Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
Technical Publications Strategy
October 2015
Prepared by the Technical Publications Committee
Submitted to the National Management Committee
Canadian Society for Civil Engineering Technical Publications
Strategy
The Context
Introduction
The Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) is a learned society created to develop and
maintain high standards of civil engineering practice in Canada and to enhance the public image
of the civil engineering profession. As part of this mandate, the CSCE provides opportunities for
members to contribute to the profession through its technical publications. The Canadian
vehicles currently available for members to publish or access research material include the
CSCE conference proceedings and the Canadian Journal for Civil Engineering (CJCE), whilst
the Canadian Civil Engineer is a broader, industry focussed magazine.
In addition, many members have written their own technical books or contributed to national
standards, none of which are promoted through CSCE. As a result, the CSCE created the
Technical Publications Committee (TPC) in 2014 with the view to developing strategies and
activities that would: (1) improve members’ opportunities to publish and access research
material; and (2) make research more accessible to and useful to practitioner members.
The TPC undertook a survey of the CSCE membership in February 2015 to:

determine the level of knowledge of CSCE members regarding CSCE technical
publications;

identify issues and concerns of CSCE members regarding technical publications; and

determine the demand for CSCE technical publications.
The results indicated that whilst 80% of members who responded to the survey regularly or
occasionally read the CJCE or CCE, 20% do not read or are not aware of these publications.
Those who do read them, use them for professional interest, research or personal interest.
Notably, members from academia use the publications primarily for research reasons and
contribute most to the CJCE and the annual CSCE conference. Public sector/industry members
use the publications for professional interest but seldom contribute. The survey also asked
members where they felt conference proceedings should be indexed and if they would
contribute to publications that joined academic and industry experience. The results from the
survey clearly indicated that there is room for improvement and identified possible areas to
pursue.
Aim
The aim of this document is to provide strategic direction on how the CSCE will lead, manage
and support the promulgation of its civil engineering technical publications.
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Drivers and Challenges
Drivers - Internal
There are two key internal drivers of this strategy:

National Office Information and Communication Technology Strategic Review ; and

Vision 2020.
The CSCE National Office Information and Communication Technology Strategic Review1 noted
the CSCE was not leveraging all of the opportunities available to promote itself in a way that
provides the best service to its members.
In June 2012, the Board of Directors approved ‘Vision 2020’. This document laid out three
strategic directions for the CSCE:

enhanced services to members;

growing with youth; and

leadership in sustainable infrastructure.
Going forward, the strategy must build upon the ICTSR and be in line with these strategic
directions.
Drivers – External
The federal government recently released the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.
The objective of the policy is “to improve access to the results of Agency-funded research, and
to increase the dissemination and exchange of research results.”2 To meet this objective, grant
recipients must ensure “any peer-reviewed journal publications arising from Agency-supported
research are freely accessible within 12 months of publication.” The CJCE is directly affected
by this policy as many contributors receive grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The CJCE editors have worked with the NRC press to
meet the intent. Whilst peer-reviewed conference proceedings are not explicitly impacted, it is
still to the benefit of CSCE to meet the intent of this policy as many conference attendees
(students and academics) are funded through NSERC grants.
Challenges and Limitations
There are three important challenges or limitations with respect to technical publications:

publication;

isolation;

internal capacity.
ITC Strategic Review submitted to the National Management Committee – March 2009
Government of Canada Tri-Agency Policy on Publications.
http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=F6765465-1 (last accessed on 16 July 2015.)
1
2
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Publication
How conference proceedings are compiled and published is changing. Most are no longer
published in ‘hard copy’ and there is no consistency in how they are published electronically.
Some conferences provide USB sticks, some CDs and some web-only access. This has led to
a requirement to standardize how CSCE conference proceedings will be formatted and
accessed, and how and where they will be indexed in international research databases.
Indexing is particularly important for academics as where they publish impacts their ability to
obtain tenure. Thus, conferences whose proceedings are indexed can attract greater numbers
of academic participants.
There is currently no documented CSCE standard for conference proceedings. Despite this, the
proceedings do have a common format from year to year mainly because the technical
committees pass on information from year to year. There are two main indexing issues: what to
index and where to index. The immediate answer to ‘what’ is conference proceedings but it
should eventually include all CSCE publications. Currently, it is impossible to find papers from
some past conferences. Options on ‘where’ publications should be indexed need to be
reviewed. Elsevier’s Scopus and Google Scholar are frequently cited as two leading options.
Finally, there must be open access to publications as most granting organizations (Canadian
and international) are requiring open access to agency funded research.
Isolation
The second challenge is fragmentation. The CCE is primarily viewed as a practical magazine
and the CJCE as an academic publication. This perpetuates the academic/industry isolation or
silos that are perceived to exist in the CSCE. The annual CSCE conference attracts both
academics and practitioners and should provide an excellent opportunity for sharing but the
proceedings are primarily academic papers and once the conference has ended, there is no on
line record of past conferences. Research by academic members has to be more accessible to
practitioner members as well as the general public. Likewise, there are excellent technical and
practical lessons from civil engineering projects that are of great benefit to academics and the
general public. The strategy needs to bring these two communities together so that each
benefits from the other’s knowledge and experience.
Capacity
Finally, capacity must be considered. As access to technical publications becomes the domain
of the internet, the IT capability and human resources (HR) capacity at national office could
become a limiting factor.
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The current approach to the control and
management of the CSCE’s technical
publications is disjointed. The CJCE is
published by the NRC Research Press with a
link on the CSCE website. Management of the
CJCE by NRC Press works well but
conference proceedings are everywhere.
Links to various conference proceedings from
2013-2015 can be found on the CSCE national
website. Conference proceedings from 2012
and before are currently available through
Curran and Associates for a fee with a link to
their site also on the CSCE website. The
national office currently manages the links to
these sites and the Curran arrangement.
If CSCE conference proceedings are to be consolidated and managed by the CSCE office,
there must the technological capacity (either internally or externally) to house and the HR
capacity to manage the database.
Opportunities
There are many opportunities for the CSCE to take control and drive technical publications
support to its members. These include but are not limited to:

