This is Me
Digital Identity and Reputation for Academics
Professor Shirley Williams
University of Reading, UK
Workshop on Users, e-Research, and Web 2.0, Oxford January 2010
Rugby and Reputation
rugby www.rugby-pioneers.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60892750@N00/
4181066513/sizes/o/in/set72157594271646013/
Would Babbage Have Blogged?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Babbage_1860.jpg
Identity and Performance
• “...all human identities are by definition social
identities. Identifying ourselves or others is a
matter of meaning, and meaning always
involves interaction: agreement and
disagreement, convention and innovation,
communication and negotiation.” Jenkins, 2004
• “…using the term ‘performance’ to refer to all the
activity of an individual which occurs during a
period …before a particular set of observers…”
Goffman, 1959
Academic Identity 1
The Academic’s work:
• Lectures
• Letters
• Papers
• etc
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ba
bbage_difference_engine.JPG
Academic Identity 2
Others
• Joint work
• Peer review
• Citations
• Funding
• etc
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm
ons/0/0f/Ada_lovelace.jpg
Digital Identity
• We use the term
"digital identity" (DI)
to describe the
persona an individual
presents across all
the digital spaces
that he/she is
represented in
(performances in
Digital Places)
Digital Academic Identity
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredcavazza/3428921418/
Have you ever Googled yourself?
Or Binged a Visiting Academic
Findings
• Material that the
participant had posted
themselves (and
maybe forgotten);
• Material posted by
other people (that
maybe the participant
was unaware of).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spine/2076729686/
Question
What has the most impact:
• A journal paper cited 10 times?
• A blog post linked to from100 places?
• A tweet seen by 10,000?
Look After Your Digital Identity
or someone else may do
• Don’t think you can
hide
• Keep track of
accounts you set up
• Consider separate
identities for work and
play
• Think before you post
This Is Me - Outputs
Website
http://reading.ac.uk/thisisme
Workbook
Games
Leaflets
By-products
• Use by other
universities
• Re-purposed by
Nancy White for
NPO/NGO Folks
• Arabic
translation
Acknowledgements
• The This is Me Project was originally funded by
Eduserv; now funded by CCMS
• Team members include: Pat Parslow, Sarah
Fleming, Richard Hussey, Karsten Lundqvist,
David Stanbury, Finbar Mulholland and Sarah
Morey
• Other contributors are from the University of
Reading and beyond
Thank you
You can find me at:
Email:
shirley.williams@reading.ac.uk
Twitter, delicious, Skype:
shirleyearley
Blog:
http://redgloo.sse.reading.ac.uk/ssswills/weblog
Second Life:
Rosie Luna
etc