August 2008
- TAA seeking judges for 2009 Texty, McGuffey Awards
- Ask your publisher to nominate your text for a 2009 Texty or McGuffey Award
- 2009 TAA Conference to be held in San Antonio
- TAA announces results of royalty rate survey
- TAA President responds to 'Wall Street Journal' article that blasts custom books
- Free articles get read but don't generate more citations, Cornell study finds
- 2008 Publishing Industry report finds large publishers planning to digitize books, launch e-books
- Pearson reports 17 percent increase in education sales
- Microsoft Research unveils free software tools to help scholars and researchers share knowledge
- Three-day international course looks at what makes a textbook effective
- Judge rules against Pearson in royalty suit
- Chilean Ministry of Education to hold 2008 International Seminar on History and Social Sciences Textbooks
- Editor seeking submissions from practicing librarians for new book on librarian authors
TAA seeking judges for 2009 Texty, McGuffey Awards
TAA is seeking judges for its 2009 Texty and McGuffey Awards. Judges must be published authors in one of the eight award categories: math, stats; communication / education / performing arts / visual arts; language / literature; computer science / engineering; physical sciences; life sciences; humanities / social sciences; and accounting / business / economic / management.
Entries are judged by no fewer than three but usually five judges. Judges who have a directly competing work are asked to sit out. Judges are asked to rank entries on a 1-5 scale in these criteria: interesting and informative; well organized and well prepared; up to date and appealing; teachability. In addition, judges are asked to describe strengths and special features that contribute to each work. Judges also are asked to describe weaknesses. In event of a tie on the rankings, these open-ended comments can assist the chief judge for each category in making a decision. The open-ended comments are made available to nominated authors, without judges being identified.
Judge Application Form (PDF)
For more information about serving as a judge for the 2009 Texty and McGuffey Awards, contact Janet Tucker, TAA's Managing Director, at (727) 563-0020 or TextandAcademicAuthors@taaonline.net
Ask your publisher to nominate your text for a 2009 Texty or McGuffey Award
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Ask your publisher to nominate your textbook or other learning materials for a 2009 Textbook Excellence Award or McGuffey Longevity Award. Textbook Excellence Awards (or "Textys") recognize current textbooks and learning materials that demonstrate excellence based on four criteria: interesting and informative; well organized and well prepared; up to date and appealing; and teachability. McGuffey Longevity Awards (or "McGuffeys") recognize textbooks and learning materials whose excellence has been demonstrated over time.
Texty and McGuffey entries must be officially nominated by publishers, but authors can ask publishers to nominate their book. Authors do not need to be members of TAA. The nomination fee for each book is $300.
Download Nomination PDF forms for 2009 Texty and McGuffey Awards.
The deadline for sending nomination forms and fees for the 2009 Texty and McGuffey Awards is October 15, 2008. The deadline to receive the books for judging purposes is November 15, 2008. These deadlines are flexible according to publication dates. Contact TAA headquarters if you need more time: (727) 563-0020 or TextandAcademicAuthors@taaonline.net
Learn more about TAA's Texty and McGuffey Awards: Click here
Read about TAA's 2008 Texty and McGuffey Award winners: Click here
2009 TAA Conference to be held in San Antonio
The 2009 TAA Conference will be held at the El Tropicano Riverwalk Hotel in San Antonio, Texas, June 25-27.
Conference room rates are $114 per night. The El Tropicano Riverwalk Hotel is located on the banks of the San Antonio River and offers a state of the art fitness facility, pool, sundeck, and a lounge that overlooks the River.
The Hotel is six blocks from the Alamo (http://www.thealamo.org), and nine blocks from Hemisfair Plaza and the Rivercenter Mall (http://www.shoprivercenter.com/main/index.php). It is 30 minutes away from Sea World (http://www.seaworld.com/sanantonio), Six Flags Fiesta Texas (http://www.sixflags.com/fiestatexas/index.aspx), and Schlitterbahn Waterpark (http://www.schlitterbahn.com/nb/)
Trolleys to downtown attractions leave approximately every 10 minutes outside the hotel (http://www.viainfo.net/BusService/Streetcar.aspx). River taxis leave from the Hotel every 40 minutes (http://www.riosanantonio.com/content/publish/riotrans.shtml)
Visit the hotel website at http://www.eltropicanohotel.com/
TAA announces results of royalty rate survey
TAA has announced the results from a recent survey of its textbook author members regarding their domestic and foreign royalty rates. Fifty-seven members responded to the 12-question survey, which was sent to TAA's textbook author members in May 2008. The purpose of the survey was to gather information that would provide TAA members with a useful tool in negotiating new contracts and/or amending existing contracts.
