3

4.0 0.2 5.1 Scholarship and real-world science m-index 0.1 2.0

0.0 0.0 Is there a future for traditional books and research 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 publications ? Obviously yes, because scholarship cannot be replaced by digital "band-aids", Figure 6. Weighted number of citations per annum for 2002-06 commercial databases and online access. All the e- and m-index based upon journal papers listed in ISI Web of Science1 for the same group of civil and environmental resources and digital information cannot substitute to engineering researchers as in Figure 5 critical thinking. They are no surrogate to innovation and scholarship, nor linguistic and geographical Some individuals claim a right to authorship because boundaries. Professionals, students and researchers they supplied the funds under which the project was must appreciate that digital aids, e-resources and done or the laboratory space or some equipments. electronic databases do not replace conventional These reasons alone are not sufficient. The libraries. Traditional library resources may include a authorship should be restricted to "those who wide range of support including audio-visual, hard designed the study, supervised the process of data copies of older books and 3D animation that are not collection, and are responsible for the content of the accessible on-line (yet ?). manuscript" (Fahmy and Fahmy 1991). This More importantly, and by far, civil and hydraulic definition does limit the author list to one to three engineering are not virtual disciplines. Professional authors typically. It is basically inappropriate and experience is critical, and digital Internet aids cannot unethical to include in the authorship these replace field experience and individual observations individuals who had no substantial involvement in (Chanson 2004b). They cannot convey the geometric the research. This is simply wrong : "Ethical scale of water systems, the broad range of relevant violations include [...] listing authors who did not time scales, the variability of river flows from zero during droughts to gigantic floods, the complexity of

9 basic fluid mechanics with governing equations characterized by non-linearity, natural fluid instabilities, interactions between water, solid, air and biological life, and Man's total dependence on water. For example, digital information cannot replace the personal experience of a tidal bore (Fig. 1, 2, 7 and 8), including the bliss of the surfer, the human losses caused by a tidal bore overtopping its banks in France or China, nor the ecological impact on the estuarine fauna and flora. The same e- resources cannot explain the present political instabilities centered around water systems and freshwater system issues, nor the broad and complex scope of the relevant problems: e.g., water quality, pollution, flooding, drought. Hydraulic engineering Figure 7. Surfer riding the Dordogne River tidal bore in Sept. is a real-world science for a better environment; it is 2006 (Courtesy of Antony Colas) not an "electronic game", a play station nor a game box. 5.3 The future of scientific publications 5.2 On-going developments In a world of too much information ("info- Digital publishing is like a tidal bore. For an pollution"), the users need to filter intelligently the observer standing on the bank, the bore is a fast- information. That is, quality over quantity. The next moving surge that can be easily missed if the timing generation of search engines will rank the scientific is wrong, even by a few minutes. But, for a surfer information based upon its standing, quality and riding the first wave (Fig. 7), the tidal bore is the scholarship, as well as its impact. In a near future, dream environment that may last a couple of hours we may see new specialised search engines (Fig. 8). Digital publishing is developing at a fast encompassing some form of research metrics to pace, with the relevant time scales of the order of a filter shrewdly the relevant information and rank month. Within the last decade, the scientific these astutely. publication industry shifted from paper to electronic A challenge will continue to be the protection of processes. Today all the scientific journals use an intellectual properties and copyrights. The impact of on-line electronic submission and review process. OARs in terms of intellectual copyright was already They further provide an "On-line First" category of discussed earlier. More generally, the security of accepted journal papers to appear in the forthcoming intellectual property constitutes a prime justification issues. Each paper is assigned an unique direct for scientific publishing: "if it is not published, it is object identifier (DOI), and each author will have worth nothing", "unpublished equals unfinished", his/her own researcher identification reference (e.g. TM "publish or perish". The new forms of digital ISI ResearcherID ). A number of new research scientific publications shall demand high ethical metrics have been proposed in the last three years, standards. And there will be more and more pressure this paper being no exception. New softwares are on expert-reviewers, associate editors and editorial introduced to compare the various metrics (e.g. TM board members. Publish or perish ). These developments will impact on the habits and Another on-going development is the e-books and e- practices of the authors. An author will value a place textbooks. As a book author himself, the writer of publication based upon a combination of the noted a rapid increase of e-book sales in the last 18 publication "impact factor", together with its digital months. This is linked possibly with the indexing and real impact on the profession (e.g. development of electronic book computer appliances TM usage statistics). The publishing industry will need like Kindle . But more importantly, it is associated to adapt to the users' needs, including the authors' with the widespread usage of Tablet PCs, slim practice and needs. We may see the development of notebook computers (e.g. MacBook AirTM) and even TM new scientific publishers in the form of scientific travel notebooks (e.g. Eee PC ) among high-school societies, universities, and professional associations, and university students, as well as young engineers. as well as the introduction of new forms of scientific In his own university classes, the writer observed publications. that the number of students bringing laptops during The development of Internet towards non-English his lectures and tutorials rose from none to nearly languages will be another major step forward. From 30% of the class in the last two years only.

