andysug, Author at UOSM 2033
UOSM2033: Living and Working on the Web
Sun, 11 Jan 2015 18:45:41 +0000
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All good things must end.
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Sun, 11 Jan 2015 18:45:41 +0000
Unlike every other module I’ve done at this university, UOSM2033 has been pretty much entirely based around communication. This has been a very interesting difference, as people have been able to put their points of view across strongly and actually … Continue reading →
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Unlike every other module I’ve done at this university, UOSM2033 has been pretty much entirely based around communication. This has been a very interesting difference, as people have been able to put their points of view across strongly and actually try to better each other’s understanding while going about it. In some ways I think everyone has learnt a lot from it, and by the end views were not so disparate as they might have been at the start of the module.
As I’ve found necessary during the module occasionally, it’s time to have a break to reduce it into stats. My blog has had 698 hits during the period of the module. In total, my posts had 26 comments, and 10 pingbacks as well, my favourite being from week 2’s general feedback post! I’ve also created a word cloud of the words I used in my posts this module, just to give a sense of perspective and shape to proceedings. I definitely used sources from the Guardian more often than I was expecting.
The module has made me take on a number of different social networking platforms that I may not otherwise have used. I made a return to LinkedIn, and found that very little had changed since I’d been away. I was convinced to, however, by the massive amounts of support for it around the course, which was something I did find very interesting. It makes me very curious indeed as to what sort of contacts other people might have built up throughout life that it’s possible I am entirely missing. I also created an about.me some time back, though all this has managed to do for me so far is send me another newsletter email to delete every week. Ah well.
I think one thing we can all take forward to other modules is the communicative community that has built up around UOSM2033 (it’s getting hard to write that without a hashtag in front). It will definitely encourage me to partake more in facebook groups for other modules I am involved in next semester to see if that has equally positive results. I have also enjoyed thinking about how the web, which one uses every day, can be used from such a number of different perspectives. Academia, for example, uses the web more than I could have imagined, and it’s also a battleground for all sorts of disputes… from #Gamergate to Topic 5’s Spotify debate!
Finally, I’ve learnt a plethora of new ways to present information, which I will be keeping in mind for use in other modules when the situation allows it. My own Powtoon and Prezi, along with a range of other ideas including vlogs and audio presentations have made this a very interesting and varied course.
And of course, who knows what could happen on this blog in the future? The post All good things must end. appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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Reflections on Open Access
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Sun, 14 Dec 2014 01:16:14 +0000
This topic has proved an interesting one, partly for the addition of some MANG2049 students to the discussion, which has meant that we’ve had some extra voices and a little more chat. The talk around Spotify after Anna’s blog was … Continue reading →
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This topic has proved an interesting one, partly for the addition of some MANG2049 students to the discussion, which has meant that we’ve had some extra voices and a little more chat. The talk around Spotify after Anna’s blog was especially lively, and it was great to see some people with really disparate opinions having a good debate about how things should be.
As for the area I was focussing on this topic, namely open access in academia, some good discussion points were also raised. In his blog and subsequent response to my comment, Charlie put forward his point that having content forced on people, such as in the U2 example, could give the entirety of open access a bad name. I’m not so certain that people would ever link the two, myself, but I can see how if people started to think that open access meant breaches of privacy, they wouldn’t be fans.
In my comment on Jess’ blog (currently awaiting moderation, thus linked as screenshot) I make a point that I’d previously not thought of in response to her (almost) unequivocally positive take on open access in academia. To stay afloat, publishing companies would have to find new strategies, and one that popped to my mind was simply purchasing any open access journal that gained a reputation for good work, and past editions of said journal. In this scenario, the open access journal world would be constantly shifting, making it even easier for bogus journals to pose as reputable ones.
Finally, and indeed, for the last time, dear reader, we turn to the comments on my blog. Din made a good point about how open access and a payment model could benefit specific researchers – if they could make certain tasters of work available for free, and charge for more, you might end up with a good system. Khairul made another good point, though more tangentially related, that open access could be the answer to the ‘file drawer problem’. While this may be true of a green open access model, I’m sure no-one would pay to publish null and unexciting research under a gold system, so it may only be part of the answer.
