Passing the Baton
Publication: Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 1
On October 1, 2013, Professor H. Ronald Riggs of the University of Hawaii became the new Editor of ASCE’s Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering. My service as Editor for the past eight years has been one of the most satisfying aspects of my professional life. There were certainly many difficulties and frustrations during that time, including one caused by Mother Nature, when Hurricane Ike rendered my office out-of-order for several months in 2008. Others included complex situations between associate editors, reviewers, and authors. Yet, all this work was satisfying because many difficult situations were resolved with little rancor or animosity, and I had the good fortune to interact mostly with people who are extremely responsible, professional, and talented. I thank past and present members of the editorial board, authors, reviewers, ASCE staff (Kelly Anderson in particular), and COPRI staff (notably Tom Chase and Billy Edge) for their cooperation. It has been a privilege working with them.
It is also gratifying to see the Journal's progression, and see it take an important role in emerging issues, even publishing a focus issue on the engineering aspects of sea level rise. Our previous editor, Dr. Zeki Demirbilek, left big shoes to fill, and Ron Riggs and I are pleased that we continued the progress he began. We transitioned from paper files to the electronic submission system, Editorial Manager, in 2009–2010. The number of papers submitted to the Journal has more than doubled since 2005, and our review standards remain perhaps the most rigorous in the field. Yet, our submission-to-acceptance time frame has improved and is comparable to that of other journals in related disciplines, and the size of the Journal is increasing.
Each published paper is well written and of high quality. The Journal can boast that members of the National Academy of Engineers and faculty of some of the world’s top institutions, including chaired professors, are among its list of authors. In other words, any author can be assured that he or she is in good company at the Journal. In my travels around the world, I have been pleased to learn that the Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering occupies a position of pride and honor among present and prospective authors, and my colleagues on the editorial board have helped maintain that preeminent status.
I owe Ron Riggs a special debt of gratitude. No one could have been a better Assistant Editor and, unbeknownst to most, he has fully taken over editorial responsibilities on many occasions, when extenuating circumstances prevented me from conducting my duties. He brings a great deal of experience and talent to his new role as Editor. As I transition to the role of Emeritus Editor, I wish him the very best.
Note from Our New Editor
I am honored to be the new Editor of the Journal. Although the shoes I must fill are as big as the ones Vijay had to fill, I am fortunate to have worked with and learned from him over these years, and as a result, I believe the editorial transition has been and will continue to be fairly seamless to authors and readers.
As Vijay has indicated, the Journal is in good shape. Hence, it is a very opportune time for the Journal. Recent events such as the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2011 tsunami in Japan, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 have demonstrated all too clearly how vulnerable our coastal infrastructure can be. With climate change, rising sea level, and forecasted extreme weather events, as engineers we should anticipate such problems to increase. No other journal has the same broad scope that encompasses the vulnerabilities of the coastal infrastructure as does the Journal. As such, we can play an important role in disseminating state of the art research related to the engineering of resilient and sustainable coastal infrastructure.
Without sacrificing the current strength areas, we want to expand content on at-present underrepresented areas as well as growth areas. For example, engineering aspects of ports and waterways are not as well represented as are other areas in the Journal’s scope. In addition, coverage of growth areas such as ocean-based renewable energy, including offshore wind, and engineering aspects of other resource recovery, such as aquaculture, can be expanded. Climatic changes may open up engineering challenges with respect to ports, waterways, and coasts in the northern latitudes. The Journal will be an excellent venue in which to report archival contributions to the engineering solutions to these difficult problems.
The primary emphasis of the editorial board will be to continue to emphasize the desirability of the journal for both authors and readers. Both constituencies should view the Journal as the journal for engineering related to waterways, ports, and coastal and ocean engineering. To attract authors, a good but reasonably fast review/publication process as well as a reputation for quality are necessary. As such, the associate editors are critical. Special and focus issues can be valuable contributions. Those who would like to serve as guest editor for such issues are welcome; please contact me with your proposals.
Finally, the Journal will continue its commitment to the publication of well-written papers. Such papers are vital to the clear, unambiguous transmission of new findings and results to a broad audience. Based on the experience of the editorial board, there are some steps that authors can take to avoid three relatively common problems.
First, clear writing is critical to the transmission of ideas. We seek quality papers from an international body of researchers. Some authors may find professional editing services of particular use. If a paper is not sufficiently clear, it will be returned without review; the Journal does not have the resources to provide major editorial services. ASCE provides a list of some services (http://www.asce.org/journals/languagecleanup/).
Second, an abstract is a brief but complete summary of the work, but this is often not provided. From the ASCE website, “The abstract should contain the purpose of the work, the scope of the effort, the procedures used to execute the work (if of special interest), major findings, and key conclusions” (http://www.asce.org/Audience/Authors,–Editors/Journals/General-Journal-Information/Abstract/). By reading it, the reader should be able to determine why he or she should (or should not) spend the time reading the rest of the paper.
Third, too often a literature review is included that is a listing of a large number of papers with a statement or two of what was done, but no attempt is made to link the past work to the current work. A literature review should reveal inconsistencies in coverage, or boundaries, of past work. It should be clear how the present work is related to the past work, providing a clean transition to the current work. Maier (2013) provides a short but excellent discussion of the purpose of the literature review.
On behalf of the entire editorial board, I will close by saying that we look forward to working with the authors in the dissemination of their archival contributions.
— H. Ronald Riggs, University of Hawaii at Manoa
References
Maier, H. R. (2013). “What constitutes a good literature review and why does its quality matter?” Environ. Model. Softw., 43, 3–4.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 1 • January 2014
Pages: 2 - 3
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 27, 2013
Accepted: Sep 30, 2013
Published online: Dec 16, 2013
Published in print: Jan 1, 2014
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