'No photos please' by Paul Kelly

For this year’s Educa Online Berlin conference we [Marga and Steve] were asked to comment on one of the issues that we identified for the Digital Identity symposium that we called ‘Growing up Public’.

Our responses are repeated here:

Q. What impact do you  expect on young people’s lives from  ‘growing up in public’?

A. When we [Rhizome project] use the phrase ‘growing up in public’ we refer to the increased visibility that many young people have and will continue to experience throughout their lifetime engagement with social media. The Internet is now a space dominated by the connections between individuals and their ability to [re]use and create rich content – something that now lies within everyone’s grasp, not just that of the technically and technologically privileged. This coupled with the diversification of devices we [people] use to access Internet within a pervasive always connected environment mean that we now have a multiplicity of what Holland (1998) might call ‘spaces of authoring’ or self-fashioning.

One of the main impacts that we are interested in, that results from this increased level of life exposure via the Internet, is the ongoing work that is required in the construction of digital identities. How do young people manage and maintain coherent and purposeful digital identities when public and private boundaries are often blurred and the tools for controlling digital histories are lacking. Real issues emerge from the complexities of this process within for example the world of job seeking and active engagement in online communities of practice.

Q. How can we mitigate the risks? Do we need more rules, limitations or more control?

A. Among the solutions to help citizens to manage their digital identities, there are three that interest us as educators, parents and citizens. The first is awareness raising to increase young people’s digital identity literacy. By this I mean the ability of individuals to manage their digital identity in an efficient manner in accordance with their changing life goals. I am particularly interested in the responsibility and accountability parents and guardians have towards the digital identity of their children, especially when they have not started to craft their own digital identity spaces. Here, specific actions to support parents and children in acquiring digital identity literacies are lacking. Secondly, in the area of technology, we need to see improvements in the level of granularity and access control to user generated content. Individuals need to be empowered to decide what they share, with whom and for how long this is required. The standard three level sharing policy – with all, with my friends and with my family – is not sufficient. Finally, we need to be able to assert our right to control user-generated content about ourselves. By developing the tools and processes to discover and delete undesired persistent content we should all have the ability to remove those digital traces that might impact negatively our lives.

Q. Should parents be responsible for their children activities on the web?

A. Parents should be responsible for their children’s education in matters related to digital identity literacy, helping them to gain awareness about the extent of their digital personas and support them in the crafting of their digital selves – for example by discussing with them at the relevant age (each has different needs) about: the extent of their digital identity, who contributes to it, the reach of their activities within the different social networks and communities they participate in, the persistence of their digital traces and their short, medium, long term impact, the creation of alternative digital selves, how to track unwanted information about themselves, digital identity etiquette, and awareness about cyber security and identity threats.

Q. Is there any recommendation from your side, on how to handle the own presence in online communities or on websites?

A. This is an area that the Rhizome project (http://www.rhizomeproject.org) is currently investigating using a particular methodology based on identifying successful practices through the production of a set of design patterns for digital identity. This is an approach that seeks to empower individuals to design their own solutions to the problems they encounter when constructing and managing their digital identity, be it within online communities or operating in a professional work-based setting. In terms of recommendations then these will vary according to the age and the purpose of the subject. For us, a useful framework to understand digital identity management could be ordered around the following processes: increase your awareness of your digital self, craft a home for your online presence, claim the trusted sources relating to your digital persona, aggregate sources and traces of your digital selves for specific purposes such job-seeking, compartimentalise and protect the digital selves you don’t want to be exposed to all via the Internet, for example maintaining the professional-personal divide.