"The survey information is very useful in that it represents a significant number of respondents, publishers and disciplines," said TAA Past-President John Wakefield. "It will provide our textbook author members with information about prospective publishers in their fields, which will help in their decision of which publisher to approach with a manuscript."
The majority of members who responded were college textbook authors. The respondents represented 29 different disciplines. The largest number of responses were in math. The second largest was in computer science.
The number of separate publishers' imprints reported was 30. The total number of titles reported was 110 (104 in college, one in elementary and five in high school). The majority of respondents were reporting royalty rates for first editions. Other respondents reported royalty rates for 2nd through 11th editions, and one for the 15th edition.
For those college titles reported to be in the second or higher edition, 51 respondents reported more than $15,000 in previous edition sales. Seven respondents reported less than $5,000; ten reported $5,000-$10,000; and six reported $10,000 to $15,000.
Respondents' domestic royalty rates (before escalation):
• Highest (two titles, one each in computer science and electrical engineering) -- 20 percent
• Mathematics (one title) -- 18.75 percent
• Mathematics and computer science (one title each) -- 18 percent
• Chemistry (two titles) -- 17.75 percent
One author reported a rate based on "retail price", while all others are assumed to be based on publisher's net receipts.
Within the reported college titles, only four disciplines each had more than four title responses. For each of these four, the average royalty rates, across all publishers, were: mathematics, 15 percent; computer science 14.5 percent; anatomy & physiology 14.25 percent; psychology 12 percent.
Only 38 titles reported escalations of domestic rates (36 in college, two in high school), and only six reported second level escalations (five in college and one in high school). On foreign royalty rates, many authors did not respond, but the most frequent recorded response was "half domestic". Fifteen titles reported foreign rates the same as domestic.
Most respondents omitted any information on translation rates, so there was little statistical value in the remaining responses.
The number of titles reporting sole authorship was 46 of the 110 total. Respondents' percentages of royalties, where there were co-authors, ranged from three percent to 96.25 percent. There were only 26 positive responses to the question of renegotiated rates, 24 in college and two in high school.
Where respondents reported previous edition's rates renegotiated, the gain in rates ranged from 14 percent to 100 percent. Three responses (two in college, one in high school) reported decreases in rates.
View the full results of the survey:
Download TAA Survey on Publishers (.xls file)
Download TAA Survey on Disciplines (.xls file)
TAA President responds to 'Wall Street Journal' article that blasts custom books
 Paul Siegel |
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TAA President Paul Siegel responded to a July 10, 2008 Wall Street Journal article that condemns publishers' use of custom books as a solution to the loss of revenue from the sale of used books. Here is the text of his July 11, 2008 letter to the editors of the Wall Street Journal:
To the editors, Wall Street Journal
RE: "As Textbooks Go 'Custom,' Students Pay" [by John Hechinger, July 10, 2008]
Some of the publisher practices identified by Mr. Hechinger would seem hard to defend. But the article brushes with too broad a stroke, condemning practices that are not only ethical but also beneficial. In my experience, most university departments that work with publishers to create customized texts do so not to kill the market for used books, but because the format permits instructors to carefully pick chapters from several different books in a publisher's catalog so as to provide students with materials that mesh best with that department's unusual or even unique offerings.
In my own field of communication, different universities might have very different goals for their introductory classes. For some, a straightforward public speaking text will do just fine. For other departments, only a very hybrid text that introduces students to all facets of the field-- including advertising, public relations, and organizational training and development-- will do. Yet other departments might include only the most hands-on, skills-oriented components of the field-- e.g., public speaking augmented by exercises designed to enhance students' skills in one-on-one and small group settings. It is difficult and sometimes impossible to find the textbook to deliver what the syllabus promises, and the chance to customize texts by building from several extant volumes is a real boon.
