Sides for a talk on "Digital Life Beyond the Institution" given by Brian Kelly, Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton at a seminar for the iSchool, University of Northumbria on 11 February 2015. See https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/digital-life-beyond-the-institution/

1. Preparing Our Users For Digital Life
Beyond The Institution
1
Preparing Our Users For Digital Life Beyond The Institution
Brian Kelly, Cetis

2. Preparing Our Users For Digital Life
Beyond The Institution
Brian Kelly
Innovation Advocate
Cetis
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
Contact Details
Email: ukwebfocus@gmail.com
Twitter: @briankelly
Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Slides and further information available at
https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/digital-life-beyond-the-institution/

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4. About This Talk
Abstract
Many institutions seek to ensure that students are given support in
various aspects of digital literacy which seek to ensure that they
can make effective use of digital resources when they graduate. But
what of staff and researchers? Unlike students, there is not an
expectation that members of staff will leave their host institution after a
fixed period of time. Similarly Vitae’s concordat for researchers
addresses development for researchers which aim to ensure they are
effective researchers whilst at their institution, with seemingly little
consideration to their research career beyond their current host
institutions.
In this seminar Brian Kelly will explore digital life beyond one’s current
host institution and suggest that libraries should have an important
role in providing support.
4

5. About Me
Brian Kelly:
• Innovation Advocate at Cetis, Bolton University since Oct 2013
• Formerly UK Web Focus at UKOLN, University of Bath from
1996-2013
Interests in:
• Encouraging use of innovative technologies and practices to
support institutional activities
• Areas of work have included:
 Web standards ■ Web accessibility
 Mobile technologies ■ Social web
 Digital preservation ■ ….
A change of direction:
• Redundancy in July 2013 for majority of UKOLN staff
• Desire to continue professional work (consultant or employment
in sector)
Introduction
5

6. The Challenge – for Many of Us!
What happens when:
• “The axeman cometh” and staff are made redundant or
take early retirement?
• They wish to continue to exploit their professional
interests as:
 In a new organisation
 A consultant
 An itinerant researcher
 A means of developing their CV
• The researcher’s contract expires and they wish to
further their research elsewhere?
6
Who has responsibilities for ensuring staff and researchers
are able to respond appropriately to such ‘life events’?

7. Changing Work Environment
“By 2015, there will be more Britons over 65 than under
15. We cannot afford to discard their expertise.”
“Studies show that on average each of us will have
seven careers, two of which are yet to exist.”
Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow
In New Statesman, 20th Sept 2013
7

8. VIEW OF A RETIRED
ACADEMIC
“Last night, I wrote reference for an ex-colleague, and
noticed that the form expected me to belong to an
institution. I guess that identity formation is ongoing
work. Am I retired just because I have a pension?
Retired is a deadly label I think.”
Recently retired academic from a northern university
8

9. About You
What is the role of librarians in
supporting users who may find
themselves in this predicament?
Can you identify:
• Concrete institutional
strategies
• Training and support
services
which prepare staff and
researchers for digital life after
they leave the institution?
9

10. Information Literacy
• Defined as “the ability to find, use, evaluate and
communicate information”
• Felt to be “an essential skill in this digital age and era
of life-long learning”
LILAC Conference home page
10
Should we say:
• “the ability to find, use and reuse, evaluate and
communicate information”
where reuse includes future use in a different work
context

11. Assumptions
The University environment typically assumes:
• You can trust the institution
• We will provide the appropriate IT infrastructure
• We are here to help you
But:
• When you leave we don’t care (unless you donate
money!)
• Our auditors tell us we must delete accounts when
people leave
• We run courses for new staff & students (our assets)
but not when they are about to leave (our liabilities)
11
Will the institution’s IT environment be regarded as a
silo (a ‘walled garden’) afer you leave the institution?

12. Policy at Bath University
12
See http://www.bath.ac.uk/bucs/news/news_0013.html ×

13. University gives very brief details when:
Policy at Bath University
13
Detailed policies• Detailed policies
• Staff leave
• Staff have a new job in the Uni
• Staff are dismissed
• Staff die
But is leaving the institution really an unusual event?

