If I Googled you, what would I find?Managing your digital footprint

Nicola Osborne

Digital Education Manager, EDINA

Nicola.Osborne@ed.ac.uk

@suchprettyeyes

#dfmooc #UoEDF

My own (mostly digital) footprint…• Digital Education Manager at EDINA, University of Edinburgh.

• Social Media expert advising academic and professional colleagues on communicating their work for over 8 years. Former EDINA Social Media Officer (2009-2015) and long-term blogger, twitterer, etc.

• Co-I on PTAS-funded Managing Your Digital Footprints (2014-15) research team, and associated ongoing social media research, including PTAS-funded “A Live Pulse”: Yik Yak for understanding teaching, learning and assessment at Edinburgh project.

• Work on EDINA’s educational technology, innovation, digital and data projects for audiences across Scotland, UK and further afield.

• Passionate about social media, new technology, communication, and public engagement in all forms – so lots of tracks and traces old and new…

http://edina.ac.uk/

What about your Digital Footprint?

• When did you last Google yourself?

• Or search on Bing?

• Or DuckDuckGo?

Digital loop, digital footprint by Seth Eckert

Overview

• What is a Digital Footprint?

• Introduction to University of Edinburgh’s Digital Footprint research.

• What contributes to your digital footprint and why does it matter?

• Taking ownership of your tracks and traces.

• The Digital Footprint MOOC (#DFMOOC) Course.

• Resources to share, adapt and re-use.

• Questions & Discussion.

What is a Digital Footprint?

Your Digital Footprint is the data you leave behind when you go online.

It's what you've said, what others have said about you, where you've been, images you're tagged in, personal information, social media profiles, and much more.

University of Edinburgh Managing Your Digital Footprint Research

• PTAS-funded project (2014-15) investigated students’ understanding of their Digital Footprint through surveys (n=1457), focus groups and interviews. Led by Dr Louise Connelly (IAD and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Science) and IAD.

• Outputs from research included best practice guidance, resources for educators, eprofessionalism guide and academic publications.

• Further research is ongoing, including a PTAS-funded Yik Yak project (2016-17) looking at students use of this and similar anonymous and/or semi-private spaces. Led by Prof. Sian Bayne, Moray House School of Education.(Including a third survey, analysis underway)

Accompanying Digital Footprint Campaign (2014-15)

• Address a digital skills gap & consolidate existing ad-hoc work

• Aim: To raise student awareness of digital footprints (online presence), social media, online tracks and traces

• Collaborative University-wide campaign to ~32,000 students (UG, PGT, online distance, PhD)

• Students involved: Digital Footprint Assistant, EUSA Class Representatives

• Activities included: workshops, presentations, competitions, surveys, outreach & engagement (staff), best practice sharing, promotional video, podcast, resources, etc.

Research-informed campaign activities resulted in:

• IAD-led Digital Footprint service.

• External-facing training and consultancy service around digital footprint and social media, led by EDINA.

But, why do we think this matters… ?

• Students increasingly enter University with an established digital footprint, presences on social media, a long term relationship with the internet.

• Social media and online presence are how many of our academic and professional staff build recognition and visibility.

• Conduct online has implications for academic, professional and personal life, along with duty of care and HR considerations.

• Practice, expectations and etiquette change all the time (even across our 3 surveys – 2014, 2015, 2016)…

• But footprints may be out there for years, even for (or beyond) a lifetime...

• And can have serious impacts on your online identity, professional presence, reputation, security, and relationships to others…

Oh Fudge!*

*Recommended viewing: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (S3, ep 11): “Kimmy Googles the Internet”, https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80025384

Social Media create a lot of tracks and traces…

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/dont-post-about-me-on-social-media-children-say/

This time it’s personal…

• Social media are about people, personality and quirkiness.

• They allow use of links, images, video, audio, and other multimedia to bring a topic to life.

• They are designed to nurture communities, networks, peer support, sharing, participation and collaboration.

• They are often updated and engaged with via mobile phones – crossing personal and professional spaces, places and times.

• And that means they can be challengingly personal spaces to engage and maintain boundaries in.

“Username: LauraGil4 on Snapchat (Education Storytelling)” by Flickr user Laura Gilchrist (CC-BY).

