Introduction of digital publications and its impact on the civil engineering field

As a civil engineering researcher, publisher and examiner in peer-review committees, Professor Chanson shared his experience in the field of scientific publishing by recalling that "a research project needs to be published before considered completed". He broached the topics of digital publishing, open access repositories and the set of intellectual property constraints that such topics engender. At the outset, he indicated that "regardless of the type of digital assistance, it cannot replace the critical nature and intellectual capacities of the human being". Digital publishing thus raises some ethics issues, even though it may be accessed free of charge. Unrestricted access does not require a re-assessment of the associated impact, publication quality or bibliometrics. Quite to the contrary, this kind of open access serves to reinforce these aspects, which remain essential to researchers. Within this framework, Hubert Chanson proposes a new type of bibliometrics by combining two indicators (researcher contribution to an article as measured inversely to the number of authors and by the number of citations of published articles).

The professor reminded us that significant innovations have taken place in the world of computing and the phenomenon of digital publishing is currently undergoing major changes. Though the Internet first took shape in 1991, its development reached such a point that in 1998 the now famous search engine Google, used by the vast majority of us all, came onto the scene. Users however are overloaded with information that cannot always be authenticated. Until that time, the search for sources had been conducted using scientific publications distributed by well-known publishing houses. 2001 marked the introduction of open access repositories, which feature the characteristic of addressing information to a public of specialists yet comprising a much broader audience thanks to free access. This tool may be adopted by a university, a library, a laboratory, etc. The advantages here lay in the fact that quality information may be quickly delivered to both students and researchers, coupled with the fact that access remains free of charge and hence accessible to one and all. The repositories actually propose a database of peer-reviewed scientific articles.

The peer-reviewed scientific publications benefit from a quality control process and consequently highlights the research and intrinsic value of findings. The impact from research may be measured by the information delivered in terms of article downloads. Regarding the targeted research, the researcher and host laboratory enjoy a level of credibility and publicity commensurate with their efforts. Nonetheless, the researcher is only able to post his published article on the laboratory’s registered depository under the conditions set forth in the agreement and copyright status of the publisher; this has become standard protocol at the international level, with more than 80% of all scientific journals subscribing to this approach.

All of Professor Chanson’s publications can be consulted with unrestricted access on : http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/list/author_id/193/

Feel free to consult his publications on the following topics :

http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view.php?pid=UQ:23573
http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:124078
http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view.php?pid=UQ:121513

http://www.uq.edu.au/ e2hchans