Thank you for reading my witterings for the last 10 weeks, and keeping the brain awake with your comments! The post Reflections on Open Access appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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Open Access Journals. Good, Evil, Or Not-As-Dramatic?
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Sun, 07 Dec 2014 23:21:24 +0000
Here’s a link to the Prezi I’ve made for this week’s post. (It has sound!) References Beall, Jeffrey, 2012. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature, 489, (179) doi:10.1038/489179a Beall, Jeffrey, 2014. Bogus Journal Accepts Profanity-Laced Anti-Spam Paper. Scholarly Open Access at WordPress. Directory of … Continue reading →
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Here’s a link to the Prezi I’ve made for this week’s post. (It has sound!)
References
Beall, Jeffrey, 2012. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature, 489, (179) doi:10.1038/489179a
Beall, Jeffrey, 2014. Bogus Journal Accepts Profanity-Laced Anti-Spam Paper. Scholarly Open Access at WordPress.
Directory of Open Access Journals, search engine feature, accessed 07/12/2014.
Mazières, David & Kohler, Eddie, 2004. Get Me Off Your F***ing Mailing List. As yet still unpublished.
Prezi, Presentation creation and hosting.
Rice, Curt, 2013. Open access: four ways it could enhance academic freedom. The Guardian.
Suber, Peter, 2013. Open access: six myths to put to rest. The Guardian. The post Open Access Journals. Good, Evil, Or Not-As-Dramatic? appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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Trolls Just Want to Have Fun
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Sun, 30 Nov 2014 18:20:56 +0000
It was an interesting fortnight on planet UOSM2033, with people making forays into the world of vlogging and including more imaginative media in their posts, something I tried to demonstrate with the Powtoon in my post. (On a side note … Continue reading →
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It was an interesting fortnight on planet UOSM2033, with people making forays into the world of vlogging and including more imaginative media in their posts, something I tried to demonstrate with the Powtoon in my post. (On a side note here, many thanks to Calum and Jess for pointing out my fantastically stupid mistake of making the video private when it was meant to be unlisted… I’m a silly one.)
The discussion floated in a number of different directions as well, although I feel this did make some aspects a little less incisive than in previous weeks where there has been a little more overlap in terms of content people are discussing. I had three comments on my blog to help the discussion along, and responded to them in turn, and the reoccurring theme in them was one of police resources – I was very keen on going after these trolls and trying to bring them to justice, but where was the time going to come from to do that.
My reaction was twofold – Firstly, and ideologically, for me, if there are not enough police to deal with all the crime, we need more police and not just a redefinition of crime. Secondly, I think a lot of these trolls would stop after a simple warning letter… as soon as they realised that their actions might have real world consequences, they would be forced to take different routes to fulfilling their sadist needs.
One of the blogs I commented on this week was Calum’s, which took an intriguing look at the #GamerGate movement, something I had only heard negative things about from the media and various celebrities. I was interested to read about where the movement had actually started and what it was meant to be rallying against, and that story links back into my topic well by showing just how easy it is for an internet campaign like this to be totally undermined by a few trolls and abusers pushing everything too far.
(My other comment this week was made on Catherine’s blog.) The post Trolls Just Want to Have Fun appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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The Only Way Is Ethics.
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Sun, 23 Nov 2014 22:59:44 +0000
Otherwise known as ‘The One Where Andy Thought of the Title Before the Content’. On first inspection, I think it’s obvious that there is a massive link between this topic on ethics and how some of the strands of discussion … Continue reading →
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Otherwise known as ‘The One Where Andy Thought of the Title Before the Content’.
On first inspection, I think it’s obvious that there is a massive link between this topic on ethics and how some of the strands of discussion developed during topic 2. In my reflection article I touched on the subject of Twitter trolling, a subject which this Guardian article featured in the starter post for this topic discusses in detail. Therefore, in the spirit of coherency, I thought it might be nice to continue with the theme. I decided to create a Powtoon to set up the issue I’ve chosen, and to add a little spice to this week’s output!
