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Join us for
the 2008 TAA Conference at Harrah's in Las Vegas, June 19-21
2008
TAA Conference Registration
Deadline Extended! Early Registration Deadline
is May 15, 2008
Register
Now
$195 for
Members before May 15, 2008
(after May 15, 2008, $245)
$245 for Non-Members before May 15, 2008
(after May 15, 2008, $295)
Join TAA
for $30! Click here for info
Book your
room at Harrah's at the special $99 conference rate by calling
888-458-8471. Use the special group code SHTEX8, when making your
reservation.
The deadline
for reserving a room at Harrah's for the special conference rate
is May 19, 2008.
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Harrah's Las Vegas web site
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Roundtables
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Frank
Wilson
Laura
Taalman
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Working
with Co-Authors
Moderators:
Frank Wilson, Professor, Chandler-Gilbert Community College
and
Laura Taalman, Associate Professor of Mathematics at James Madison
University
Frank Wilson
has been authoring textbooks since 2002. He was the sole author
for his first three books including 2007 TAA Texty award winner
Finite Mathematics and Applied Calculus. In 2005, Frank
invited coauthor Scott Adamson to join him in working on Applied
Calculus, the fourth book in the series. With four books
on the market or in development when he signed a contract for
a three-book College Algebra series in 2006, Wilson knew he would
need to assemble a writing team to assist with the work. As a
fulltime professor and father of five, he recognized that bringing
on coauthors would help him keep his life in balance while continuing
to produce high quality textbooks. In 2006, he signed three coauthors
as independent contractors for Make It Real Learning, Inc., a
company he established to manage his textbook enterprise. With
experience working with and without coauthors, Wilson can comfortably
speak to the drawbacks and benefits of collaborating with colleagues
in producing commercial educational materials. Before beginning
his latest series, Wilson and his coauthors had to grapple with
issues such as intellectual property ownership, business structure,
and compensation. The deliberation process was intense and taxing
but, in the end, the writing team came up with an arrangement
that appropriately rewarded the coauthors for their contributions
while ensuring the lead author maintained control of the content.
With well-defined responsibilities and a solid business structure
in place, the team produced over 2000 pages of high-quality content
in eight months.
Laura Taalman
is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at James Madison University.
She received her Ph.D in mathematics from Duke University, and
did her undergraduate work at the University of Chicago. Her research
includes singular algebraic geometry, knot theory, and the mathematics
of puzzles. Laura is the author of a textbook that combines calculus,
pre-calculus, and algebra into one course, and one of the organizers
of the Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics (SUMS)
Conference at JMU. She has received the Trevor Evans Award and
the Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching from the Mathematical
Association of America, and a Texty Award from the Text and Academic
Authors Association. Laura has enjoyed the privilege and survived
the experience of working with many co-authors, on projects including
a general-interest article, an in-progress calculus textbook,
scholarly research articles with colleagues and students, and
perhaps most challenging, a Sudoku puzzle book for which the coauthor
was none other than her husband.
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