Margarita Perez-Garcia and Steven Warburton

1. User-centric. The CV builder employs a user-centric approach to personal data management by allowing individuals to control their personal information and digital self-representation. Individuals can decide where to store their data and have administrator rights to manage it. In this way data is not held with third-party web CV repositories or Job Board administered applications. The Europass CV Builder is fully integrated with WordPress, as a plugin application.
2. Interoperable. CVs are compliant with the latest HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol specification. By using a standards compliant CV format, individuals are able to establish a fluid exchange of personal information with eRecruitment, eLearning and Human Resources bodies.
3. Recognised. The builder produces CVs that comply with the widest European and internationally recognised standards for representation of personal data, qualifications and competencies. This allows the edition of a complete CV following the official Europass template and latest Europass XML specifications, recognised by audiences not limited by sector or geography.
4. Flexible. The CV Builder can produce flexible and fully modifiable views of CV content. Individuals can customise their CVs and target them according to their personal or professional needs and goals. To create a targeted CV, the user selects relevant content from the Master CV (the vault for personal information) and creates a View. This can be built using out-of the box templates or by creating new templates that can be customised with the addition of extra sections and fields as required. These fields may be outside of the Europass template but present in the HR-XML specification and therefore HR-XML compatibility is maintained. Allowing user-created fields will break standards compliance but this option is being considered to enhance customisability.
5. Multi-lingual. The entire interface is multilingual and content can be filled in by the user in any of the official languages of the European Union.
6. Multimedia. Text fields within the CV can be linked to any media (pictures, certificate, video or audio record); these can be added as evidence of performance alongside the tagging and aggregation of content from distributed locations. Support for WordPress ‘short codes’ allows content integration within blog posts and pages, adding ePortfolio-like capabilities.
7. Portable. Individual CVs are accessible via Internet and can be packaged, exported and moved from physical locations e.g. hosting services compliant with HR-XML specifications.  Users can also select the publishing format of their choice for each targeted CV or View, including: XHTML and HTML (integrated in blog pages), PDF, ODT, HR-XML feed and Europass XML feed.
8. Accessible. CVs are ergonomic, usable and any user, through compliance with accessibility standards such as WAI, can readily access content.
9. Secure. Stored personal data and CVs are secured for personal access via the WordPress authentication protocol. Individuals can set access permissions and the builder is granular enough such that portions personal data can be cordoned off. Publishing rights are available to allow both public versions of a CV for open consultation via the Internet and protected CVs held in a secure location. Each export of a targeted CV or View can be protected by an access code defined by the user.
10. Open. The CV is open and not related to any proprietary technology. Its online forms are built using XForms.

Our plugin lies at the crossroads between self-presentation devices like the résumé, profiles maintained on professional social networks such as LinkedIn, and an ePortfolio style systems.

It will allow users to store their online personal data in a secure location of their choice and facilitate individuals in not only presenting their competencies according to the Europass CV format, but also in interoperable formats such as HR-XML and Hresume. Information in the CV builder, for example present educational and professional achievements, can be used to exchange data with educational providers for validation and accreditation purposes as well as enable reflective learning practices, and to store andpresent  educational and professional achievements.

The Rhizome project will not be developing a solution from scratch. We will be extending an existing open source solution released under GPL in 2007 – the KITE Europass-CV plugin – that was produced within the framework of the KITE project, co-funded by the European Union.

KITE offered an implementation of the Europass-CV as a plugin for three major open source blogs: WordPress, DotClear and ELGG, and allowed users to present their competences and qualifications in full compliance with the specifications under the HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol 2.4

The work was started under the KITE project left some deficiencies in terms of usability, in two major areas: the orientation features of the graphical interface and the architectural organisation of the navigation paths through the system.

What the KITE plugin did offer was a major advance in CV building with the ability to create CVs for all official European languages, compliance with HR-XML specifications, the first match between Europass and HR-XML SEP. Separation between content and presentation was achieved using a Master CV that represented a ‘vault’ for all personal information. Data could then be selected and displayed from the vault according to user customisable preferences – these views being exportable in multiple formats such as XHTML, HTML, ODT, PDF, RTF and be held in public and password-secured locations.

Apart from the technical merits of the KITE project, we decided to resurface the plugin as a solution to the problem of implementing a user-centred approach to personal data management that would allow dynamic exchanges of personal information with eRecruitment, eLearning and Human Resources bodies. We identify a number of trends and factors that have suggested this as a valuable approach, including the:

• Increased use of blogs as self-representational devices, and significant uptake in their use across formal and informal educational settings;

• Development of blogging architectures that support plugin and widget functionality that can facilitate data exchange and aggregation of information whilst allowing for flexible presentation;

• Use of the CV as the backbone for identity management systems, personal representation tools e.g. portfolios, ePortfolios, blogfolios, personal aggregators and mashup technologies, and certain social and professional network sites like LinkedIn;

• Uptake of HR-XML as the open standard specification in electronic exchanges related to eRecuitment, eLearning and Human Resources;

• Deployment of European Community Frameworks and tools for the transparency of qualifications and competences, example include ECTS, ECVET and Europass.

Here is an overview of the six ways the Rhizome project is planning to enhance the KITE plugin:

1. Update the application profile for compliance with the latest HR-XML SEP specifications and the new Europass XML specifications;
2. Redesign the look and feel of the user interface and adopt WordPress content organisation and navigation styles;
3. Extend the options for customisation so that users can create views by re-ordering and adding new sections, categories and content. This will allow variation in the model for (re)presenting personal information and allow for ad-hoc profiles that can be used for ego-branding and interactions with professional social networks;
4. Incorporate simple mashup capabilities to allow the aggregation of personal information and distributed web-based content under the competency descriptors;
5. Add support for WordPress ‘shortcodes’ so that CV content can be extracted to pages and blogposts and be used as material for cross-referencing competences and as evidence of performance;
6. Allow widgetisation of the CV for ego-branding purposes.