The link here to educational uses of social media is the Mary Beard example quoted in the above video. Unless we can find a way of dealing with the issue of trolling, the problem is going to get larger and larger until any user with a large number of followers will be subjected to this abuse. As shown, women with great intelligence can often threaten men who have little, so women aiming to educate from their Twitter accounts might be at the greatest risk of having their physical appearance picked apart and then horrible threats made to them.
Why do the trolls even do it? Well, an article from the Psychology journal ‘Personality and Individual Differences’ (fantastically called ‘Trolls just want to have fun’) suggests that trolling was linked to Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism, which does, as the title suggested, say that these trolls are doing it because they find causing offence and hurting people to be enjoyable activities. Unfortunately, that makes them harder to stop.
So, what are we going to do? It’s the kind of question that until you start thinking about it sounds hard, and when you’ve thought about it, sounds even harder. This Guardian article (I’ve been reading the Guardian too much, it seems) suggests a large number of ways of dealing with these trolls, but unfortunately every single one of them met with cons as well as pros. I think the lesson in that is that we need to tackle it from multiple angles – While the con for “report abusive tweets to police” is “police have to balance conflicting demands on their time: is a rape threat on Twitter more urgent than a real-life stalker or online fraud?”, I’d say that if we haven’t got enough police to deal with the issues, that’s more a recruitment error than a con. We do need these online police teams to stop those out to verbally abuse and attack the great and the good, and these trolls need to be brought to justice.
References:
Arthur, Charles, & Kiss, Jemima, 2013. Twitter abuse: what can be done to stop trolling?. The Guardian.
Buckels, Erin E., Trapnell, Paul D., & Paulhus, Delroy L., 2014. Trolls just want to have fun. Personality and Individual Differences, 67.
Harris, Lisa, 2014. UOSM2033 Topic 4 Starting Post.
Urban Dictionary: Trolling
Editorial, 2014. Twitter abuse: easy on the messenger. The Guardian.
Mead, Rebecca, 2014. The Troll Slayer. A piece on Mary Beard in ‘The New Yorker’. (Used for Powtoon)
Andy Sugden, Powtoon & Youtube, 2014.
The Holloways, 2009. Under a Cloud from No Smoke, No Mirrors. (The only song I could find in my collection with lyrics related to the internet!) The post The Only Way Is Ethics. appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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A Reflection on Professional Online Profiles
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Sun, 16 Nov 2014 00:19:09 +0000
I’m going to start this topic’s reflection with a confession. I don’t actually dislike Linkedin, per se. I think my comments on it recently have mainly reflected the fact that, in general, I am ambivalent towards it, as opposed to … Continue reading →
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I’m going to start this topic’s reflection with a confession. I don’t actually dislike Linkedin, per se. I think my comments on it recently have mainly reflected the fact that, in general, I am ambivalent towards it, as opposed to the standard line that it’s a fantastic way to make yourself look better for everyone ever. (In a fun turn of events, this blog is now the 5th highest google entry for ‘Andy Sugden Linkedin’!) I do see its uses, and in some sectors pretty much everyone is on Linkedin, as I mentioned in my comment on Aumar’s blog, but it is nowhere near as widely used as is sometimes suggested by people outside these sectors.
I’ve also found some more evidence for my theory of the online profile being more useful for defence than offence, as an interesting graphic (albeit using a slightly old survey) from Sophie’s blog (which I also commented on) showed, when the source was looked at in full, only 18% of those surveyed had been influenced toward hiring a candidate from social profiles, as opposed to 35% who were caused not to hire someone by what they found there.
A number of other people have made some great points on how we can improve these profiles though, and whilst I feel I may always shirk when I hear the words ‘personal brand’, Pippa’s blog certainly was a great advocate of Linkedin in an interesting way that did actually show how it can be used to good effect.