10 September 2009, the Internet Corporation for Digital publishing and electronic aids shall never Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will open replace critical thinking and scholarship, nor real- domain and site names to non-English characters world experiences. But they constitute the new tools including Arabic, Chinese and Japanese characters. of future hydraulic engineers and researchers, with We may see a reduction of the bias of the digital many more on-going developments from researcher literature towards English and American works. identifier to e-books. The relevant time scale in Indeed scholarship and originality is not restricted to digital publishing development is of the order of a English-speaking countries and many hydraulic month. That is, a very short time frame in an engineering developments took place in non-English Eulerian system of reference. languages over the last couple of centuries.

6 CONCLUSIONS

In 2008, more than one billion people use a personal computer: the fact cannot be ignored. The digital information revolution is an on-going process that engineers and researchers should not disregard nor stop. Like a tidal bore in an Eulerian system of reference, digital publishing is progressing very rapidly and the pace is staggering. Practitioners and academics must be pro-active rather than passive in response to these changes that affect our whole environment, from the workplace to the personal Figure 8. Dordogne River tidal bore at sunrise in Aug. 2004 home. Do we want to be the surfer riding the tidal (Courtesy of Pierre-Yves Lagrée) bore, or the loser who misses his/her train? Peer-reviewed publications are a key element to guarantee the intellectual copyrights of research 7 GLOSSARY projects. The role of the expert reviewers is critical, but rarely valued for its true contribution to the Bélanger equation : momentum equation applied across a hydraulic jump in a horizontal channel; the equation was society and scientific community. It is believed that named after Jean-Baptiste Bélanger (1828). a recent increase in numbers of unethical and h-index : research metrics that is useful because it discounts dishonest behaviour is linked with the proliferation the disproportionate weight of highly cited papers or papers of digital information and multiplication of journal that have not yet been cited (Hirsch 2005). The number of items above this h-index, which is h, have at least h publications. Cheating and dishonesty have their citations. For example, a h-index of 12 means that the roots in a relatively small number of unscrupulous researcher has 12 publications that have 12 citations or individuals who discredit the entire profession. more. The h-index was originally designed for the field of The development of digital publising has seen the physics research, but it may not directly transfer to other fields of research. introduction and rapid expansion of open access m-index : ratio of the h-index to the number of years that the repositories (OARs) providing freely-accessible research papers have been published and cited (Hirsch bibliographic references to engineers and researchers 2005). This indicator is better suited to young researchers worlwide. The OARs provide further genuine than the h-index. Mascaret : French for tidal bore. information on the true impact of research Pororoca : tidal bore of the Amazon river in Brazil. publications in the form of statistical usage. These Positive surge: a positive surge results from a sudden statistics are challenging, and demonstrate that increase in flow depth. It is an abrupt wave front. simplistic naive indicators used by commercial Tidal bore : positive surge of tidal origin, developing in an estuary as the tide turns to rising. databases are inappropriate. Whelps : waves behind the leading edge of the tidal bore A series of newer research metrics is presented. The front. For an observer standing on the bank, the whelps are combination of weighted number of publications and the wave trains seen after the surge front passage. weighted number of citations gives a clearer, more objective assessment of individual scholarship using the single-authored publication as a reference. 8 REFERENCES Indeed only those co-authors who contributed AIAA Journal (2007). "Publication Ethical Standards: substantially to the work should be listed in the Guidelines and Procedures." AIAA Jl, Vol. 45, No. 8, authorship. Editorial, No. 8, p. 1794 (DOI: 10.2514/1.32639).

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