#DH23 Think Four

Follow us on Twitter….

During the previous weeks one of the topics discussed was keeping the personal and professional identity separate. I still think that for mediums like Facebook and Twitter which are known to everyone, one shouldn’t mix the identities. For example, someone can use the one for personal use and the other for professional use. This is what I was planning to do, keep using Facebook for personal reasons and start using Twitter for professional. However, no one says that someone can’t have two accounts on either of these two depending on the use and time willing to devote.  I still haven’t decided how I will be using Twitter even though I have set up an account.

There are a lot of things I still need to learn before starting to use Twitter. #, @, RT, MT

Well, we will see…

P.S. : I decided that I will be pressing the publish button without so much thought!

#DH23 Thing Three

I have to say I found it really difficult and time consuming to do the thing 3. I started it a couple of times but I always got stuck. I decided that this is the last try as I am really looking forward to do the next ones. I do not know why I got so stuck with this? Is it that I am an early researcher? Is it that I have no publication yet?

Google Scholar was very straightforward and easy. I was using it before to find articles but never as someone who might have publications. One thing I liked about Google Scholar is that I could use my personal email and not the university email. I know that after my graduation the university email address will be cancelled. Therefore, registering such resources with the personal email raises the possibilities of using it after the graduation.

ResearcherID was much more detailed than Google Scholar but I am not sure whether it is as known to the public. What I really like with ResearcherID is that it provides the opportunity to add any other names one might use. This is a problem I face sometimes as my full name is very long and I use a shorter version for my everyday life. But it happens that people do not realise that this is the same person.

I think that these tools are useful in general, but it seems to me that they are more useful to a researcher who has already published some work. I can only hope that I will be using them in the future.

#DH23 Thing Two

I would like to start this post by saying that while reading the posts on thing 2 it was interesting to see how most of us were very happy and relieved that we had a clean record!

One of the things I would like to discuss is the idea that most of us have two identities, professional and personal, which sometimes expands to separate web presence, blogs and email address.

In a discussion I had with a friend she was telling me that companies might ‘check’ someone’s facebook page (or other similar ones) before employing them. Imagine finding inappropriate pictures or other things you wouldn’t your employer to know. Also, facebook allows other people to post stuff and tag you which may interfere with what someone wants their profile/web presence like.

I was happy to see that the search of my name in Google didn’t return anything too personal or non academic. I have been on facebook for a long time mainly to keep contact with friends on other countries and for networking purposes. Usually I don’t pay much attention to various notices people post (such as that we will have to pay for Facebook and you have to something before so that you are in those who still use it for free). Once somebody posted that everyone should google their name and see comes as a result. I was amazed when I saw pictures of me or pictures of my close friends which have been posted on facebook, being there public (even though I use the friends only privacy feature). It seems that there was a setting that allowed facebook to present these if a name was googled. I immediately changed it!!

Social mention came up with a video from a series where a character had a similar name to mine but it really has nothing to do with me. In Google, I googled all versions of my name (short version, full name and both in English and my native language). For Personas I tried something different. There was no digital trace for me but for another person I did it came up with many results. I was amazed! I haven’t used that before and I didn’t actually know how it is when it comes up with results.

Then, I started thinking. Nothing really comes up for me. Maybe I should make myself more visible? I am still very early in my career and it seems like a good time to set up my web presence. Looking for all these and ‘playing’ with them was really interesting. Some are quite good and I would be interested to sign up as didn’t know they exist before…

Linking places one is represented does seem like a good idea as long as the different identities are not mixed. As I have read this can be done be choosing one main platform and linking others to it. But then, which is this platform? And under what identity would someone do that? Then the time issue comes up. How long does it take to maintain all these pages and places and preserving your web presence?

Not having a professional web presence has its pros and cons. On the one hand, the risk of personal and private stuff coming up if someone is not careful with visibility and privacy issues is decreased. However, people can’t find you and networking becomes more difficult. Also, people working in the same area can’t easily trace someone or their work.  I don’t think in the 21st century is a good strategy not having a professional presence. It is the time that everything is computerised and digital.

#DH23 Thing One

I have been adding everyday in my notes things to add to my post put I won’t easily press publish. It seems I want to edit the post before publishing it, as used in the rest of the text written for academic purposes. However, it should have been easier with posting on a blog since there are no ‘rules’ on the style and way of writing, as in preparing an article for a journal.

Can blogging replace (if possible) some of the publishing for academic purposes due to its fewer demands? Even the text in a post might require some editing before publishing; it doesn’t need the same amount of time and effort for a publication in a journal or a thesis. What is more, there are some positive outcomes from blogging such as sharing and exchanging ideas, experiences, comments and networking. The reading audience of a blog can be easily bigger than an academic journal as accessing blogs isn’t difficult at all. Also, the audience might come from different fields, which is not common with journals as people tend to read the academic journals that are closer to their area. It should be noted here however, that one of the problems of blogging on academic areas is that not everything posted is true, real or right. The text doesn’t have to be assessed by others before published and anyone can post anything he wants. If the blog is about experiences, thoughts and tips that is ok but if it post deals with more academic topics like methodology, epistemology and findings, problems might occur.

Another issue I was thinking of, it the different professional and personal blog. Should we have two blogs, which present different self and different topics? It doesn’t seem like a good idea posting for example first something on the methodology of your work and then an irrelevant thought on the pigeons crossing the square or how much fun you had at the beach during the summer break.

P.S.: Even though, I am interested in the idea blogging, I am not sure whether I will be maintaining this blog after the program. It still takes me a lot of time to edit the posts many times before posting them. May be the fact that English is not my first language has something to do with this. For example I have made the draft for this post since thing one and it is already thing four. Let’s see if I will manage to post the draft of thing two and three sooner or if they will remain in the draft folder for days. 

Hello World!

I really liked the title of the post’ example, so I kept it. “Hello World!”, it is a new world for me anyway.

Well, I have been thinking about blogging for a while, but never (until now) actually did it. The idea of creating a blog became more intense after I started reading blogs of people I know. I think before that, I just couldn’t find the purpose of it. Why would anyone else be interested in something I am writing? Especially if it not academic and it is just thoughts, concerns and comments… I remember once in the airplane, I started talking with the person sitting next to me. At a point he was trying to convince me how useful blogging is, but I was just not getting it!

I still have some concerns, but I’m going to give it a try.