So I bit the bullet. I logged back into Linkedin. I could be accused of being closed-minded if I didn’t, and I wouldn’t want that to be the case. I’ve updated my profile with a number of more relevant bits of information/skill set etc. (though there were some bits I struggled with… there are some of us who don’t really have a dream job or life goals) and even included a lovely link to this blog within the projects section.
As if I wasn’t meta enough already. The post A Reflection on Professional Online Profiles appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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An Authentic, Professional Online Profile.
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Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:40:07 +0000
I am Andy Sugden. Andrew, to be precise, but Andy is the name I’ve chosen to be referred to as. The one issue with this and creating a successful online profile is that I’m unlikely to ever reach the top … Continue reading →
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I am Andy Sugden. Andrew, to be precise, but Andy is the name I’ve chosen to be referred to as. The one issue with this and creating a successful online profile is that I’m unlikely to ever reach the top page of a google for ‘Andy Sugden’, those spots generally being taken by sites relating to the Emmerdale character of the same name. My Twitter account, @AndySugden, has just crept into the second page of results though, so there’s a start.
Andy Sugden vs. Andy Sugden. If we ever had to fight, I wouldn’t fancy my chances.
Creating an authentic and professional online presence though has more about it than being top of search results. For a start, it’s incredibly important when job hunting to not have anything on your profiles that may land you in the ‘reject’ pile. As the Wall Street journal reported over two years ago, a survey of 2000 employers found that 44% would immediately reject a candidate who had badmouthed a former employer or colleague on a social media site. A recent study (Scott, Sinclair, Short & Bruce, 2014) showed that in general, we see a person who has made spelling mistakes on Facebook as less employable, so even if you do not earn an immediate rejection for bad behaviour, it may well tarnish your chances of being the outstanding candidate.
Authentic is an interesting word in this situation as well. At the end of the day, companies are looking to recruit people with ideas who can get along together, rather than a team of robots spouting the same platitudes day after day. Twitter is a fantastic resource for employers, and for job hunters if we understand how to use it as well. If we are authentic online, can post articles we are interested in and showcase opinions that aren’t divisive or extreme, we can show that we aren’t those robots and that we can be a very useful cog in the team we wish to join.
Realistically, building an authentic professional profile online is all about being the best bits of us, showcasing our skills and talents to some extent, while making sure we don’t show anything that could lead to us being dumped straight on the ‘reject’ pile.
References
Google (and ‘LMGTFY’, sorry to anyone who clicked that!).
Kwoh, Leslie, 2012. Beware: Potential Employers Are Watching You, The Wall Street Journal.
Scott, G. G., Sinclair, J., Short, E., and Bruce, G, 2014. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 17(8) doi:10.1089/cyber.2013.0584.
P.S. I hope no-one ever Googles me and presumes I burnt down a barn and killed my adopted mother. The post An Authentic, Professional Online Profile. appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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Reflections on Identity
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Sun, 02 Nov 2014 18:45:58 +0000
Personally, I have found Topic 2 to be a very interesting starting point for discussion, as its broad nature has allowed it to be taken in a number of intriguing directions. I was most interested in questions in terms of … Continue reading →
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Personally, I have found Topic 2 to be a very interesting starting point for discussion, as its broad nature has allowed it to be taken in a number of intriguing directions. I was most interested in questions in terms of behaviour, as in how having more than one identity online can actually help us socially. This point was reinforced by Din’s blog, where he also looked at how having separate identities as a teenager can allow us to try different parts of our personality, allowing us to shape ourselves into better, more likable people in the real world. He also looked at the other topic I tried to cover, anonymity and how any identity at all on the internet is sometimes not necessary.
Nabeel’s blog also dealt with this more murky aspect of identity. The assertion that “everyone has something to hide” is not one I’m sure I agree with, and the fact that the anonymous side of the web allows most hacking, and drug/firearms deals for example is something that we are going to have to sort out in this age. On a lower level, the abuse handed out on Twitter labelled as ‘trolling’ is something that can be done anonymously, and as a criminal offence can only be stopped by a greater use of identity online.