Steven and I will be blogging here and in the Rhizome blog about the new plugin design principles and key features, as well as the interoperability scenario, the use cases and its detailed functionalities. If comments please leave them in the Rhizome blog at:

• How far has technology altered prevailing notions of identity?
• What new technologies are emerging and what might be their impacts?
• To what extent is it possible to inscribe legal requirements into technologies of identity, and with what results?

This looks like a good place to present the work on digital identity patterns that was started at the Eduserv digital identity event, focusing on the pattern elicitation methodology and elaborating one or two of the patterns for comment and feedback.

The important dates are:
Submission of papers (4000-6000 words): 9 April 2009
Notification to authors: 1 May 2009
Identity in the Information Society Workshop: 5 June 2009
And there is the possibility of publication in the IDIS journal:
Submission of revised papers to IDIS Journal: 6th July 2009
Publication in IDIS Journal from January 2010

• decentralised
• unpredictable
• connected
• branching in many directions
• having multiple entry points
• with no single true view, only partial perspectives
• and constituted as a multiplicity of dimensions where we lose the illusion of the objective all seeing eye/I

Deleuze leads us to cartography and the map, a space which has no privileged entry point and is always open to change.

Electronic information about the individual is represented not only by what one says about oneself, but also all that is said by others and also ones activity in electronic exchanges with both human and with intelligent agents. In our contemporary networked society we can trace online identities that reflect two key issues of concern:

• Control: if our existing online tracks and traces can exist as reifications of our digital selves via Google ego-searches or found automatically collated and stored by people search engines and aggregators then it is fair to say that the construction of these identities is slipping from the grasp of individuals who would seek to produce them or who are object of them.

• Ineluctability: today it is virtually impossible to remain at the margins of digital life and the production of online identity. The emergence of social technologies, coupled with lowered barriers to connectivity has driven fundamental changes in our relationship with the Internet resulting in the democratisation of content production and distribution. The effect has been to massively increase the visibility of digital identities and shift their construction outside of the control of any one person. The effect of increasing levels of fragmentation and disaggregation is to destabilise and undermine our sense of agency and importantly our ability to act with intent and awareness.

Online identities span the boundaries of personal, corporate and administrative processes. Their deployment uncovers a series of challenges, some general, others specific to the educational and research spheres:

• Identity transactions should be simple and open – today concurrent standards and approaches to identity management co-exist. Thus personal data exchange and portability across different technological infrastructures and systems remains one of the key challenges for all.

• Privacy and the rights of the individual should be respected – here we identify privacy issues that surround: the relationship between individuals and education stakeholders, efficacy of various methods of authentication and their security implications, scalability of trust, reusability of data, and the establishment of convenient ways of accessing and managing ones identity and the secure and private handling of sensitive or private information.

• We need to improve the baseline literacy levels in the use of socio-technical systems – to discern which technologies are the more appropriate to use and how to deploy them in lifelong learning settings. Techno-literate individuals do have access to a range of tools to help control the seemingly uncontrollable. These include personal identity providers, identity verification tools, identity management systems, self-presentation devices, reputation management systems and reputation defenders. However, the level of understanding necessary to appreciate the new ‘digital identity landscape’ and adopt these existing tools in an effective manner lies outside the ability of most students, teachers and the wider community of Internet users.

• And we need to address digital identity literacy – the above difficulties are compounded when we consider the effort required by individuals to acquire the appropriate digital [identity] literacies and so be able to participate productively in lifelong learning related transactions such as self-presentation, presentation of competences, ego-branding, job searches, reflective learning, cooperation in communities of practice, peer-learning, social networking, self assessment, evaluation and accreditation.

• Help improve individual risk assessment skills in relation to real or imagined security threats – particularly the low level of awareness in the use of social technologies where ‘user centric profiles’ become distributed backbones of social networks. As highlighted in the latest position paper of the European Network and Information Security Agency (Hogben, 2007), we are witnessing uncontrolled digital dossier aggregation and reputation related threats such as ID theft, privacy violations, data mining and control of personal information.

• Provide flexibility for presenting multiple digital selves – there is a lack of flexibility of display of the digital self according to the different contexts where the individual evolves. This is especially so with the increasing use of the Internet for informal learning. With learning now situated in multiple spaces, no longer solely institutionally determined, learners are being expected to evolve across multiple learning spheres: their online identity being the bridge between themselves and the place where meaningful lifelong learning is negotiated.

• Reduce conflict between digital identities that cross the boundary of work and play – the development and visibility of an individual’s online identity may conflict with organisational identities and therefore economic, societal, ethical and political issues need to be addressed in what is becoming a new and generalised used of personal information.