For sixteen years I taught at Gallaudet University, almost all of whose undergraduate students are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Not surprisingly, customized textbooks are frequently used at Gallaudet. Where else might a class aimed at teaching students how to do presentations in the workplace necessarily require learning about the role of sign language interpreters, and the latest developments in assisted communication devices?
Also troubling was the article's suggestion that publishers who come out frequently with new editions of textbooks must be up to no good. I write textbooks in communication law. In any legal field, to be "out of date" frequently is to be wrong, as the ruling to which we devote a few paragraphs or pages of exposition today might be overruled tomorrow. Yes, many authors in such fields maintain web sites to help instructors and students wade through new cases, but such "updates" quickly grow unwieldy. Law texts are hardly unique in their need for frequent new editions. Think of how many dramatic scientific discoveries are reported weekly in major newspapers' sections devoted just to such advances. There are many fields in which books are glaringly outdated the moment they go to press.
Customized texts permit instructors to teach what they know best and what they believe their students need most. Frequent updates ensure that our students will be as prepared as possible to function in a rapidly changing environment. Surely there is nothing inherently unethical in either practice.
Paul Siegel
President, Text and Academic Authors Association
Professor of Communication
UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD
West Hartford, CT 06117
(860) 768-5418
Free articles get read but don't generate more citations, Cornell study finds
By Susan Lang, Cornell Chronicle Online
When academic articles are "open access" or free online, they get read more often, but they don't -- going against conventional wisdom -- get cited more often in academic literature, finds a new Cornell study.
The reason, suggest Cornell graduate student Philip Davis and colleagues, including three Cornell professors, is that most researchers probably already have all the access they need to relevant articles.
"It appears that higher quality articles -- in other words, more citable articles -- are simply made freely available," said Davis. "Previous studies using different methods simply got cause and effect reversed."
The study is published online in the British Medical Journal and will be published in the print edition Aug. 9.
The findings are particularly relevant to academic researchers, because the frequency with which a researcher's work is cited can be a factor in tenure and promotion decisions.
The researchers conducted the first controlled study of open-access publishing, randomly making some journal articles freely available while keeping others available by subscription only, to determine whether increased access to journal articles results in more article downloads and citations.
They found that in the year after the articles were published, open-access articles were downloaded more but were no more likely to be cited than subscription-based articles.
"The established dogma is that freely available scientific articles are cited more because they are read more," said Davis, a former science librarian who designed the study. "We found that open-access publishing may reach more readers than subscription-access publishing, but there is no evidence that freely accessible articles are cited any more than subscription-access articles."
The researchers randomly assigned 247 articles in 11 scientific journals, to free access. They measured how many times these articles were downloaded, the number of unique visitors to each article and how many times each article was cited.
"There were definitely more article downloads for freely accessible articles," said Davis. "Yet nearly half of these downloads were by Internet indexing robots like Google, crawling the Web for free content."
"There are many reasons to provide free access to the literature," said Davis. "A citation advantage, however, is not one of them."
Other co-authors are Bruce V. Lewenstein, professor of communication; Daniel H. Simon, assistant professor of economics; James G. Booth, professor of statistics; and Matthew J.L. Connolly, programmer and analyst, all at Cornell. The research was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Pearson reports 17 percent increase in education sales
Pearson announced its interim financial results on July 28. The company reported a 17 percent increase in education sales, with rapid growth in digital learning services and continued international expansion. Pearson Education, which accounted for 63 percent of all of the company's sales and operating profit in 2007, is in line with the company's expectations.
"Our momentum is strong, even in these tough economic conditions," said Pearson's Chief Executive Marjorie Scardino. "We have leadership positions in good markets and an effective growth strategy based on quality content, digital innovation and international expansion. That strategy makes us confident that 2008 will be another record year, and that we will continue to grow."
In North American Education, Pearson reported a strong market leadership position and said that demand for its products remains healthy. They expect their North American Education business to increase sales by around 10 percent at constant exchange rates (or by 2-4 percent in underlying terms).
