creating & managing your scholarly web presence
TRANSCRIPT
Creating & Managing
Your Scholarly Web
Presence
Virginia Tech Libraries
Googled yourself lately?
Why manage your web presence?
• Augment your networking
• Find collaborators and a community
• Make yourself and your scholarship more visible
• Eliminate professional and scholarly
misidentification
• Measure and assess scholarly impact
• Contribute to your profession and discipline
• Engage in meaningful professional discussion
• Understand that you already have an online identity
• Make the conscious decision to develop that identity
• Search for what’s already out there
• Consider the false dichotomy of personal v. professional on the web
• Think about personal branding (proactive online identity
management)
• Think about scholarly identification
• Utilize tools for personal branding and scholarly identification
• Be aware of security and privacy issues
• Follow up, maintain your information, and be vigilant
How to begin…
Searching: Tools
•
• Pipl
• Spokeo
• Social networking sites
“…the line between personal and
professional no longer exists…”
(Markgren)
Two concepts
Personal Branding
Scholarly Identification
“The public expression and projection of an individual’s
identity, personality, values, skills, and abilities.” (BNET)
• Keep consistent:
• Visual image
• Identification
• Message/vision
• Skills
• Goal
• Interests & passions
“A personal brand is a by-product, not an end itself.”
(Kim)
Personal branding: Example
Bobbi Newman:
aka Librarian By Day
Various social media
outlets, same name
and photo
Personal branding: Tools
Other Stuff
• Your vision and mission
statements
• Consistent headshot
• Unique image or
graphic
Technology
• Google+
• Slideshare
• Tumblr
• WordPress, Blogger
• Goodreads
• Delicious
Looking for an easy way to be consistent? Use IFTTT.com
IFTTT stands for “if this, then that,” which will let you change
images and messages across multiple social media platforms
Scholarly identification
As researchers and scholars, you face the ongoing
challenge of distinguishing your research activities
from those of others with similar names. You need to be
able to easily and uniquely attach your identity to
research objects such as datasets, equipment, articles,
media stories, citations, experiments, patents, and
notebooks.
--ORCID (http://orcid.org/content/initiative)
Researcher profiles & identifiers •
• VTechWorks
• Google Scholar Citation profile
• Mendeley
• Academia.edu
• Nature Network
• Scholar Universe (ProQuest)
• ResearcherID (Thomson Reuters)
• ORCID
• …and others
Online portfolios/websites
(What is) the future of the CV and the resume (?)
Creating a personal space to showcase your ideas, vision,
work, and experience requires little more than a computer
and an internet connection
ePortfolios are now required in many higher education
institutions enabling students to:
Showcase their relevant work/coursework
Demonstrate a range of skills
Have a positive online identity
Online portfolios: Tools
Site building tools
• About.me
• Re.vu
• Google Sites
• Kafafa
• Wix
• Weebly
• Hint: pay attention to the domain name
• Free sites often give you the option to upgrade to a unique domain
name that you have purchased for a minimal annual fee
• If you can, use the name you’ve selected for everything else
Measuring scholarly impact
NO ONE CAN READ EVERYTHING. We rely on filters to make
sense of the scholarly literature, but the narrow, traditional
filters are being swamped. However, the growth of new,
online scholarly tools allows us to make new filters;
these altmetrics reflect the broad, rapid impact of
scholarship in this burgeoning ecosystem. We call for
more tools and research based on altmetrics.
--Jason Priem, Dario Taraborelli, Paul Groth,
Cameron Neylon (altmetrics.org/manifesto)
Altmetrics
Steven B. Roberts's 103-page tenure package features the
usual long-as-your-arm list of peer-reviewed publications.
But Mr. Roberts, an assistant professor at the University of
Washington who studies the effects of environmental
change on shellfish, chose to add something less typical to
his dossier: evidence of his research's impact online.
