Royalties

We offer 50% royalties to authors of continuing education courses for as long as SunCam offers the course.

If you create a very popular course that sells 500 copies at $100 each, we will send you monthly royalty checks totaling $25,000 and your course will continue to be useful to others and financially rewarding to you for many years to come.

We will pay the royalties to one or more individuals, a partnership, a corporation, a trustee or an assign. If you have another idea or request, we will be happy to consider it. Payments are made monthly in US dollars no later than the 15^th of the following month.

SunCam’s duties

For our share of the revenue we perform the following duties:

1.     Secure agency approvals for courses,

2.     Host the courses on our web site,

3.     Market the courses to engineers worldwide,

4.     Process orders,

5.     Score the tests,

6.     Issue certificates of completion,

7.     Reporting results to engineering boards,

8.     Maintain an archive of course completion records and

9.     Write checks to authors.

Agreement

We have a draft “Course Author Agreement” prepared that may answer some of your questions about the business arrangement. The copy now posted has been reviewed by our attorneys and is ready for signing. You can view the agreement at http://www.suncam.com/Author-Agreement.pdf. (NOTE: SunCam will prepare final agreements including any adaptations required for multiple authors, corporations, trusts etc.)

This agreement does not have a fixed term and could reasonably be expected to survive for many years. In fact, the agreement could survive the author therefore; you may want to consult an estate-planning attorney before signing a contract.

NOTE: The author of a course has a duty to be available to answer technical questions from customers. It is imperative that we have the author or someone of equal competence available to answer these occasional questions, so in planning your estate, be sure to identify someone who will be available to take over those duties. If we have no one to refer technical questions to, we will be forced to terminate the agreement and/or course offering.

Copyrights

Your course belongs to you and SunCam will make no claim of copyright or ownership for your work-product. The Author Agreement described above only grants SunCam the exclusive right to distribute your course, not ownership. If your course materials have been copyrighted by others through publication or otherwise, it will be your responsibility to obtain a written release to offer the course on SunCam’s website. You will be required to provide SunCam with copies of the written releases prior to publication.

Qualifications

We seek engineering educators and professional engineers who are qualified by education and experience in the subject matter of the course that they propose. A biography that demonstrates solid education in your field of engineering along with professional licensure or advanced degrees combined with extensive experience or research in the subject matter of the course are required. Your biography must support the subject matter of the course. If your degree and license are in structural engineering, we will be reluctant to allow you to publish a course in electrical or mechanical engineering regardless of your years of experience in those fields. Courses must be written in English (at least for now) and royalty payments will be made in US dollars. Otherwise, we have no restrictions on the physical location and/or nationality of the author.

Course Topics

All courses must fit into one or more of the following categories. These are the engineering disciplines for which a Principles and Practice of Engineering examination has been offered by the National Council for Examiners of Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). This requirement is written into the rules of many state boards of engineers.

Planning

You may have only one course in mind but our general advice to course authors is to plan and outline a series of courses on the selected topic starting with a broad, general overview and progressing to more detailed, specific and/or advanced coverage of a subject. After your first course, with each new release in the series we will contact all of your previous customers to announce the new arrival. A logical series of course releases will build a following for your work and increase your royalties.  

We will happily take new courses as you produce them on your schedule. One a month or one every year or two works just fine for us. When we post your first course, we will also tell customers about your future courses. We’ll solicit comments and ask customers to tell us what courses they want to see.

Course guidelines

Courses may be in advanced subject or fundamentals. The individual courses may be 1, 2, 3 or 4-hours in length (one hour=50 minutes). The courses may include text, photos and illustrations (but not video) and should be approximately 10 pages per hour of credit. If you make extensive use of photos and illustrations then more pages will be necessary. We will convert the course documents to Adobe Acrobat (PDF) when we post them on the web site.

Other than the final conversion to PDF format the Author will be responsible for the authoring, editing and finished layout of the course materials. SunCam will only accept courses that are well written, edited to perfection and presented in a professional layout. If you have mathematical formulas in your course materials we will insist that you present them using the mathematics formatting similar to “Equation Formating” in Microsoft Word.

In naming your course, try to avoid the dull and obvious choices like “This is a course about XXX”. Use a title that attracts a customer’s attention and tells them why they need the course like “What you must know about XXX” or why they will want to take the course like “XXX simplified”. If it is an introductory course, an advanced course or a crossover course (i.e. Structural Engineering For the Non-Structural Engineer) be sure to tell them in the title.

Test questions

The test can be true/false or multiple choice (any number of choices) and should be 8-10 questions per hour of course length. A sample of our online tests may be found at http://www.suncam.com/SampleTest.pdf

 We highly recommend that you make no effort to write questions until the course document is in its finished form. Most course documents will go through extensive editing and if you write the questions too soon you could end up editing out the answer.

Your web page

Within the SunCam store, we will develop a web page for you and your course offerings. Typically, your page will include your photo and biography followed by a listing of courses.

 By clicking on the course name, a customer will be able to read your description of the course. In addition to the description, there will be links to open the complete course document and a test worksheet listing all the questions. These documents will be in an Adobe Acrobat format, restricted to allow printing but not copying or editing.