Full text searchable personal histories of everything we’ve ever thought to share…

Social media are sometimes long lasting, sometimes ephemeral. And you don’t always get to choose…

We can forget that a post is still live…

Or may not know it has been screen-capped…

Or it may now be out of our control due to forgotten passwords, a change of site ownership, an app is spamming on our behalf.

5% of our students (from 1457) found information online about themselves that they did not think was public. https://www.indy100.com/article/we-enjoyed-reading-mhairi-

blacks-nsfw-tweets-as-a-teenager--xyvV8th3lb

Data from our quantified selves…

https://bust.com/living/16150-which-period-tracking-app-is-right-for-you.html

http://www.ellieharrison.com/work/broadcasts/

http://www.mapmyrun.com/gb/edinburgh-sct/

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/

Information we don’t expect to be online…

http://www.whitepages.co.uk/electoral-roll-search-and-electoral-register-voters.html

http://mashable.com/2013/06/10/google-street-view-embarrassing/

Have you experienced the following online?

• Bullying

• Harassment

• Unwanted comments/tags

• Identity theft

• Being hacked

• Information which is public

• Disciplinary• Revenge porn • Surveillance & monitoring • Feelings of inadequacy• Public relationship breakdown

And remnants of our life in all of its complexities and challenges…

Also… Automated traces…

Automatic tags, locations, face recognition are useful. And invasive. And some are legally iffy in the EU…

Not to mention… automation built by people and/or training sets that lack diversity…

https://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/google-dev-apologizes-after-photos-app-tags-black-people-as-gorillas/

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2015/05/here-s-why-you-shouldn-t-take-microsoft-s-how-old-do-i-look-app-too-seriously

Malicious material…

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments

http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2016/09/theres-trolls-and-trolls.html

Plus doppelgangers, pseudonyms, erroneous mistaken identities…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-theft-racial-justice

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-changes-real-name-policy-after-uproar-from-drag-queens-1412223040

http://www.davegorman.com/projects_are_you_dave_gorman.html

And human liabilities friends…

In our 2014 & 2015 surveys of University of Edinburgh undergraduates[1]:

11% (survey 1) and 10.7% (survey 2) of our students had experienced unwanted tagging on photographs

When did you last review your privacy and tagging settings?

Do you ever review your friends/follows lists?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/21/internet-shaming-lindsey-stone-jon-ronson

Your digital footprint can impact on…

• Professional reputation based on your current and historical tracks and traces. – Whether you create them or others do it for you as in Barbour &

Marshall (2012) concept of the “Uncontainable Self”.

• Legal ramifications for employment, copyright, defamation, etc.

• Personal reputation and presentation of self in the appropriate way for the appropriate audience(s). (Goffman 1959)

• And, how you are perceived and profiled in the future…

Data analytics already include personal and behavioural data…

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604035/uber-is-engaged-in-psychological-warfare-with-its-drivers/

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win

http://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0086.epdf

And then there’s the near future…

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/28/congress_approves_sale_of_internet_histories/

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005399

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/

https://blog.agilebits.com/2017/05/18/introducing-travel-mode-protect-your-data-when-crossing-borders/

The Future is not evenly distributed…*

“…social data tells us not just something about society, but also about the forces that can come to shape society in future, in that predictive technologies demonstrate a desire to anticipate the market, and the consumer, in advance.

Academia needs to be aware of these discussions, in order to provide a critical response to them, and to assist in developing ethical and sustainable forms of practice. ”

(Burns, 2015)

*To misquote William Gibson

Privacy and Curation As a Tactic

"I think I'm a private person...I take a lot of care and time over my close friends...I'm not of the age where it's like ooh I've got 250 friends on Facebook...It's like I don't really care about that kind of stuff.“

"...my boundaries are more set about who I allow to be my friend...if you're my friend I'll trust that you don't put anything stupid [up]" (participant 5)

"I suppose it's different I think when I was a teenager it tended to be you were friends with every single person you knew" (participant 1)

Going Underground As a Tactic

Students and younger internet users seem to be moving away from public spaces…

• Direct messaging tools and WhatsApp

• SnapChat

• YikYak

• Facebook Live, Instagram Live, etc.

Nuclear Submarine Base by Flickr user Lukasz Kryger

Take Ownership of your data…

• Search for yourself online regularly – are you represented as you would like to be?

• Check privacy settings, permissions, tagging options across all active online presences.

• Delete old presences you want removed – or request removal if you’ve forgotten your login info.

