Faculty
Approval
Plan
Discussion
of the Approval Plan currently in use at the Mansfield
It was
concluded that extreme flexibility exists within the framework of the approval
plan process and that there are ways to better tailor the process to meet the
needs of the various departments. In
addition, the Approval Plan is one tool to facilitate efficient and timely
acquisition of materials but is not the only mechanism available. The Committee recommends that there should be a yearly meeting of Faculty
Communication
Currently, multiple
avenues for communication with the
To further strengthen communication, the Committee
recommends that the library have an annual meeting with the faculty
Dr. Rich
Clow, Professor, Native American Studies Department, visited the Committee to
express some concerns he and his research class students have with the
library. The library responded to his
concerns in the addendum to the
Plagiarism
The Committee was asked by the
The software could potentially be used as a learning tool in
composition courses to teach students to identify plagiarism and how to cite
resources. The program highlights
sections of documents that are plagiarized, but cannot differentiate whether or
not the material is cited.
The legal concerns are related to intellectual property
rights. According to Legal Council, faculty
would have to be trained to appropriately inform students upfront that their
work would be entered into a database to be checked for plagiarism and then
would be used as a source against other students’ work.
The pilot program found that although instructors expressed
significant interest in a plagiarism detection resource, the overwhelming
response to the actual use was that it was either too time-consuming to learn
or that it was not able to address instructors’ specific concerns.
One of the challenges regarding the plagiarism issue on
campus is that there is no standard mechanism in place for educating students
about what constitutes plagiarism or the consequences of plagiarism. There are apparently no consistent guidelines
for instructors to follow when dealing with students whom they suspect of
plagiarizing. This is something that
the Faculty Senate, Academic and Student Affairs should address.
Results
of LibQUAL+
The LibQUAL+ Library
Survey was conducted in Spring 2004 and is a national research project to
measure service quality in academic libraries sponsored by the Association of
Research Libraries. In addition to the
findings posted on the Mansfield Library website, the Library hosted an annual
library-wide retreat that used the survey results as a basis for establishing
its goals for the next three years.
Further details about the survey can be obtained by contacting
libqual@mail.lib.umt.edu. Another LibQUAL+ Library Survey is targeted for Spring
2006.
Institutional
Repositories
It is recommended that the issue of Institutional
Repositories be addressed at a future meeting.
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Thanks
to the generous donations of Theta Rho and Joe Reber, a new Reading Room has been created and three group
study rooms have been remodeled to further enhance the physical appeal of the
building.
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The
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Friends
of Mike Mansfield have established the Mansfield Centennial Fund and are hoping
to raise $20,000 in support of History, Ethics, and other areas of interest to
Mike Mansfield.
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The
Friends of the
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§
The