 Anyone will be able to read the course without paying (similar to having your published work on the shelves of a public library) but no continuing education credits will be awarded unless the course is purchased and completed successfully.

 Authors will also have the option to make brief promotional mention of their own commercial enterprise or that of their employers or books they have published.

Course ratings

Customers will be asked to rate your course using a 5-star system similar to Amazon.com and to leave comments. The ratings and comments will be available to other customers to help them make their decision about course purchases. Courses that are entertaining, informative and carefully crafted will get high ratings, positive comments and many customers.

Schedule

Here’s something to consider about the completion date for your first course. All 35,000 Florida PEs renew their licenses on 2/28/2009 and about 80% of the CE credits will be earned after renewal notices hit the mailboxes in early November. We have a large database of engineers nationwide but about 60% of our business has been from Florida. We have a steady flow of orders year-round but a very busy 4-months every 2-years for Florida. If you could have your first course ready by September in time for the Florida rush, it will have a much better chance of success.

Passwords

The mechanics of the process may not be particularly interesting to authors but we control access to tests with a password and username system. A customer selects one or more course(s) and adds them to their shopping cart. When they checkout, they receive an email with a password and username for each course that they have selected. The email also contains instructions and links for logging on to the test and for opening the course documents.

 In addition to the username and password, the login screen asks for name, license number and email address. After logging-in, the username and password are disabled to prevent further use and the customer is given a special access code that allows the test to be interrupted and restarted at any time.

 When the customer completes the test and clicks on the “Submit” button, the test is instantly scored. When the customer receives a passing score, a certificate of completion is displayed and emailed to the address that was provided at login and the detailed results are emailed to SunCam and recorded in our database. All information including the details of the test answers is collected in our database for archiving.

 We store 10,000 username/password combinations for each course and we receive email notification if the inventory ever runs low.

Courses proposed

SunCam began its “Call for Authors” on July 13 and the following authors have responded with online course proposals. Only a few of the authors are under contract with SunCam or under any obligation to complete the courses therefore; we will not identify them by name. We offer the following list only for your use in planning your own course offerings.

1.     An electrical engineer with experience in utility and building design and an MBA proposes to offer a series of courses in the National Electrical Code.

2.     A university professor and mechanical engineer has proposed a series of courses on the subject of high-speed machining.

3.     An engineering educator from an Australian University has expressed interest in participating in our program but has not yet proposed any specific courses.

4.     A team of Midwest university professors in civil engineering has proposed several series of courses on the subjects of:

a.     Traffic engineering,

b.     Traffic safety, Airport planning,

c.      Transporting planning,

d.     Public transit,

e.      Automated people movers,

f.       Transportation facility planning, design & construction;

g.     Rail transportation & railroad engineering;

h.     Transportation policy & economics

5.     An electrical engineering professor from a Canadian University has proposed to offer courses in his area of expertise which includes:

a.     Principles of Electrical Engineering (for non-electrical engineers)

b.    Input resistance of a network,

c.      Nodal analysis,

d.    Mesh analysis,

e.      Thevenin and Norton theorems,

f.      Inductors and capacitors,

g.     First-order systems

h.    Modeling and Analysis of Linear Physical Systems

i.       Modeling of systems,

j.       Incidence matrices,

k.    Two-port networks,

l.       Signal-flow graphs and

m.  State-variables

n.    Second order systems

o.     Sinusoidal responses

6.     An American professional engineer on assignment in the Arab Emirate of Qatar has proposed courses on the subject of Post Installed Masonry Anchors

7.     A professional civil engineer has proposed courses in using state highway standards for municipalities and counties.

8.     A professional electrical engineer specializing in telecommunications has proposed courses in:

a.     How CDMA works

b.    General Wireless Technologies

c.      Code-Division Multiple Access Systems

d.    Testing Wireless Networks

e.      Wireless Traffic Engineering

f.      GSM and UMTS

9.     A professional civil engineer has proposed courses in plumbing design for engineers and architects

10.                        A professional engineer, telecommunications consultant  and instructor has proposed courses in:

a.     Critical Path Method - methodology and analysis

b.    Analyzing Risk in Construction Projects

c.      Advanced Bidding and Estimating

d.    The nine steps of PM - applications in small to large projects

e.      Engineering Contracts

f.      Management and Leadership skills for Engineers

g.     Key summary of USGBCs New Construction and Major Renovation Guidelines

h.    Design of telecommunications infrastructure in commercial buildings

i.       Basics of IEEE 802.11 (a, b, g and n) technologies

11.                        A professional engineer and Director of Performance Technology for a major corporation has proposed courses in maintenance and reliability

12.                        A professional engineer has proposed courses in a course in piping, pressure drop, materials and codes.

13.                         A professional engineer and principal in a consulting firm has proposed courses in Building Commissioning and current USGBC LEED criteria.

14.                         A professional engineer has proposed a course on post tensioning reinforcing for cast in place concrete slabs.

