This is MeDigital 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.comhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/60892750@N00/4181066513/sizes/o/in/set-72157594271646013/

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:Babbage_difference_engine.JPG

Academic Identity 2

Others• Joint work• Peer review• Citations• Funding• etc

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/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

• Don’t think you can hide

• Keep track of accounts you set up

• Consider separate identities for work and play

• Think before you post

or someone else may do

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.ukTwitter, delicious, Skype:shirleyearleyBlog:http://redgloo.sse.reading.ac.uk/ssswills/weblogSecond Life: Rosie Luna

etc