The Alert Collector: Police Use of Force

High-profile news stories about excessive use of police force, often leading to a person’s death, have filled our news feeds and become a hot-button issue. Karen Evans’s column for this months’ Alert Collector highlights some of the major books on this topic that will flesh out your collection, whether you serve a criminal justice program, students needing the best sources for a pros and cons essay, or a clientele wanting the best resources to help them understand this complex issue. Evans is the librarian for the School of Criminology and Security Studies at Indiana State University. She holds a graduate degree in criminology and criminal justice, and serves as the editor for the criminal justice section of Resources for College Libraries.

Publishing student scholarship: exploring the ETD initiative at a medium-sized institution

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the Electronic Theses and Dissertations program implemented and managed by the Indiana State University since 2009. The paper illustrates issues relating to the background, policies, platform, workflow and cataloging, as well as the publication and preservation of graduate scholarship. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examined many aspects of the Electronic Theses and Dissertations program and addressed issues dealt before, during and after the publication of the electronic theses and dissertations collection. The approaches the authors utilized are literature review and personal management experience from working on the program. Findings – Implementing an Electronic Theses and Dissertations program involves providing a series of management services. These services include developing relevant policies, implementing an archiving and publication platform and creating submission and publishing workflows, as well as cataloging, disseminating and preserving the student collection. Openly publishing the collection through a range of access points significantly increases its visibility and accessibility. Adopting several archival and preservation strategies ensures the long-term readiness of the collection. Originality/value – This paper will provide useful practices for implementing an ETD program to those institutions new to the ETD initiative process. It also contributes to the current body of literature and to the overall improvement of ETD programs globally.

Innovative PDS Partnerships for Effective Teaching and Learning

Would you like to breathe energy into your university-school district partnership? At Indiana State University (ISU), two clinical immersion imperatives and four partnership contexts provide an innovative focus that adds deeper meaning and intentionality to educator preparation. Our educator preparation programs had been migrating to more clinically intensive programming for several years, but the support of our K-12 partners was essential if we were to emphasize early and continuous clinical teaching experiences to enhance preparation efforts. As a first step, we developed the distinctive Teachers of Tomorrow Advancing Learning (TOTAL) internship for elementary and special education majors and an immersion program for secondary and all-grades majors.