The comments on my blog also allowed me to think more deeply into the issue. Freya asked the question of online dating sites, and whether having a separate identity on there could be justified, and raised for me the point of the boundary. When you get to a point where you are expected to be yourself, and you are still not, you are just deceiving the other people in an unhealthy way. Catherine’s comment probed at the paradoxical nature of my statements, asking how I could say I saw people converging to a single identity when I myself had had many. A valid point indeed, one which I think refers to the age of the user. At 16, having 2/3 identities was fine and useful, but now I’m 20, I like to view myself as a coherent person online. The post Reflections on Identity appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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Online Identity or Online Identities?
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Sat, 25 Oct 2014 17:15:40 +0000
My degree subject, Psychology, refers to identity as a collection of ways we think about ourselves, with some thoughts more central, important and pervasive than others (Gregg, 2014). In many ways, I think that’s a good place to start thinking … Continue reading →
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My degree subject, Psychology, refers to identity as a collection of ways we think about ourselves, with some thoughts more central, important and pervasive than others (Gregg, 2014). In many ways, I think that’s a good place to start thinking about online identity, as online, while still being the same people, we can choose how we display that.
It’s almost paradoxical, but the real truth is that the ability to have more than one identity, or none at all, is one of the reasons that makes the internet so fantastic and also the largest source of problems for it. In transactions, for example, maintaining security and collecting enough reliable data to prevent fraud is incredibly difficult and complex, and we only do it by maintaining links to the real world (Smedinghoff, 2012). It’s one of the reasons the value of Bitcoin, the largest online currency, is so volatile.
Let’s take an exemplum from my own life as to the benefits of multiple online identities. I had a Facebook account in my real name, my first identity, and other identities in different worlds, one in online gaming, and one in forums. As a teenage geek, being able to use a pseudonym with strangers gives a fantastic veil of confidence. Research from Bullingham and Vasconcelos shows that people tend to largely recreate their offline selves in these situations, although they do edit small parts of their personalities, like my confidence, which in real life was low, but online could be artificially raised. (An interesting aside here is that research by Vasalou and Joinson shows that bloggers tend to portray themselves as closer to their offline selves when using a picture of themselves as an avatar. Psychology, eh?)
From personal experience, I’d say that in general the number of online identities people have is gradually converging toward one. The proliferation of smartphones in the modern age mean that one online identity is the easiest number to maintain, with contacts/phone numbers etc. automatically synced from various servies, and the number of sites that allow an anonymous user to access their full service on the fall. The ‘Connect via Facebook/Twitter’ button is always more appealing and less time consuming than setting up something new.
Time is a finite resource.
References
Bullingham, L., & Vasconcelos, A. C., 2013. ‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities. Journal of Information Science, 39 (1). doi:10.1177/0165551512470051
Gregg, A. P., 2014. PSYC3014 – Self and Identity Lecture Material.
Smedinghoff, T. J., 2012. Solving the legal challenges of trustworthy online identity. Computer Law & Security Review, 29 (5). doi:10.1016/j.clsr.2012.07.001
Vasalou, A., & Joinson, A. N., 2009. Me, myself and I: The role of interactional context on self-presentation through avatars. Computers in Human Behavior, 25 (2). doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.11.007
P.S: ‘Computer Law & Security Review’ sounds like the kind of journal I should immediately be signing up to receive. Thrilling. The post Online Identity or Online Identities? appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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Reflective Summary – Digital Visitors and Residents
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Sun, 19 Oct 2014 17:41:39 +0000
It has been interesting over the past couple of weeks for me to see, on this university wide course, how different people from different backgrounds of study choose to research and think about different areas. There were many differences of opinion on the concept as well, which was equally interesting as some of us chose […]
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It has been interesting over the past couple of weeks for me to see, on this university wide course, how different people from different backgrounds of study choose to research and think about different areas. There were many differences of opinion on the concept as well, which was equally interesting as some of us chose to question the point and usefulness of it, while others took it as a positive that it left room for interpretation.