• Keep a note and update passwords of older presences you want to retain so you keep access.

• Read terms and conditions(!) and try to be aware of good information security practice.

• Disconnect old and unused phone apps, browser plugins etc.

• If something is significantly out of date or inaccurate, you have a right to be forgotten: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/individuals-rights/the-right-to-erasure/

• Don’t forget the boring offline stuff:

– Do you want your phone number to be public? Delist it: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8307/~/how-do-i-sign-up-to-ex-directory-services%3F

– Are you on the open electoral roll? You Can opt out: https://www.gov.uk/electoral-register

– And don’t share pictures of envelopes with your address, paperwork with your date of birth, etc.

• Just in case… Set up your digital legacy – available for Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

Formal policies and professional boundaries (e.g. GMC Guidance)

“Using social media also creates risks, particularly where social and professional boundaries become unclear. You must follow the guidance in Maintaining a professional boundary between you and your patient.”

“If a patient contacts you about their care or other professional matters through your private profile, you should indicate that you cannot mix social and professional relationships and, where appropriate, direct them to your professional profile.”

Full detailed guidance can be found here: http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_guidance/21186.asp

The next time you search for yourself…

Think critically about the audience you want to reach, the goals you want to achieve, and where your own boundaries and comfort lies:

• Think about what you want to present, communicate, who you want to connect with. Be aware of any professional body, employer or other guidance around use of social media and online spaces.

• Set personal goals, so that you have something clear to reflect on and frame your experience. Use SMART Goals for projects, campaigns, collaborative work.

• What kind of presences, content and activity will achieve your goals?

• Think about what success would look like, what you’d like to achieve, how you will know you’ve achieved it.

• Use measuring and evaluation tools when appropriate – these might be technical (e.g. Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics), or survey data, or anecdotal feedback on your social media activity.

• Reflect and adapt your approach based on your experience and feedback.

More Digital Footprint Resources

http://www.ed.ac.uk/institute-academic-development/about-us/projects/digital-footprint

https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/SMFE/

http://edina.ac.uk/contact

Resources for Educators

• Presentations, videos, slides, worksheets, action plans, activities for use in teaching, training, CPD etc.

Find out more about managing your Digital Footprint on our #DFMOOC course

• Join now, #dfmooc: https://goo.gl/jgHLQs

• Free Course (optional certificate for £39) open to everyone anywhere in the world.

• Open since April, runs every month.

• We welcome reuse and sharing more widely – we think it has particular use for CPD, in digital and information literacy, around transitions into and out of University.

12 Top Tips from our #DFMOOC course

1. Don’t post anything stupid2. Check your privacy settings3. Don’t Panic4. Crowd out the bad stuff with the good5. Remove content and untag6. Avoid trolls (if you can)7. Copyright – don’t use anything you don’t have permission to use

(open licenses are your friend)8. Check your phone settings (apps, camera & mic access especially)9. Think about your data10. Consider legal issues and rights in social media11. Respect others just as you’d want to be respected yourself12. Know what your digital footprint looks like

Join the conversation and add your own perspective at #DFMOOC

Recommended Reading…

And finally, some shameless self promotion…

http://bit.ly/codi17df

Q&A

Over to you!

Further comments and questions welcome: nicola.osborne@ed.ac.uk

Additional References

• [1] Student identities in transition: social media experiences, curation and implications for Higher Education. / Connelly, Louise; Osborne, Nicola. Sheffield Hallam University -SocMedHE Blog: SocMedHE15 Proceedings. 2016.

• WNYC. Privacy, Data Survivalism and a New Tech Ethics. In Note to Self [podcast], 21 Feb 2017. http://www.wnyc.org/story/bonus-privacy-paradox/.

• Burns, A. 2015. Looking forward: Social data informs us about society, but also about the forces that will come to shape the future. In LSE’s The Impact Blog, 16th October 2015. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/10/16/looking-forward-social-data-and-prediction/.

Managing your Digital Footprint Resources

• Website and Resources for Educators: http://www.ed.ac.uk/institute-academic-development/about-us/projects/digital-footprint

• Publications:http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/projects/managing-your-digital-footprint-research-strand(239b8e5b-c052-4681-9568-77aa02fa44fa).html

• Yik Yak project blog: http://yikyakresearch.blogs.edina.ac.uk/