15.                        A professional engineer, licensed in 16-states has proposed a series of courses on Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls and Slopes (MSE)

16.                        A professional engineer and locomotive manufacturer has proposed courses for persons that are directly or indirectly involved with designing, operating installing and/or financing freight railroad operations for new and existing industrial facilities, ports, mines, etc. throughout the US.

17.                        A professional engineer for a major consulting firm has proposed courses covering the topic of sanitary sewer system infiltration/inflow detection, measurement and repair.

18.                         A professional engineer and public employee has proposed courses on troubleshooting HVAC systems (air and water source), steam boilers, gas and water piping, heat transfer.

19.                        A professional engineer has expressed interest in contributing courses on the following topics.

a.     Basic Principles of Structural Engineering for the non-Engineers

b.    Wood Design - Beam Design

c.      Wood Design - Loads and Serviceability Requirements

d.    Snow Loads per ASCE 7-05

e.      Seismic Loads per ASCE 7-05

f.       Wind Loads per ASCE 7-05

20.                        A mechanical engineering professor emeritus from a prestigious US university has proposed to offer courses in his area of expertise which includes:

a.     experimental methods in the thermo-sciences,

b.    temperature measurement with thermocouples,

c.      gas temp,

d.    solid temp,

e.      steady state errors,

f.      transient interpretation,

g.     heat flux;

h.    pressure probes for velocity measurement (not transducers -just probe geometry effects on accuracy);

i.       experiment planning;

j.       uncertainty analysis;

21.                        A retired professional electrical engineer has proposed offering courses in lighting design

22.                        An electrical engineer has proposed to offer courses in lighting, power, communication, electrical distribution, and controls.

23.                         A PhD professional engineer has expressed interest in authoring courses but has not yet proposed a topic.

24.                        A professional engineer has proposed a series of courses on the topic of photo voltaic cells.

25.                         A professional engineer has proposed courses on the topics of:

a.     Electronic positioning of marine equipment

b.    Ports and marine terminals

c.      Marine structures

d.    Small boat facilities design (piers, floating docks, travel lifts, wave breaks, wave attenuation, boat ramps, etc.)

e.      Wind - wave climate and forecasting

f.      Shoreline protection design

g.     Basic Dredging

h.    Small Ferry docking facilities

i.       Bulkheads and shorefront earth retention structures

j.       Restoration of marine structures

26.                        A professional engineer proposes courses on the subject of hydrology and groundwater flow.

27.                        A professional engineer proposes courses in the area of control systems design.

28.                        A professional chemical engineer proposes courses in the area of direct sensing of subsurface contamination, Green building, LEED, remediation.

29.                        A professional engineer and PhD has proposed courses on Hydraulic Engineering and Riprap and Filter Design for Civil Engineers

30.                        A professional electrical engineer has proposed offering courses in Chi square and Hypothesis Testing, Acceptance Sampling, Maintainability Theory, electrical engineering topics

31.                        A professional engineer has proposed offering courses in

a.     Driven Piles – Design and Construction

b.    Augered Cast In Place Piles – Design and Construction

c.      Drilled Shafts – Design and Construction

d.    Micropiles – Design and Construction

e.      Rail/Trackwork for Industry Projects

f.      Civil and Geotechnical Engineering for Power Projects

g.     Earth Retaining Structures

h.    Locating Utilities for Industrial Projects

i.       Use of Geosynthetics in Civil Construction Projects

32.                        A literary agent has expressed an interest in offering 55-courses on widely varying subjects from eleven client authors.

33.                        A professional engineer, licensed in several states has offered courses in communications, sound, video or acoustics.

34.                        A professor of civil engineering has proposed courses in construction productivity improvement.

35.                        A professor of electrical and industrial engineering has proposed courses in quality and productivity.

36.  A professor at a Florida University has proposed

a.      Fluid Mechanics

b.      Water Resources

c.       Open Channel Hydraulics

d.      Water Treatment

e.       Wastewater Treatment

f.       other water related courses

37.                        A university engineering department chair has propose courses on Finite Element Analysis.

38.                        A Florida professional engineer has proposed a class in the “Principles of Engineering Economy”.

39.                        A chemical engineering educator and graduate school dean has proposed a course or series of courses on ASTMs CHETAH software which does thermodynamic property prediction and hazard evaluation. 

40.                        A professor emeritus and an aerospace engineer have proposed courses in classic and advanced dynamics based on Autolev software. http://www.autolev.com/

41.                        A professor has offered courses in RFID and, WiMAX.

42.                        A PhD professional engineer has proposed courses on RF propagation.

43.                        A professional engineer proposes a course on Voice over IP.

44.                        A professional engineer has proposed courses in structural design and site development (grading, road and utility design, erosion & sedimentation, and stormwater management including water quality.

45.                        A PhD, PE consultant has proposed courses in:

·        Design/analysis of pre-tensioned concrete girders I

·        Design/analysis of post-tensioned concrete girders I

·        Numerical methods for Structural Engineers

·        Design/analysis of telecommunication towers I

·        Bridge Design/Analysis I