Prospective Authors

As you will see with the developing Implementation Plan, we anticipate having several authors and many other types of contributors that will participate in the project. The goal is to have the online text be a product of the larger actuarial and educational community and thus reflect our shared sense on the topic of Loss Data Analytics. As is traditional with books, as a group we do not anticipate weighing in on assessment, as this subject is more appropriate for individual educational and professional organizations to address.

Our team believes that this is an exciting project and has the potential to influence the future of actuarial education in a dramatic way. Naturally, there are several reasons for someone to participate as an author or other type of contributor:

Cutting Edge Educational Activity

An open educational resource is at the forefront of educational innovation and this project represents the first actuarial effort in this direction. Please see a few examples from other fields in our Open Education Resource page.

Low Entry Cost

If we reach our goal having many authors, then each author (or author team) would write only one chapter. As many of the learning objectives have been in existence for years, we are hoping that many prospective authors would be able to write a chapter based on polished lecture notes and examples that were written long ago. For many, this could be relatively little effort. (The American History "Yawp" project claims over 300 volunteers!)

Recognition by Students and Peers

Unlike other open sources such as Wikipedia, we intend to publish author names and affiliations by chapter (as well as individuals that author significant revisions). This means that authors will be recognized by students and peers for this contribution to actuarial education.

Recognition by Others

Chapter contributions also provide an important service to the profession, an important component of employment in many educational and industry organizations. Again, we intend to publicly recognize such contributions.

Influence the Educational Direction

Through authorship of a chapter, case study, a set of exercises, or other contributions, you will be able to influence the direction of actuarial education. Instead of a small group of authors, we anticipate having a large team with a shared vision; you will contribute to this vision. We will establish a peer review system so that you will be able to influence the direction of other chapters, particularly those related to ones that you are authoring. As the text content develops over time, we also anticipate making periodic changes; these can be easily accommodated in a web environment (and not controlled by the economics of the publishing world).

Set Standards for Analysis and Presentation

Especially through exercises and graphical displays, our team will be able to set standards when people learn about loss data analysis. These standards will implicitly influence future industry standards for generations to come.

Royalties

What you do not get is a royalty. The online text will be freely available and so there will be no book revenues to share. We do anticipate applying for grants to support this project. This money will primarily used for student and administrative support with perhaps some money left over for conference support for authors.

Style Guide. Please see our Style Guide for Authors.

Creative Commons Form: So that all may use your work, please sign our Creative Commons form.