Category: edci338

Blog 3 Visitor and Resident Mapping

On October 1, 2021

Above is my V&R map. I mainly using WeChat daily to keep in touch with family and friends while studying abroad. Instagram, Weibo and Tiktok are places where I could keep up to date with the latest trends. In addition, I love to write comments on Google Maps about a restaurant that I have been to and liked. Email, Zoom and UVic online library are the ones that I primarily use for schoolwork. LinkedIn is a place that can be connected with people in a similar field of study. Undoubtedly, I search for many things online every day, for example when is the 2021 Halloween. In this case, Google, Wikipedia and Baidu are platforms where I could find all this information.

What digital platforms are students currently using to develop their professional network?

The most common digital platforms students currently using to develop their professional network are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Many people using Facebook to connect with their family, friends and even colleagues. Facebook displays information about your job and education. You might even get to know employers and find they have great opportunities for internships or even permanent staff jobs at their company. Moreover, the chat group is formed on Facebook. One of my friend who is currently studying in Biology at UVic. He joined a group, Jobs in Environmental Studies and Ecology @UVic, on Facebook, and most people in this group are undergraduate students or graduate in the science field at UVic. People share job posting from all over the world in this group, and most of the job opportunities are in Canada. But it is impressive that you could connect to someone who studied and graduated in a similar field. Comparing to Facebook, LinkedIn is mainly for developing a professional network. LinkedIn is today’s fastest-growing recruiting company, and the purpose of the website is to allow registered users to maintain the contacts they know. User can invite people that he/she knows to become contacts, and also use the platform to find and expand their contacts. Through the connection and communication of these contacts, they can find suitable jobs or better job opportunities through LinkedIn. Instagram has become a popular social media platform for small businesses. I have many friends who are using Instagram to developing their professional network. For example, a friend of mine is currently studying in Media Arts, and he has opened an official account for his studio on Instagram. He posting pictures or short clips of his work, and people would contact him for business on Instagram.

What could the student consider in expanding their professional learning network?

As a student, it is the easiest time of your life to expanding your professional learning network. You could connect with fellow students in your department. Students can meet and connect to people who have a similar interest in the field from volunteer and internship opportunities. Nowadays, many people have decided to connect and expand their network through digital platforms. From my point of view, there are different platforms for students to developing their professional learning network with different professions. For a science student, the most common way to expanding their professional learning network would be connecting to peers and instructors at school and scientific conferences. They are more likely to use LinkedIn for their potential connections because it looks more professional than an account on Instagram. When it comes to art students, Instagram becomes the primary tool where they post their work. The flexibility of the system affords the student the ability to personalize their account. Another thing that students should consider is their objective. To illustrate, a student who wants to start his/her business would connect to someone who has their business started.

In your network how can you create a digital identity/ reputation?

A person’s reputation is always related to their conduct, ability, and achievement. One way to build trust is to share a positive experience. You can show off your achievements or awards. The online world is the same as the real world. To build your reputation, you must participate in various activities, stand up for morals, stand up for others, and help others in the online world. It is necessary to have such a long-term management mentality to make better use of the Internet, also mastering skills, which help promote yourself in the online world.

Discover what an employer would find based on your V+R Map if you applied for a job with them?

An employer would find both my personal and professional life based on my V&R map. They would find out my previous education and work experiences on my LinkedIn account. They would also find more information on my skills and achievements on LinkedIn. Next, they might investigate my personal life on Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook, they would find that I am a person who loves outdoor activities and has always been pro the environment protection. And they would find I am a cat lover on Instagram, I love animals. They would figure out that I am a person who is constantly active on the different digital platforms based on my V&R map, and I am comfortable with various forms of internet communication. Employers could discover I spent more time on Google Scholar and UVic online library (where highly credible and reliable resources are) rather than Wikipedia with my academic research.