In International Education, Pearson said they are well placed to benefit from the growing demand for materials, assessment, technology and related services at all stages of learning. They expect their International Education business to grow sales by around 10 percent at constant exchange rates (or in the low single digits in underlying terms). These growth rates include the impact of the completion of the UK key stage testing contract in 2007.
In Professional Education they continue to expect sales to increase in the low single digits at constant exchange rates.
For Education as a whole, Pearson said they expect 2008 margins to be similar to the 2007 level of approximately 15 percent, in spite of significant integration costs relating to the Harcourt businesses (which are included in their operating results). In 2009, they said they expect to increase Education margins by around one percentage point as they begin to realize the financial benefit of the acquisitions. Beyond 2009, they said they see further opportunities to increase margins in Education as they continue to consolidate their businesses.
Read the full report: Click here
2008 Publishing Industry report finds large publishers planning to digitize books, launch e-books
According to "Publishing Industry Market Review 2008, the book-publishing sector is experiencing greater change than any other sector of the publishing industry. Some of the large publishers are planning to digitise vast numbers of the books that they have published in the past (their so-called backlists). They also planning to launch thousands of e-books in 2008 and 2009, and some publishers are starting to sell a proportion of their books online. The major academic publishers are increasingly investing in digitised content and are printing much less material.
To purchase a copy of the report: Click here
Microsoft Research unveils free software tools to help scholars and researchers share knowledge
 Tony Hey |
At the ninth annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit held July 28 in Redmond, Washington, leaders from Microsoft Research outlined their vision for how Microsoft Corp. and academics can collaborate on research projects to develop technological breakthroughs that will define computing and scientific research in the years ahead.
Speaking to more than 400 faculty members from leading research institutions worldwide, Tony Hey, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s External Research Division, emphasized the role his group plays not only in supporting specific collaborative research projects, but also in improving the process of research and its role in the innovation ecosystem, including developing and supporting efforts in open access, open tools, open technology and interoperability. Toward that end, Hey announced a set of free software tools aimed at allowing researchers to seamlessly publish, preserve and share data throughout the entire scholarly communication life cycle. He also discussed collaborative initiatives intended to unlock the potential of multicore computing.
In the area of scholarly communication, Hey said, “Collecting and analyzing data, authoring, publishing, and preserving information are all essential components of the everyday work of researchers — with collaboration and search and discovery at the heart of the entire process. We’re supporting that scholarly communication life cycle with free software tools to improve interoperability with existing tools used commonly by academics and scholars to better meet their research needs.”
Microsoft researchers partnered with academia throughout the development of these tools to obtain input on the application of technology to the needs of the academic community, while Microsoft product groups submitted feedback on how the company’s technology could optimally address the entire research process. The collective efforts resulted in the first wave of many tools designed to support academics across the scholarly communication life cycle.
The following tools are freely available now:
Add-ins. The Article Authoring Add-in for Word 2007 enables metadata to be captured at the authoring stage to preserve document structure and semantic information throughout the publishing process, which is essential for enabling search, discovery and analysis in subsequent stages of the life cycle. The Creative Commons Add-in for Office 2007 allows authors to embed Creative Commons licenses directly into an Office document (Word, Excel or PowerPoint) by linking to the Creative Commons site via a Web service.
The Microsoft e-Journal Service. This offering provides a hosted, full-service solution that facilitates easy self-publishing of online-only journals to facilitate the availability of conference proceedings and small and medium-sized journals.
Research Output Repository Platform. This platform helps capture and leverage semantic relationships among academic objects — such as papers, lectures, presentations and video — to greatly facilitate access to these items in exciting new ways.
The Research Information Centre. In close partnership with the British Library, this collaborative workspace will be hosted via Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and will allow researchers to collaborate throughout the entire research project workflow, from seeking research funding to searching and collecting information, as well as managing data, papers and other research objects throughout the research process.
