The eighth installment of TAA Member Phil Wankat’s curation and commentary of the archival issues of the TAA Report (now The Academic Author), Software, is now available. Articles include “Multimedia: 20 Questions for Prospective Software Authors,” and
“12 Compelling Reasons for Authors and Publishers to Create Software Enhancements to Books.“
Help Shape TAA’s Future! Nominate Yourself or a Colleague for a Position on the TAA Council
The TAA Governance Committee is seeking nominees for two open positions on the TAA Council, the association’s governing board. The deadline to submit a nomination is Tuesday, February 20, 2024. All terms start July 1, 2024. The term for Council positions is three years.
Council Members regularly participate in the work of the Council through attendance at virtual and in-person meetings, active participation, and ongoing email communications. They are expected to attend quarterly virtual meetings and up to two in-person meetings, one of which is held the day before the start of the annual conference in June. Most travel and lodging expenses related to attending the in-person meeting is covered by TAA. Learn more about the roles and responsibilities of the TAA Council. Current TAA Council Members.
TAA Joins Five Other Author Groups in Support of Respondents in Supreme Court Copyright Case
The Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) joined with five other author groups to file an amicus brief in support of the respondents in a U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit arguing whether under the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations rule, and the “discovery accrual rule” plaintiffs in copyright infringement cases “can recover damages for acts that allegedly occurred more than three years before the filing of a lawsuit.”
The “discovery rule” means that the statute of limitations starts running from the date the infringement is discovered rather than from the date the infringement occurred. This means that even if a work was infringed 10 years ago, if I discovered it today, I would have the next three years to decide whether to bring a claim. The question in this case is: even if the infringement happened ten years ago and I discovered it today, could I still recover damages for the infringement that occurred ten years ago?
Eight TAA Members Awarded TAA Conference Travel Grants
Eight TAA members were awarded travel grants to attend TAA’s Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference in Nashville June 21-22.
Each grant covers the cost of two nights of hotel and conference registration. The grants were made possible through gifts from several generous donors, including Robert Christopherson, Bruce Edwards, Laura Frost, Thomas Heinzen, Paul Krieger, Kevin Patton, Nilsa Perez-Cabrera, Jamie Pope, Theresa (Terry) A. Thompson, and Ruth Werner, whose gifts were matched 1-1 by Michael Sullivan’s $50,000 matching grant. TAA is grateful for the generosity of these donors in supporting this new program!
ChatGPT and Me: Adapting to Teaching and Writing in the Age of AI
In my first year as a Department Chair in 1992, I was in a meeting with the other chairs in my school when one of them informed me that he had sent me an email. “Email!” I replied. “What on Earth is an email?” (Those may not have been my exact words, but I did say something to that effect.) I left the meeting thinking I was busy enough and did not need yet another imposition on my time, which something called email seemed like it promised to be. While I was proven right, I think, that email has certainly come to occupy a fair portion of our time (those of a younger generation than mine are wondering, I am sure, what we ever did without it), I was definitely wrong in thinking that I could somehow avoid it and simply refuse to use it (though I know one of my colleagues who took exactly that approach until she sadly passed away a few years ago)
TAA Featured in New Book on Teaching Research Methods
The Textbook & Academic Authors Association was featured in a new book on research methods published by Edward Elgar Publishing, entitled Handbook of Teaching and Learning Social Research Methods.
TAA member and Research Community Manager for SAGE Publications Dr. Janet Salmons co-authored Chapter 23, “Teaching research methods online: informal or semi-formal professional development,” which featured TAA’s webinar program and facilitated writing groups, including the TAA Writing Gym and the Month of Motivation.