Online identity at #NapRes17

Yesterday was the Edinburgh Napier University’s Research Conference. Based at our Craiglockhart campus, the conference was designed to bring together research active staff and research degree students from across the university. (Read up about the event on the Twitter hashtag #NapRes17.)

My contribution to the conference was an academic poster (full-size version). The poster was part of my larger doctoral study that investigates how online information is used in the management and evaluation of personal reputations. This work follows the tradition of research into everyday life information seeking (ELIS). My doctoral investigation considers four research questions (below). This poster addressed the first of these questions “How do individuals use information to build identities for themselves online?”.

Research Questions:

RQ1: How do individuals use information to build identities for themselves online?

RQ2: How do individuals use online information to build and manage their reputations?

RQ3: How do individuals evaluate the identities and reputations of others based on the information available to them online?

RQ4: To what extent do individuals actively practise identity and reputation building and evaluation online?

The findings consider three areas of identity building. The first is related to the creation and use of online personas and identities. This includes an examination of three broad information behaviours that participants use for the portrayal of online identities. The second area investigates the use of anonymity and pseudonyms through information sharing – or concealment – practices, as well as some of the motivations behind these behaviours. The third and final area presents the ways in which the blurring or merging together of participants’ private and professional selves, as well as their online and offline environments, are used for building identity online.

I provided handouts to the people who engaged with me during the poster session. I was also very pleased that even more people approached me after the session to speak about my research. (They were provided with a copy of the handout, too.)

Whilst my poster was only showcasing a small snapshot of a small part of my thesis, the conversations the poster prompted were wide-reaching. I spoke with other conference-goers about my larger doctoral investigation, online reputation and management practices in general terms, and the idea of altmetrics—which I’ve given two talks about in recent weeks. My poster also served as a conversation starter about my post-PhD plans (still in flux), potential public engagement activities, and even possible grant opportunities.

Personally, I feel that these wider conversations are one of the best reasons to present an academic poster. Yes, it’s about the actual research presented in the visual artefact. But it is also about the conversations and connections that visual artefact creates in a wider sense. And for me, this one little poster made the conference a huge success—because I connected with others.

The rest of the conference was very interesting, too. It included a selection of staff and student presentations, breakout working groups, networking, and a research showcase at the end of the day. Sadly, I didn’t win any amazing prizes (as I did last year) but I did win a bit of confidence about my PhD research and my academic future.

I’ll end there as I have just finished delivering a research symposium and I’m a bit tired after the excitement of the day. But I’ll share a post about that shortly… followed by tales from next week’s conference in Aberdeen.

But if you would like to ask any questions about my poster or my larger doctoral investigation, please feel free to comment below or contact me privately.

Connecting people, connecting ideas

On 22 June 2017, I will be running a one-day research symposium along with Professor Hazel Hall. The symposium, “Connecting people, connecting ideas” (CPCI), focuses on research priorities in Information Science as related to everyday life information seeking and information behaviours in online environments. This free event will be held at our Craiglockhart campus and will be geared towards UK academics, with an emphasis on ECR and 3rd-year PhD student participation.

Registrations are open now. Numbers are limited so please book your place early.

The programme will include an opening keynote presentation by Professor Simeon Yates (Liverpool), PI of “Ways of being in a digital age”, and a series of facilitator-led small group discussions. Delegates will help to influence the day’s discussion topics by completing a pre-symposium exercise using the Well Sorted tool, which will establish core interests prior to the day allowing us to group delegates into appropriate teams for advanced discussions of focused research priorities and methods.

The symposium provides an opportunity for participants to consider how to prioritise themes, and develop ideas for, their future research projects. It is anticipated that the knowledge and inspiration gained from the day’s outcomes can be used in a range of future activities including grant proposals, future publications or conference papers, and calls for participation in conferences and seminars. And, of course, participants will establish relationships with other researchers which can subsequently lead to future research collaborations.

PhD bursaries:
We are offering four (4) travel bursaries for PhD students. Bursaries will cover travel costs of up to £50 and award winners will be asked to write their experiences on social media. Bursary winners will be asked to disseminate information about the event. To apply, they will need to provide a short explanation of how they would do that using a short application form which will be emailed to eligible participants after they complete the registration process.

More about the event:
CPCI is funded through a grant awarded by Edinburgh Napier University’s Research and Innovation Office (RIO). It is part of our Pointer Projects initiative, which is a collection of research projects in the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University. These projects investigate themes related to online information including democratic digital engagement, information seeking behaviour and use, knowledge management, and online communities.

Registrations are open now. Numbers are limited so please book your place early.

If you are unable to join us but are interested in learning more about the symposium or similar work and research (or even my own PhD research), please feel free to contact me.

A grant for a grant

In November, I submitted a grant application to an internal funding competition at Edinburgh Napier University. The application was made along with my PhD supervisor, Professor Hazel Hall and I am pleased to say that the bid was successful.

The grant will support two separate, but related, activities. The first is a one-day networking symposium that will take place in June 2017. The theme of the symposium is research priorities in Information Science as related to Everyday Life Information Seeking (ELIS) and Human Information Behaviour (HIB) in online environments.

By the end of the day, participants will have prioritised themes for future research. Their ideas will have been prompted by the keynote speaker, and by the other delegates in group sessions. The participants will also have established relationships which can subsequently lead to future research collaborations.

The second activity is writing a larger grant proposal. This will be for an external grant to support a postdoctoral research position within the Centre for Social Informatics at Napier. The postdoctoral work will build upon (1) the outputs of my PhD work (anticipated submission spring 2017) and (2) ideas generated at the symposium.

I will begin work to plan the symposium later this month and will increase my time spent on the project over the next few months. That will be even easier after I submit my thesis in the spring. Then, in June and July, I should be working full time on the symposium and the grant proposal. As the grant spending needs to be completed by the end of July, I may be finishing up the grant proposal on my own time, but that’s the life of an academic!

I will share more details about the symposium as planning gets underway in the spring. In the meantime, it’s back to that thesis I’m meant to be writing!
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