Calum’s (fair) point on my blog that I was getting too bogged down in specifics of why White should back some of his claims up with numbers was one of those things that made me think – Did I think empiricism was really needed in such a matter, or was it pointless? – My thoughts are currently that it is always important. There are no real numbers to show that we aren’t all vaguely similar in terms of how often we’re a visitor or a resident, and unless we’re sure there’s a distinction to be made, how do we know whether to make it?
Freya’s blog was nicely balanced between the two viewpoints, which is why I found it interesting to read. By self-identifying as a resident, she added a more personal perspective to things, which helped the tone of the post, making it a good balance between the personal and the formal.
The other blog I chose to comment on was Charlie’s. He mentioned another weakness of the continuum that I hadn’t mentioned in great detail, simply that it can be impossible to pinpoint oneself on the spectrum, and even if you can, people near you do not have to be doing anything vaguely similar to you with the internet.
In retrospect, one of the things I noted first about the topic seems to be key – the lack of research. Only one researcher has really done much work on this, and that does seem to be reflected in the fact that there was a very low amount of variance between the reference list of all the blogs I looked at. It also shows that, the concept, while White’s baby, could well do with a bit of work from researchers at other institutions to see if they can show it has a use. The post Reflective Summary – Digital Visitors and Residents appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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Digital ‘Visitors’ and ‘Residents’
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Sat, 11 Oct 2014 14:19:00 +0000
The idea of classifying web users as ‘visitors’ and ‘residents’ is a fairly new one, first identified in a paper from White, Manton and Le Cornu (2009). Their final 2011 write-up had the aim of replacing the pre-existing idea of digital ‘natives’ and ‘immigrants’ coined by Marc Prensky in an article back in 2001, but […]
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The idea of classifying web users as ‘visitors’ and ‘residents’ is a fairly new one, first identified in a paper from White, Manton and Le Cornu (2009). Their final 2011 write-up had the aim of replacing the pre-existing idea of digital ‘natives’ and ‘immigrants’ coined by Marc Prensky in an article back in 2001, but now found to barely scratch the surface.
The system positions all web users on a continuum between being a total ‘visitor’ (one who uses the digital world for specific purposes, and leaves when those purposes are completed, leaving no trace) and a total ‘resident’ (someone who ‘lives’ on the web, with constantly updating social media presences). This video by Dave White, the creator of the paradigm, is very useful in explaining the terms more fully. As with most continuums such as this, the thought is that the majority of users are likely to exist somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
I do have a couple of concerns about the dynamic here, however. Firstly, after researching for a fair amount of time on this topic, I can’t find a well-constructed study offering any data about how numbers of visitors and residents break-down by age or social class (A rather flawed study by Wright, White, Hirst and Cann appears to offer the only data on the issue, and as a study of students forced to use Google+ for the purposes of their course, there are many ways it can be criticised).
While I accept the theory is useful in any respect, it feels strange that White makes claims that suggest age is not a large factor in this spectrum without having any numbers to back himself up. From my own personal use of the web, I would suggest that the lower-skilled users overall would tend to split in terms of age largely, with older low-skill users likely to be almost entirely visitors, and younger low-skill users likely to be resident but with little to say for themselves.
The lack of empiricism is my main concern, but I am also worried that White thinks he has replaced the natives/immigrants paradigm, which looks largely at skill, with a visitor/resident paradigm that doesn’t include skill on any level. Personally, I’d suggest that both systems could well be coexisting in the way people use the web, while Prensky’s thoughts could benefit from the continuum White employs.
References
All references are displayed as links in the text.
Prensky, M., 2001. MCB University Press Volume 9 (5). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.
White, D. S., 2013. YouTube video on ‘Dave White’s channel named ‘Visitors and Residents’.
White, D. S., and Le Cornu, A., 2011. First Monday, Volume 16 (9). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement.
White, D. S., Manton, M., and Le Cornu, A., 2009. Isthmus: Headline Findings Report.
Wright, F., White, D. S., Hirst, T., and Cann, A., 2013. Learning, Media and Technology, Volume 39 (1). Visitors and Residents: mapping student attitudes to academic use of social networks. The post Digital ‘Visitors’ and ‘Residents’ appeared first on UOSM 2033.
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