Volunteer Activities

The intention is that this book series becomes a long-run, sustainable source of open actuarial texts. Below is a proposed structure to make that happen. At these early stages, we simply want volunteers to help develop a pilot book to demonstrate proof of concept. If you want to help write text, create exercises/examples, review or other ways to support, the easiest thing to do is just write Jed Frees <jfrees@bus.wisc.edu>.

In the long-run, there are many ways that volunteers could contribute. It may be a few years before we get to this level of sophistication but here is a proposed structure for coordinating volunteers. This structure suggests roles in which you might volunteer your time.

I. Chapter Oversight Teams

We would like to have a team of people that provide guidance to authors for each chapter. Responsibilities include:

• Initial Chapter Development. Ensure that learning objectives are met. Provide overall guidance to authors on readability and development of ideas. Provide additional exercises, case studies, and applications to be included on the site. Ensure that submissions (exercises, case studies, and applications) by others are suitable for inclusion on the site.

• Chapter Maintenance. Ensure that learning objectives are consistent among chapters and appropriate for various professional actuarial organizations. Initiate and review changes to the chapters and supporting elements. Ensure that submissions (exercises, case studies, and applications) by others are suitable for inclusion on the site.

II. Topic Oversight Teams

To ensure consistency and high quality for all chapters, we envision having a number of editors (possibly with teams for support) who will examine specialized aspects of the text. These topics include:

• Exercise Editorial Team. Encourage volunteers to write exercises. Ensure that exercises are suitable for inclusion on the site. Encourage development of exercises over several chapters.

• Bookdown and WordPress Editorial Team. Promote the use of R's Bookdown and WordPress as learning tools. Encourage volunteers to utilize latest plugins/toolkits, often by developing examples. Ensure consistency of presentation across chapters.

• Graph Editor. Ensure high quality and consistency of graphical displays across chapters, exercises and other supporting elements. Provide illustrative code to help authors and other contributors present high quality graphical displays.

• Video Editor. Ensure high quality and consistency of videos across chapters, exercises and other supporting elements. Provide illustrative templates to help authors and other contributors present high quality videos.

• Industry/Applications/Case Studies Editorial Team. We wish to include applications and case studies as separate sidebars. The intent is to support the chapter but not be critical to the chapter development. These sidebars reinforce concepts and provide benchmarks for understanding. They will give insights into different practice areas (e.g., health versus property and casualty insurance) and will serve to highlight different practices in different countries. This editorial team will encourage volunteers to write application modules. The team will work closely with the chapter oversight and exercise teams to determine whether submissions are suitable for inclusion in the sight.

• History Editor. Historical vignettes can be interesting in their own right and remind us all of the foundations of our discipline. The editor will encourage volunteers to write separate sidebars on historical developments and encourage authors to include appropriate historical developments (including references) in the chapters. Decisions about suitability for inclusion in the site remains with the appropriate chapter oversight team.

• Data/Statistical Software Editorial Team. Ensure high quality and consistency of statistical demonstrations across chapters, exercises and other supporting elements. Provide illustrative code to help authors and other contributors present high quality statistical analysis. Develop a repository of data that can be used in the study of Loss Data Analytics. In addition to "R", also provide limited support for users of other software environments, such as Microsoft's Excel and SAS.

• Glossary Editor. Maintain the initial standards for notation conventions, continue its development, and ensure consistent use across chapters. Develop a vocabulary for specialized terms used in the text and provide a glossary of such terms. Work closely with the International Translation Editorial Team.

• International Translation Editorial Team. Recruit volunteers to provide translation. Monitor translated versions, ensuring high quality results. Develop a strategy to extend translations of successive versions of the text. Develop a strategy on alternative languages to pursue for translation.