Are there research in engineering?

[kant]

I know that http://arxiv.org/ is used by physicists and mathematicians to deposite there pre- published academic papers. I wonder if there is something similar for the different branchs of engineering. I don t know if i am wrong on my opinion, but from doing some web searching, i have the feeling that there is much less engineering journals than mathematics, and physics journals. I wonder if this is indeed the case, and why that might be the case.

 

[D H]

The professional organizations for electrical engineers, computer scientists, and aeronautical engineers (IEEE, ACM, AIAA) produce a large number of journals. However, they are all very protective of their copyrights. It is not a good idea to drop an article bound for one of these journals into arxiv.org. Other engineering societies are similar.

 

[kant]

The professional organizations for electrical engineers, computer scientists, and aeronautical engineers (IEEE, ACM, AIAA) produce a large number of journals. However, they are all very protective of their copyrights. It is not a good idea to drop an article bound for one of these journals into arxiv.org. Other engineering societies are similar.

I don t if this is the case, but are there in general more math and physics journals, than engineering journals? What sort of researches do engineers do?

 

[russ_watters]

A lot of engineering research is on solving or (innovating on existing solutions) certain engineering problems. And there is an awful lot of that going on. I'd be surprised if there were more physics journals/papers than engineering ones out there because I suspect the number of engineering professors and phd's is higher. Not sure, though.

 

[kant]

^do you know where i can find the largest collection of engineering journals online?

 

[russ_watters]

Googling turns up a lot of hits. Most journals, I think, cost money, so the best place to find them is probably a library. There is an amazing variety of very specialized journals. Here's a random google hit for "coastal engineering" - I've never even heard of coastal engineering!: http://www.worldscinet.com/cej/cej.shtml

 

[FredGarvin]

It has already been mentioned, but places like IEEE and AIAA have tons of papers. Also take a look at the NASA technical report server. In my experience, a lot of the engineering research that goes on in the R&D world is written about, but many never leave the whitepaper stage that the company keeps on hand. I do work with certain government facilities that have engineers producing papers on a monthly basis (it seems like it anyways).

I may be off base, but I don't think a practicing engineer does not have the pressure to publish that many academics do.

 

[J77]

Aside from IEEE and AIAA, you could look at www.sciencedirect.com

 

[kant]

It has already been mentioned, but places like IEEE and AIAA have tons of papers. Also take a look at the NASA technical report server. In my experience, a lot of the engineering research that goes on in the R&D world is written about, but many never leave the whitepaper stage that the company keeps on hand. I do work with certain government facilities that have engineers producing papers on a monthly basis (it seems like it anyways).

what is this white paper? and Does it every get publish some where? perhaps in the company journal(?). Do you think the difficulty of have something like a preprint directory for engineering is because of patent issues?

I may be off base, but I don't think a practicing engineer does not have the pressure to publish that many academics do.

Well, i maybe wrong, but surely it seems academic engineers do have such pressure to publish. Can you tell me if there is a difference between the research objective of academic engineers and company engineers? Obviously, it seems no company would spend billions on research on a product only to give it away on a journal.

 

[russ_watters]

Well, i maybe wrong, but surely it seems academic engineers do have such pressure to publish. Can you tell me if there is a difference between the research objective of academic engineers and company engineers? Obviously, it seems no company would spend billions on research on a product only to give it away on a journal.

Well, that's just it - on a percentage basis, most engineers are not doing research because most do not work in R&D or academia. And for those in R&D, the research is often extremely proprietary and often does not get published - though a patent is in a way a 'published' design.

 

[kant]

Well, that's just it - on a percentage basis, most engineers are not doing research because most do not work in R&D or academia. And for those in R&D, the research is often extremely proprietary and often does not get published - though a patent is in a way a 'published' design.

Even so. Surely, there are academic engineers( professors in engineering) that do have to publish their work in academic journals. Otherwise, how do professors of engineering show their work to their department? i am skeptical that most professors of engineering work to design products for private coorporations.

 

[russ_watters]

That isn't what I said. I just said that proportionally, there are more design engineers working for private companies than there are professors working in colleges. So there are a lot of engineering technical journals that are less research oriented.

I also get the feeling that engineering professors don't have quite the push to get published as physics profs, though I don't know that for sure.

 

[J77]

I also get the feeling that engineering professors don't have quite the push to get published as physics profs, though I don't know that for sure.

Yeah, they do. There's just as much pressure -- if not more if experimental -- to get the grants in.

 

[FredGarvin]

what is this white paper? and Does it every get publish some where? perhaps in the company journal(?). Do you think the difficulty of have something like a preprint directory for engineering is because of patent issues?

A white paper is a generic term for a technical article or report. Usually they are kept internal to a company. However, many companies do post white papers on their web sites.

Patent issues and general sensitivity to proprietary information is definitely the issue here. Understand that when a company like mine funds an R&D program, it is usually with their own resources or those of other private individuals. Therefore there is absolutely nothing forcing them to publish their results. Now, if we were doing research under a NASA program that is declassified, then there will most certainly be something published. The extremely competitive nature of our business mandates we be extremely stingy with our proprietary information.

Well, i maybe wrong, but surely it seems academic engineers do have such pressure to publish. Can you tell me if there is a difference between the research objective of academic engineers and company engineers? Obviously, it seems no company would spend billions on research on a product only to give it away on a journal.

I am sure that a lot in academia have to publish. What the frequency of those requirements are I have no idea.