14. The Open Agenda
We are seeing how moves to openness can provide
benefits for life-long learners:
• Open source software: avoids licence costs which
enable software to be used outside the institution
• Open content: avoids licensing restrictions so
content can be used and modified
• Open access: avoids licensing restrictions so
research papers can continue to be accessed
• Open educational practices: working in an open
and transparent way
14
Education and user support and – the missing
component? An opportunity for librarians?!

15. My Move to The Cloud:
A Case Study
Following announcement of cessation of funding for
UKOLN I identified that need to ensure:
• Minimal loss of digital content
• Minimal loss of professional networks
• Continued access to use and modify social
media services
• Identify and implement strategies for ongoing
digital presence
15
Note that since I didn’t intent to die in my job, such
plans should have been in place in any case!

16. The Institutional Repository
Opus, the University
of Bath institutional
repository, provides
a secure, reliable &
maintained
repository for my
research papers,
project reports, etc. 16
My Opus entry, which provides a record of my
publications from 1997-2013. See
http://opus.bath.ac.uk/view/person_id/588.html

17. Persistency of Records
Opus policy seeks to ensure
long-term persistency of content.
17
When people leave will they still
have their contributions listed?
Or their usage statistics?
Opus repository continues to provide content,
ownership details (in part) and usage statistics

18. Persistency of Records
Informal feedback:
• "Records disappear when someone leaves
because that's entirely appropriate."
• "Staff leaving the university have a different
relationship to the organisation. By rights we should
shut off ALL accounts the day the relationship with
the organisation ends."
Institutional context:
• “this is obviously down to institutional management
of people records”
Where does your policy fit in the spectrum?
• We’re focussing on the REF and our CRIS
(Current Research Information System)
• We are loyal to former employees
18

19. Manage Your Own Records
Ensure that a record of
your work (e.g. your
publications) is
available beyond the
institution (e.g. on
LinkedIn)
19

20. Manage Your Own Content
Ensure that your (open
access) publications are
hosted in an environment
you can maintain when
you leave the institution.
For example:
• ResearchGate
20
Papers hosted initially in local open
access repository

21. Manage Your Own Content
Ensure that your (open
access) publications are
hosted in an environment
you can maintain when
you leave the institution.
For example:
• ResearchGate
• Academia.edu
• …
21
No permission to upload book
chapter, so metadata-only records
Full-text of open access paper available

22. Manage Your Own Ideas
Ensure that if you
have a blog it isn’t
trapped in the
institution (and
potentially deleted
when you leave).
Some options:
• Create a blog in
the Cloud initially
• Migrate your blog
to the Cloud
22
Blog at ukwebfocus.wordpress.com
continued with no need to migrate content

23. Use Cloud Sharing Services
Have you got your OneDrive,
Google Drive or Dropbox
accounts?
23
Case study
Since 2012 I’ve used OneDrive (was SkyDrive) for
collaborative peer-reviewed papers:
• Can use MS Word in the Cloud
• File in one place (avoids multiple master
copies problem).
• Can be viewed (and updated) on mobile
devices
• Not part of an ‘institutional silo’

24. Manage Your Research Identifier
Take control of your
research identity!
ORCID:
• Open Researcher and
Contributor ID
• Non-proprietary
alphanumeric code to
uniquely identify
scientific / academic
authors
• Managed by ORCID
Inc. an open &
independent registry
24
My ORCID: 0000-0001-5875-8744
Not coupled to
institutional ID

25. Know How To Migrate Your Email
After 17 years of email
use I had:
• Large number of
messages
• Large number of
contacts
• Personal &
professional uses
25
Need to know how to:
• Set up new email accounts (Gmail) & re-subscribe to lists of interest
• Migrate old email messages, sender details, etc.
• Associate social media services with new email accounts
• Rationalise use of email
• Understand risks of loss of email account

26. Email For Authentication
Change your email address to
ensure you aren’t locked out
of Cloud services!
26
Claim your papers in Google
Scholar while your
institutional email is valid –
otherwise you might not be
able to claim them!

