Perspective on Tenure for I.U. Librarians: How Do We Define and Support Tenure at I.U.?
In a 2011 Indiana University Libraries Faculty Council (IULFC) ballot, librarians voted that promotion and tenure procedures will become campus-specific. Some campuses are in the process of developing procedures and some already have them. No matter how our final procedures will vary campus to campus, we share the bond of academic status and tenure for librarians, and, especially now, we need to think about what these principles mean to us individually and as a faculty. Although our shared criteria for promotion and tenure remain as stated in the Indiana University Faculty Handbook, even those may change as the result of our in-depth review of the tenure process.
Raising the Question #5 What is Tenure and How Do I Get It?
The most urgent question that any assistant professor faces who has been hired on a tenure track position is, ‘‘What do I do now?’’ That is, ‘‘What counts on my record so that I can be awarded tenure?’’ This is one of the most important issues facing anyone who begins their teaching career in a typical institution of higher education in the United States. The term ‘‘tenure’’ is an ancient one. In 1215, as described in Magna Carta, the term originally referred to the right to hold property. In later centuries it also came to mean that a person in a particular position, such as a judge, or an individual in a civil service position, could not be fired arbitrarily. As will be noted, the term ‘‘tenure’’ in the case of professors is of 20th-century origin. In contemporary times it is a status that is granted for a faculty member, normally after a probationary period of several years. Tenure protects the individual from dismissal, except for cause ; that is, for serious misconduct or incompetence (usually as judged by the faculty senate). The purpose of such a safeguard is that it allows a teacher, researcher, or scholar to study and to make public*either in the classroom, in print, or in other ways*forms of knowledge, conclusions or beliefs that may not be popular with those in authority.
Content strategy in LibGuides: An exploratory study
Abstract Since its inception in 2007, Springshare's LibGuides has become a popular content management system (CMS) with academic libraries. The challenges of managing LibGuides content through a cohesive content strategy have not been well documented. The researchers conducted a survey of academic libraries that were using the LibGuides platform in Fall 2019 to determine how institutions are managing content challenges. Of 120 respondents, only 53% of the respondents indicated that their institutions had content guidelines that LibGuides authors were expected to follow. The top three most observed elements of these content guidelines were page design (80%), content reuse policies (77%), naming conventions (73%), and navigation (3%). 15% of respondents' institutions did not review guides once they were published. Of those that reviewed guides post-publication, authors (84%) most frequently reviewed their own guides. These findings imply that LibGuides are largely cared for on an honour system. Guidelines tend towards quantifiable elements and omit more abstract concepts.