Open Actuarial Textbooks Project: Development Site
This site is for teachers, authors, and others who seek to contribute to the development of free and open actuarial textbooks.
Project Goal
The goal is to have the actuarial community author our textbooks in a collaborative fashion. If this is your first visit to this site, you may wish to get additional background information about the project and its relationship to open education. See the Open Actuarial Textbooks Project Site for more information about the project.
Loss Data Analytics - Edition One
The first edition of Loss Data Analytics, an interactive, online, freely available text, was completed in 2018.
- The online version contains many interactive objects (quizzes, computer demonstrations, interactive graphs, and the like) to promote deeper learning.
- A subset of the book is available for offline reading in pdf and EPUB formats.
- The online text has been translated into Spanish to promote access to a worldwide audience.
The Open Actuarial Textbooks Landing Page provides access to resources supporting the first edition.
Usage Data
For the book, and many of the supporting projects, we now provide Google Analytics Usage Data. These statistics help to demonstrate the impact of this project on actuarial education.
Development Site
We are currently working on three projects to support open actuarial education: (1) a short course featuring R code tutorials to support Loss Data Analytics, (2) a second edition of Loss Data Analytics, and (3) a new book on life contingent mathematics.
Visit the Short Course; you can see how it came about at our Short Course Development Strategy.
Loss Data Analytics - Edition Two
Work has begun in 2022 to develop a second edition of Loss Data Analytics (LDA).
- A Steering Committee has assembled a set of Guiding Principles to be used to direct the development of the second edition.
- Prospective contributors should start with our Style Guide
- This repository describes the interactive features being contemplated for Loss Data Analytics.
- The most recent version of the second edition is available at online version in .html format.
- The source code is available at our GitHub site.
Life Contingencies
The initial focus of the project is on Loss Data Analytics although we hope to expand to other actuarial texts. In that spirit, a small group has started work on another core discipline within actuarial science.
- The tentative title is Life Contingencies: The Mathematics, Statistics, and Economics of Life Insurance; this provides an initial draft of the text.
- See the development GitHub Site for the underpinning code.
Other Efforts
R Codes for Loss Data Analytics
This site provides files that generate R codes to support the online text Loss Data Analytics. To get an idea of what the files will generate for users, see the Online Version from R Code Support. Source code is available at our GitHub site.
Overheads for Loss Data Analytics
This site provides chapter summaries in the form of overheads to support the online text Loss Data Analytics. Overheads in .pdf format and source code is available at a development GitHub site.
Translation Demonstration
- Here is a version of the book where we translated a section from English to Malay.
- The instructions for doing the translation are at a repository on GitHub.
We are also experimenting with a WordPress site.
Your Help
As described in our License, anyone can use these files. If you want to help and would like more info, please write Jed Frees jfrees@bus.wisc.edu. Much of our efforts are currently being organized the umbrella of the Astin Academy.
Mission of ASTIN Academy
The mission of the ASTIN Academy is to provide high quality free educational materials in non-life insurance to actuarial students across the world. The Academy is committed to open course development under Creative Commons license and seeks innovation in teaching methodologies and application of technology. Let’s build the future of actuarial education together.