http://chronicle.com/article/Rise-of-Altmetrics-
Revives/139557/
June 2013 Chronicle article
Altmetrics examples
• Google Scholar
• Figshare
• ImpactStory
• Mendeley
• ReaderMeter
• Slideshare
More reading: http://www.mendeley.com/groups/586171/altmetrics/
Balancing security and privacy
issues • Protecting your computer or other devices
• In a recent Consumer Reports survey, 1/3 of households surveyed experienced a
malicious software threat, costing them $2.3 billion and causing them to replace 1.3
million PCs
• 30% of survey respondents who have bank, medical, and other sensitive data on
their phones do not secure their phones
• Protecting yourself and your personal information
• 15% of survey respondents had listed location or travel plans on a social network
• 34% had listed their full birth date
• 21% of those with children had posted children’s names and photos
• Removing information from the web
• Is difficult, if not impossible
• Consider the Digital Tattoo project: http://digitaltattoo.ubc.ca/
• Can be requested of Google:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=164734
Maintenance & vigilance
• Constantly keep an eye on what is out there about you—
make sure that you catch any incorrect or bad information
• The work you put in to developing an online identity will
be lost if the information is not maintained and kept up to
date
• Additionally, think of this step as an “assessment” step—
who’s looking at your stuff, and why? This can inform
your future online identity development
Maintenance & vigilance: Tools
• Google Alerts
• Google Me on the Web
• Google Scholar Citations
• Google Analytics
• Look for statistic options in other software, such as:
• WordPress
• Slideshare
• About.me
• …Many social media tools and profiles have a statistics option—
look for it, and utilize it!
Google Alerts
Google Me on the Web
Google Analytics
Final Thoughts
• Creating and managing your online identity doesn’t have
to be hard or time consuming
• Often, just a little work will pay off in big ways
• Many of the tools we looked at are incredibly flexible, so \
capitalize on that
• Balance security and privacy with the information you post
about yourself, AND OTHERS
And, don’t be surprised…
Quick Discussion
What was the most helpful thing we discussed today?
Which tools do you already use or want to know more
about?
What tools do you use that you didn’t see up here?
Other questions?
Additional References •ACRL New Members Discussion Group. (2011). Tips: Personal Branding and Digital Identities for New Librarians. Retrieved from
http://connect.ala.org/files/66007/acrl_nmdg_alamw11_handout_pdf_68737.pdf
•Betancourt, L. (2009). A guide to protecting your online identity. Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/04/21/protecting-online-identity/
•Bell, S. (2011). The WHY of your brand. LibraryJournal.com. Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/communityacademiclibraries/888893-
419/the_why_of_your_brand.html.csp
•BNET. (2010). Personal brand. Retrieved from http://www.bnet.com/topics/personal+brand
•Bradley, T. (2011). 7 hints to stay safe online. PCWorld Business Center. Retrieved from
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/218243/seven_hints_to_stay_safe_online.html
•Consumer Reports. (2011). Online exposure. Consumer Reports Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/june/electronics-
computers/state-of-the-net/online-exposure/index.htm
•Digital Tattoo Project. Digital Tattoo. DigitalTattoo.ubc.ca. Retrieved from http://digitaltattoo.ubc.ca/
•Farkas, M. (2010). Your virtual brand: online presence for professional success. American Libraries, 41(3): 28. Retrieved from
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/your-virtual-brand
•Kim, B. (2011). Surprise—a personal brand is a by-product. Library Hat. Retrieved from http://www.bohyunkim.net/blog/archives/1048
•Levine, J. (2009). Who is managing your online identity. The Shifted Librarian. Retrieved from http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2009/02/18/who-is-managing-your-online-
identity.html
•Markgren, S. (2011). Ten simple steps to create and manage your professional online identity: how to use portfolios and profiles. College & Research Libraries News, 72(1):
31-35. Retrieved from http://crln.acrl.org/content/72/1/31.full
•Miller, R. (2011). Around the web: online identity management. Notes from Newman: HNFE Research & Resources. Retrieved from
http://hnfelibrarian.blogspot.com/2011/02/around-web-online-identity-management.html
•Putnam, L. (2011). Web reviews: where to start creating your online portfolio. NMRT Footnotes, 40(4). Retrieved from
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/nmrt/news/footnotes/may2011/online_portfolio_putnam.cfm
•Rubenking, N.J. (2011). The best free antivirus software. PCMag.com Retrieved from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388652,00.asp#fbid=kHnXan2I05x
•Salpeter, M. (2011). How to improve your online identity. U.S. News, Money. Retrieved from http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2011/03/30/how-to-
improve-your-online-identity
•Schawbel, D. (2009). Personal branding 101: how to discover and create your brand. Mashable Business. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/02/05/personal-branding-
101/
•Swoger, B. (2011). Managing your scholarly identity. The Undergraduate Science Librarian. Retrieved from
http://undergraduatesciencelibrarian.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/managing-your-scholarly-identity/
Contact Information
Rebecca Miller, [email protected], @rebeccakmiller,
rebeccakatemiller.com
Andi Ogier, [email protected]
Purdom Lindblad, [email protected]