27. Manage Your Own Domain
A spectrum of ownership:
• Your CV and list of
publications
• Your publications
themselves
• Your blog content
• Your digital identify
• Your email (content,
connections,
authentication)
• Your domain name
• Your own server
27

28. The Role of Librarians
What is the role of librarians in ensuring staff and
researchers and other members of staff can exploit their
potential when they leave their host institution?
28
Traditionally:
• Many IT services were provided by the
institution
• Librarians (and IT staff) provided advice &
support on use of such services
• Non-hosted services were banned (access
to Second Life) or deprecated (“the content
isn’t secure”, “the service isn’t reliable”,
“they’ll claim ownership of your content”,
“students won’t want us in their space”, … )

29. A New Role for Librarians
In the past:
• The IT infrastructure was
mainly hosted in the
institution
• The IT support infrastructure
focussed primarily on
institutional services, with
some appreciation of (and
warnings about) Cloud
services
29
My
University
Slideshare
Google

30. A New Role for Librarians
In the future:
• The IT infrastructure no
longer revolves around the
institution
• The IT infrastructure will
focus on the services
chosen by the individual
(with warning about the
transient nature of
institutional services)
30
My
PLE/PRE
My current place of work
My first university

31. Stimulating The Economy
New approaches can help librarians to ensure that the
departure of researchers can stimulate the economy:
• Support the migration of intellectual assets so that they
can continue to be used
• Ensure that training to do so is embedded in institution 31

32. 32
Who has
responsibility?

33. SCONUL
33
Thoughts:
• No digital
literacies for staff
& researchers?
• Limited view on
‘digital literacy’?

34. 34
The Research
Concordat:
“an agreement between
funders and employers of
research staff to improve
the employment and
support for researchers
and research careers in
UK higher education.”
Research
Concordat

35. 35
Research Concordat
Shouldn’t
life-long
skills to
manage
digital
content be
addressed in
the
Research
Concordat?

36. Survey Across The
Community
Survey of institutional
approaches to information
literacy & Cloud services
carried out in March 2014:
• 89 responses received
• Only 15% of IL policies
cover Cloud services
• Only 2 institutions
addressed needs of
staff leaving institution
• “It’s not our
responsibility!”
36

37. Reflections
Digital life is now primarily in the Cloud, so why are we ignoring this?
We seek to prepare our students with life-long learning skills for working in a digital
environment after they graduate.
But members of staff and researchers are only given training in institutionally-
approved & support technologies. We fail to provide training and support for staff
for their digital life beyond the institution.
And yet everyone will leave the institution (unless they die in the job!)
Professional practices and institutions are in conflict here: on the one hand, I have
a duty to my employer to support the needs of the institution; on the other hand,
my profession, and the higher education sector, believes in the value of life-long
learning.
How can this be resolved? I'm not sure that the digital literacies summary
espoused SCONUL and promoted by Jisc, are sufficient, as this focusses on
teaching of digital literacies. Do we need a new, more agile approach that can deal
with contemporary need for digital life beyond the institution? And if so, can we find
this within existing professional frameworks or do we need to do this for
ourselves? 37

38. Will This Work?
Proposed policy:
The University seeks to ensure that staff and students
are able to be productive and effective in their work
and study at the university and are able to continue to
exploit their skills, knowledge and content when they
leave provide this does not conflict with licence
conditions, etc.
How?
During induction staff and students are advised on how
to maximise long-term access to content and services.
Prior to leaving staff and students will be able to
access support on how to migrate their content,
communities and access from institutional services.
38

39. Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/selco/5347009607/
Where Do You Stand?
Today we’re learning
about the risks of using
Web 2.0 services

40. Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/alatechsourceblog/101011114/
Where Do You Stand?
Today I’ve explained why you
need to migrate to Web 2.0
services and avoid the
institutional silo

41. Conclusions
To conclude:
• There will be an increase in the numbers of staff and
researchers who will need to manage digital content
and services when they leave their host institution.
• Current institutional and national plans do not seem
to address such needs.
• An opportunity to take a lead in developing an
institutional (national) strategy?
41

42. Questions?
Any questions, comments, …?
42
Carry on the discussion – see the blog post at
https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/seminar-on-preparing-
our-users-for-digital-life-beyond-the-institution/

43. This presentation, “Preparing Our Users For Digital Life Beyond The
Institution” by Brian Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 Licence
Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Quotations
may have other licence conditions.
Images may have other licence conditions. Where possible links are
provided to the source of images so that licence conditions can be found.
43
Slides and further information available at
https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/digital-life-beyond-the-institution/
Licence and Additional Resources