developing non-academic summaries of papers presented or trends witnessed at CSCE
conferences;

consolidating members access to CSCE publications on one site;

promoting members’ (as authors or editors to books) publications;

upgrading the products store to include links to the above.
All of these contribute to the Vision 2020 strategic directions.
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Strategic Direction
The strategic direction presented for the CSCE’s technical publications is informed by Vision
2020.
The CSCE will use its technical publications to raise the profile of civil engineers in
Canada.
In doing so, the CSCE will be promoting and demonstrating how civil engineers are integral to
the daily life of all Canadians.
Guiding Principles
The following principles will guide decisions on the management of CSCE’s technical
publications.
Align with business
Leverage capacity
Learn from experience

promote CSCE

advances in IT

CJCE and NRC Press relationship

products store

HR

Curran & Associates model

member benefits

CSCE members

electronic proceedings from 2013
onwards
Objectives and Outcomes
There are three objectives and associated outcomes for this strategy.
Objective 1 - Accessibility
CSCE technical publications3 must be accessible. Accessibility has several layers:

open access to all where granting agency policy dictates;

open access to all participants of a conference; and

open access to the general CSCE membership.
Objective 2 - Value for members and the CSCE
Technical publications must provide value to CSCE members and to the CSCE. This value can
come from:

facilitating open access for members to publications;

ensuring CSCE conference proceedings are indexed;
3
This does not include technical publications which the CSCE sells through it Products store under
agreements with publishers or other professional organizations such as the Institute of Civil Engineering
(ICE).
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
promoting members’ publications through the CSCE;

encouraging knowledge sharing between industry and academic members by
enhancing opportunities for interaction; and

using CSCE publications to promote leadership in sustainable infrastructure.
Objective 3 - Guidance
If publications are to be accessible and have value, the CSCE must provide:

guidance in the form of templates for papers/case studies/posters; and

a conference proceedings standard that will facilitate publication and indexing.
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The Way Forward
The previous section described what the CSCE will do to meet the technical publications vision
but this is only half the equation. Most important is how it will accomplish this.
Objective
Align with business
Leverage capacity
Accessibility
 Provide public access to
‘draft’ conference
proceedings though
CSCE website –
promotes CSCE
 Use existing website
– may need to outsource proceedings
database
 Use CJCE/NRC Press
‘open access’ model for
draft, non-indexed
proceedings.4
 TPC to investigate
costs and to work
with national office to
complete necessary
paperwork for
SCOPUS/Google
Scholar indexing
 “Curran” model to be
considered as structure to
access to past
proceedings but database
brought back ‘in house’
 TPC to work with
conference technical
chairs to recommend
conference
papers/cases as
potential articles for
Canadian Civil
Engineer (CCE)
 Use model from Regina
2015 to encourage greater
industry participation in
conferences through case
studies
 Keep past conference
websites
 Members to have
access to final
conference proceedings
through CSCE website
Value
 Index conference
proceedings in Scopus
& Google Scholar
 Consider including
CJCE in membership
 Promote member
publications on CSCE
website, in e-bulletins &
in CCE
 Identify possible
publications of foreign
engineering bodies to
facilitate access for
members
Guidance
 TPC to work with
editors of CJCE to
consider ways to
encourage
papers/cases from
industry in CJCE
Learn from experience
 TPC to identify potential
new CSCE position/white
papers, technical
publications/content
(books, monograms,
videos, technical
webinars) based on
response to previous
efforts

TPC to prepare conference publication guideline – paper format/authors
instructions/templates/indexing requirements

TPC to develop procedure for recommending conference papers/cases as
potential articles for Canadian Civil Engineer
4
NRC Press meets intent of Tri-Agency policy by making CJCE articles available in unedited form at
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/journal/cjce
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Conclusions
This strategy provides direction for the CSCE to move forward and lead, manage and support
the promulgation of its civil engineering technical publications. It links the objectives of
accessibility, value for members and guidance to three principles: align with business; leverage
capacity; and learn from experience. These principles will guide how the CSCE will implement
this strategy.
As a result of this strategy, the CSCE will be in a better position to leverage the knowledge and
experience of all its members to promote the civil engineering profession and demonstrate how
civil engineers are integral to the daily life of all Canadians.
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