“Technology that effectively addresses the increasing need to integrate the research life cycle and provide a holistic end-to-end perspective has the potential to revolutionize the way academics collect data, publish findings and preserve information,” said Daniel Pollock, vice president and lead analyst at Outsell Inc., a research and advisory firm specializing in the information and education industries. “Companies that work closely with academia can understand how their products might benefit the scholarly workflow and so inform their product development. Microsoft is engaged with the academic community and is releasing a series of tools aimed at streamlining the academic workflow.”
Microsoft External Research has a history of supporting groundbreaking research, supporting approximately 400 research projects worldwide last year alone. One area of particular focus has been parallel computing, as exemplified by the creation of a Joint Research Centre with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers in partnership with Intel Corporation, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the past year. Furthering Microsoft’s efforts to unlock the potential of multicore processing, Hey announced that his group will provide $1.5 million to seven academic research projects as part of the Safe and Scalable Multicore Computing Program, with the goal of stimulating impactful research in multicore software.
Under Hey’s leadership, the Microsoft External Research team, which complements the work pursued by more than 800 Microsoft researchers in the larger Microsoft Research organization, accelerates the company’s efforts to build lasting public-private partnerships with global scientific and engineering communities. In collaboration with scientists and researchers from industry, academia and government, the External Research team pursues advances in four important areas of research: computer science; earth, energy and environment; education and scholarly communications; and health and well-being.
More information about the annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit is available at http://www.research.microsoft.com/workshops/FS2008
Tony Hey, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft External Research announced a set of free software tools to improve interoperability with existing academic research tools at the ninth annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit in Redmond, Wash., July 28, 2008. Hey outlined his vision for how the company and academics can collaborate on projects to help define computing and scientific research in the years ahead.
Three-day international course looks at what makes a textbook effective
By Kim Seidel
A three-day course on textbook writing and design held for the first time last February in The Netherlands, brought together 16 participants from 11 different countries to discuss what makes an effective textbook. It was such a success that the course will be offered again from Sept. 3-5 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
“We saw a market for a course which combined pedagogical and publishing-related issues,” said McCall, deputy director of the Centre for Publishing Studies, at Stirling University, Scotland. He and Arno Reints, director of the Centre for Educational Studies and Consultancy at the University of Utrecht, founded the course. "We believe the course holds a universal appeal, so we opened it up to an international audience."
The course has a particular relevance for countries which have made the move from state centralism to the private sector recently, said McCall. Participants came from Malaysia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Hungary, Netherlands, Finland and Slovenia.
There are many benefits for students and teachers to share an international perspective on textbook writing and design. “It allows different countries with very diverse publishing industries to compare and contrast their practices and learn from each other,” said McCall.
The course is geared toward educational publishers, teachers, educational quality managers, ministries of education and others in related positions.
“We hope they learned that textbooks can be evaluated professionally and objectively, using established criteria,” McCall said. “We are always learning new ways of looking at the issues from the participants.”
“What Makes An Effective Textbook?” will be the leading theme of the second course. It will look at ways of evaluating the quality of content; the pedagogical approach; design and presentation; and production standards. Classes include both lectures and group activities.
McCall and Reints hope to continue to learn even more in the next course. “We would like to identify what issues concern editors, authors and others when faced with the challenges of textbook evaluation,” said McCall.
The cost of three-day course is 595 Euros ($927). For registration and information, please e-mail Dr. Reints at a.reints@clu.nl.
Judge rules against Pearson in royalty suit
At a June 17, 2008 U.S. District Court hearing, Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum denied Pearson Education's motion to dismiss textbook authors Courtland Bovee and John Thill's claims that the publisher assigned the wrong royalty rate to certain sales through foreign subsidiaries and affiliates or electronic versions of custom-published books. She did grant the publisher's motion to dismiss the authors' claims regarding royalties for sales of print versions of custom-published books.
Bovee and Thill filed a suit against Pearson in May 2008 claiming the publisher had breached their contract and the covenant of good faith and fair dealing with regard to their author agreements.
Read Cedarbaum's Memorandum Opinion and Order: Download PDF (17 MB)
Chilean Ministry of Education to hold 2008 International Seminar on History and Social Sciences Textbooks
Based on the success of its 2006 seminar, "Seminario Internacional de Textos Escolares -SITE 2006", which demonstrated that high-quality textbooks were one of the most important factors in making the learning experience more relevant to students and teachers, The Chilean Ministry of Education, through its Textbook Unit, will hold a second international forum in Santiago, Chile, November 11 and 12, 2008.
