  We report the results of a multi-epoch survey of water maser observations at
22.2 GHz with the Medicina radiotelescope from 44 bright rimmed clouds (BRCs)
of the northern hemisphere identified by Sugitani et al. (1989) as potential
sites of star formation. The data span 16 years of observations and allow to
draw conclusions about the maser detection rate in this class of objects. In
spite of the relatively high far-infrared luminosities of the embedded sources
($L_{\rm FIR}\ga 10^2$ L$_\odot$), H$_2$O maser emission was detected towards
three globules only. Since the occurrence of water masers is higher towards
bright IRAS sources, the lack of frequent H$_2$O maser emission is somewhat
surprising if the suggestion of induced intermediate- and high-mass star
formation within these globules is correct. The maser properties of two BRCs
are characteristic of exciting sources of low-mass, while the last one (BRC~38)
is consistent with an intermediate-mass object. We argue that most BRCs host
young stellar objects of low-luminosity, likely in an evolutionary phase later
than the protostellar Class 0 sources, and that a significant contribution to
the observd IRAS luminosity comes from warm dust heated by the radiation from
the bright rim.
