Implementation Plan

We are contemplating gathering several co-authors to build an online text on Loss Data Analytics.

Recruiting Team Members: We are now seeking volunteers to become editors, authors, and reviewers. See

our Call for Volunteers page for more information. See the Interested Parties sub-page for a few people who have expressed interest in the project.

Delivery Mechanisms

For developing and testing content, we are now using R's "bookdown" package for creating online content, .pdf and .EPUB versions. These will be available on various Github sites so that any interested reader can immediately download the most available version, use it, and potentially suggest improvements. See our supporting sub-page for further discussion of this delivery mechanism.

For a static version, one option is to convert the R bookdown format (a type of "markdown") into a WordPress site. Although WordPress is built for blogging, it is so flexible that you can trick it into being an online text site. It is freely available and has tremendous worldwide support. Very importantly, its content can be translated into different language so that a user can readily switch languages at the click of a button. It is now becoming the go-to system for open educational resources. Jed Frees has built a demonstration WordPress site (focusing on regression, not loss data analytics). See our supporting sub-page for further discussion of this delivery mechanism.

You will also find many publicly available data sets at Jed's regression book site. These datasets are mostly related to insurance. Although selected for regression applications, many of them will be suitable for loss models application.

Funding. With a year or so of pilot work, we anticipate applying for funding. This would provide some very modest support and honorarium to co-authors and student helpers. The online texts will be free and available to all so no royalties for authors.