The Ministry of Education has decided to continue with an international forum to maintain the dialogue on textbooks and to develop academic competences related to teachers' knowledge in this area.
The goal of the Seminar is to share the broad array of ideas, perspectives and to open spaces for discussion relating to teaching practices within History and Social Sciences textbooks from a national and international approach.
The specific goals of the 2008 Seminar:
- To analyze textbooks and teaching material considering the instructional design and content treatment in the light of their contribution to understand new social phenomena.
- To motivate history and social studies professionals to develop competences in the improvement of both the quality and the access to textbooks.
- To provide a forum to explore responses across the broad range of disciplinary perspectives found within History and Social Studies, especially in the area of citizenship.
- To exchange experiences considering relevant issues such as: the recognition and respect for individual and collective identity, the need for social and cultural cohesion, the multiple perspectives on history and contemporary issues within their historical context.
- To establish and maintain a centre of essential information on the expert organization and publications interested in the field of textbook improvement.
- To discuss new studies related to textbook improvement developed in different countries by professional groups.
Teachers, graduate students, publishers, university-based faculty of education researchers related to history, geography or social sciences are invited to be part of this Seminar.
The Seminar welcomes contributions on the following topics:
- History and social sciences didactics in textbooks.
- New disciplinary approaches in history, geography and other social sciences, and its treatment in textbooks.
- Content analyses in history and social sciences textbooks.
- How the subject of citizenship is shown in textbooks.
Learn more about the 2008 Seminar: Click here
(scroll down the page for the English version)
Editor seeking submissions from practicing librarians for new book on librarian authors
Editor Carol Smallwood is seeking U.S. and Canadian contributors for a new book entitled, The Published Librarian: Successful Professional and Personal Writing, which will be published by the American Library Association (ALA). Deadline for submissions is August 30, 2008.
Contributors must have significant publication credits for practical, concise, how-to articles to help the reader. No previously published, simultaneously submitted, co-authored material. Contributors must submit two articles sharing their publishing experiences. Both articles should be a total of 1900-2100 (for example, one article could be 1000 words, another 900-1100 words on another topic). Librarians with ethnic backgrounds serving diverse cultures are encouraged. Contributors will sign a Writer Agreement with ALA before publication. Submissions must be sent in MS Word. Authors will be compensated with a complimentary copy of the book and a discount on additional copies. Please submit topics for consideration along with a 65-70 word bio beginning with your library of employment and highlighting your publications. Place LIBRARIANS/your name on the subject line and send to: smallwood@tm.net
Editor Carol Smallwood, M.L.S., has written, co-authored, and edited 19 books including Educators as Writers for Scarecrow, Libraries Unlimited, Peter Lang, and others. Her work has appeared in English Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, The Detroit News, Poesia, and several others including anthologies. Pudding House Publications published her chapbook, 2008; Words and Images of Belonging co-edited with Aurorean editor is with an agent; see a recent book: Click here
Possible topics:
marketing, online publishing, where to send reviews, research skills for historical novels, using editing a library newsletter to edit books, diversity in publication, ideas from students for YA books, using tools like BIP to locate publishers for your books, storytellers turned picture book authors, blogs and author web sites, interviewing, writing groups, networking, using a technology edge, promoting your books at conferences. Using issues librarians face such as censorship in poetry, essays, memoir, short stories, columns.
The Foreword will be written by Bob Blanchard, Adult Services Librarian, Des Plaines Public Library. Contributor to Illinois Library Association Reporter; Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians (McFarland, 2008)
The Introductory Note will be written by Wayne Jones, Head of Central Technical Services, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Ed., Ontario Library Association, Access; Ed., E-Journals Access and Management (Routledge, 2008)
The Afterword will be written by Dr. Ann Riedling, LIS Faculty, Mansfield University. Learning to Learn: A Guide to Becoming Information Literate in the 21st Century (Neal-Schuman, 2006).
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