Blog 2 Personal Learning Networks and Digital Identity

by Lawrence He

On September 22, 2021

In edci338

Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)

Personal Learning Networks, also known as PLNs, describe the group of people who can connect to and gain/share knowledge. They can be your peers, family, and people that you never meet in person. With the rapid development of network technology, people begin to create their networks for the purpose of learning with the application of network tools such as blogs, wikis, Facebook, and other social media platform. Personal learning networks enhance the opportunities to interacting with others, learn from others, and get help from others. These opportunities are much greater than the opportunities we get from face-to-face interaction.

With the further increase in Internet penetration, the deepening of Internet applications by netizens, and the gradual advancement of the Web2.0 tide, online communities have become the fundamental applications for netizens on the Internet. Internet users use the Internet to establish a series of interpersonal relationships in the virtual society and increasingly extend real-life interpersonal relationships to the Internet. The diversified network applications of online communities are changing the perception and the usage habit of people. In recent years, the user scale of online communities increased exponentially, and various online communities have developed rapidly in competition. Online communities playing an instrumental role and gradually become an important portal for the majority to entertain and obtain information. With a significant increase of online users, identification becomes a part of the online community.

What is digital Identity?

Identity is the imprint that everyone is born with it. In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet, the form of identity has gradually transitioned from physical to virtual, digitized, and networked. The identification of certainty and credibility has become a topic that the public urgently needs to discuss.

Digital identity is a concept in cyberspace. It refers to a set of data that describes a person or an entity on the Internet. It is an online identity used by individuals, organizations or electronic devices in the network or network identity. These individuals, organizations or electronic devices may have more than one digital identity through different online communities. These digital identities are composed of some characteristics or digital attributes. A digital identity may also be associated with other digital identities, such as Facebook, Linkedin, etc. Although these identity-related attributes can help determine an individual identity to a certain extent, these attributes can be changed, hidden, or even discarded. The other form is the digital sovereign identity, which meets the regulatory policies of the government. And these digital identity is issued by the National Citizen Network Identity Recognition System.

Over the years, social media has dominated the Internet. People using social media to share and communicate with others in daily life. Organizations establish and maintain the good status of their corporate image on social media. Unlike individual users, organizations and companies using social media in large part for commercial purposes. Many companies use social media as a tool to communicate with customers. Companies can respond to a group of customers with a single blog post. Moreover, companies are no longer limited to finding the best employees through traditional advertising. Candidates can be recruit through social media. Job search websites and apps allow companies to share job vacancies within the scope of the website and better screen job applicants. The social element adds a whole new dimension to the traditional interview process. For example, recruiters could connect with job applicants before the interview on Linkedin. People can link with similar contact of networks, hobbies, recognized skills, and so on.

Digital identities are essential to open a wide range of new interactions between consumers, businesses, and governments. It plays a key role in providing new digital services, simplifying operations, reducing entry costs and managing fraud. Personally identifiable information (PII) is the fatal weakness of digitization. As consumers continue to change their financial and retail habits online, more personally identifiable information (PII) is held by companies. The rapid migration of enterprises to the cloud makes consumer data increasingly fragile on the network and difficult to monitor. The proliferation of mobile devices used for business-critical functions has added an additional level of security exposure. People are disclosing more personal information than ever. Hackers continue to use various types of attacks to obtain and use that personal information which causes serious damage to consumers and businesses.

Reference

What is a personal learning network (PLN)? FutureLearn. (n.d.). Retrieved September 22, 2021, from https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/learning-network-age/0/steps/24644.

Allison, A., Currall, J., Moss, M., & Stuart, S. (2005). Digital Identity Matters. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 56(4), 364–372. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20112

Boyd, D. (2012). Networked privacy. Surveillance & society, 10(3/4), 348.

Blog 1 Introduction

by Lawrence He

On September 21, 2021

In edci338

Hello! My name is Lawrence, He. I’m currently in my third year of BA in Economics at UVic. In my free time, I like playing computer games with friends. I also love outdoor activities, such as hiking and snowboarding. Looking forward to the class.