Concerns about the book: Multi-Touch Technologies Book Release

[Falcon4ever]

Hi all,

It has been a while since we've talked about a possible hardcopy of
the "Multi-Touch Technologies" book. We've talked about the
possibilities at IDC2009 and also in this topic:
http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/5871/P45/ . I was also aware
that some of you where busy to see if we could get hold of an ISBN
number and publish the book on Lulu. So far I was pretty excited about
it.


However, to my surprise, I recently discovered ( http://nuigroup.com/log/thebook/
) that the book has been made available through Lulu _without_ giving
all authors a chance to read the 'final/print ready' version of the
book before printing. Why the rush? Why didn't anyone bother to send
out a message to the "NUI Multi-Touch Book" mailinglist stating that
we had a 'final' verion ready?

The book in its current state has some serious issues related to:
referencing, usage of (possible copyrighted) pictures and it seems
that some of the pictures have been replaced by _wrong_ new pictures
(even in my part). Grammar errors and bad referencing was already an
issue in the previous verion (the one from idc2009) and I think it
also has been mentioned multiple times in the topic at nuigroup
forums.

While I was very excited to help out with the NUI Book, I am _NOT_
amused on how stuff is going now. When publishing a book it is very
important that the content is professionally written and correct. It
is even more of a concern because we all got our names attached to the
book, and I certainly do not want to be accused of plagiarism,
stealing images or providing information that is simply not correct.

I know everyone has the best intentions with the book, but _please_
communicate before making big descissions like this. We had the
mailinglist for a purpose you know...

- Laurence Muller

[Taha]

I have to agree with Laurence on this, there are multiple sections
that have to corrected and properly referenced.
The fact of the matter is that there are one or two areas that are
correctly referenced and others are not,
which makes it look worse, since it shows that we know how to
correctly format and reference material,
yet we have chosen not to do so.
I agree with peoples argument that a a lot of work was put into the
book, i still believe that the book should
not be printed in its current form, not only does it make us liable
now but it also makes us look incompetent.
When a book is published it has to have a proper format and right now
it does not. I think Laurence put it best

"It is even more of a concern because we all got our names attached to
the
book, and I certainly do not want to be accused of plagiarism,
stealing images or providing information that is simply not correct."

I am sure none of want to be put in a situation where a small mistake
such as this comes back to haunt us in the future.

- Taha Bintahir

On Aug 24, 12:20 pm, Falcon4ever <laurence.mul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It has been a while since we've talked about a possible hardcopy of
> the "Multi-Touch Technologies" book. We've talked about the

> possibilities at IDC2009 and also in this topic:http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/5871/P45/. I was also aware

> that some of you where busy to see if we could get hold of an ISBN
> number and publish the book on Lulu. So far I was pretty excited about
> it.
>

> However, to my surprise, I recently discovered (http://nuigroup.com/log/thebook/

[Christian Moore]

Agreed guys,

We have temporarily pulled the book and will work on assure we
reference properly.

Lets try and help Rishi with references and I will work on sources
images from the community that we can request and assure copyright.

Thanks, Chris

[Thomas Hansen]

seem to be taken down. still shows up in the search, but says
unavailable when i click on it.
I agree about the concerns raised by laurence. Especially, we HAVE to
fix the references and citations throughout the book. I had no ide
the book was available anywhere besides the nuicode repository, and
was prety convinced everyone was aware that references were missing (i
mean alot of it literally still needs to be added, not just double
checked or edited).

This stuffis really important, especially considering some of us are
still in school or pursuing academic/research careers. plagarism
(even just failing to add apropriate refetrences ) is taken very
serious and can really hurt someone's future oportunities badly.

--
Thomas

[rbedi100]

Hi everyone,
So sorry about this - like Chris said, its been taken off of Lulu for
the time being and the front page post has been hidden. In the last
couple of hours, I've put together a list of references that includes
the ones already in the book (Python, AS3, and Gesture Recognition).
I've added references for all the hardware techniques - I think I got
the major academic papers but please take a look at the list and add
any that you have.

I used the ACS bibliography style for all the references - hope that's
OK. The references are grouped by chapter, and the numbering restarts
after each one. After we finish compiling the list of references, we
can go back in the chapters themselves and add reference markers.

The list thus far is posted in the files section of this google group.

-Rishi

[Lynn Marentette]

Hi,

 

I assumed that all of the book's writers had approved the final version at the time I posted about it on my blog.  I deleted the post as soon as I received this email.

 

I hope things work out smoothly!

 

Lynn

--
Seeking Sustainable Innovation

[Fairlane]

Thanks for the post Laurence,

I had no idea the book was made available either...
As far as I knew there were some 'drafts' available for download.
Definitely not "Print Ready"...

Let's get onto correcting this as soon as possible...

Cheers
-Paul

On Aug 25, 2:20 am, Falcon4ever <laurence.mul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It has been a while since we've talked about a possible hardcopy of
> the "Multi-Touch Technologies" book. We've talked about the

> possibilities at IDC2009 and also in this topic:http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/5871/P45/. I was also aware

> that some of you where busy to see if we could get hold of an ISBN
> number and publish the book on Lulu. So far I was pretty excited about
> it.
>

> However, to my surprise, I recently discovered (http://nuigroup.com/log/thebook/