Preparing Our Users For Digital Life

Beyond The Institution

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Preparing Our Users For Digital Life Beyond The InstitutionBrian Kelly, Cetis

Preparing Our Users For Digital Life

Beyond The Institution

Brian KellyInnovation Advocate

Cetis

University of Bolton

Bolton, UK

Contact DetailsEmail: 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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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.

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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)

Intr

od

ucti

on

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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?

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Who has responsibilities for ensuring staff and researchers

are able to respond appropriately to such ‘life events’?

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

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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

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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?

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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

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Should we say:

• “the ability to find, use and reuse, evaluate and

communicate information”

where reuse includes future use in a different work

context

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)

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Will the institution’s IT environment be regarded as a

silo (a ‘walled garden’) afer you leave the institution?

Policy at Bath University

12See http://www.bath.ac.uk/bucs/news/news_0013.html ×

University gives very brief details when:

Policy at Bath University

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Detailed policies• Detailed policies

• Staff leave

• Staff have a new job in the Uni• Staff are dismissed

• Staff dieBut is leaving the institution really an unusual event?

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

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Education and user support and – the missing component? An opportunity for librarians?!

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

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Note that since I didn’t intent to die in my job, such plans should have been in place in any case!

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

Persistency of Records

Opus policy seeks to ensure long-term persistency of content.

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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

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 employees18

Manage Your Own Records

Ensure that a record of

your work (e.g. your

publications) is

available beyond the

institution (e.g. on

LinkedIn)

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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

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Papers hosted initially in local open

access repository

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

• …

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No permission to upload book

chapter, so metadata-only records

Full-text of open access paper available

Manage Your Own IdeasEnsure 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

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Blog at ukwebfocus.wordpress.com

continued with no need to migrate content

Use Cloud Sharing Services

Have you got your OneDrive,

Google Drive or Dropbox

accounts?

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Case studySince 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’

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

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My ORCID: 0000-0001-5875-8744

Not coupled to

institutional ID

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

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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

Email For Authentication

Change your email address to ensure you aren’t locked out of Cloud services!

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Claim your papers in Google

Scholar while your

institutional email is valid –

otherwise you might not be

able to claim them!

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

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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?

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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”, … )

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

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My

University

Slideshare

Google

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)

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My

PLE/PRE

My current place of work

My first university

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

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Who has responsibility?

SCONUL

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Thoughts:

• No digital literacies for staff & researchers?

• Limited view on ‘digital literacy’?

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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

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Research Concordat

Shouldn’t

life-long

skills to

manage

digital

content be

addressed in

the

Research

Concordat?

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!”

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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

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.

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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

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

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?

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Questions?

Any questions, comments, …?

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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/

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.

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Slides and further information available at

https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/digital-life-beyond-the-institution/

Licence and Additional Resources