The second workshop deviated from the ‘standard’ Participatory Pattern Workshop format. Rather than focusing on developing and iterating the patterns identified during the first workshop we decided to tackle scenarios, in other words unsolved real-world problems around how we manage or use digital identities. From these scenarios we then worked with our patterns from the first workshop, applying them to create solutions, and in the process identified new case-stories and patterns as they arose.

Before the workshop we asked the participants to submit scenarios and we recorded nine separate entries on the Planet xWiki platform. These ranged from the use of micro-blogging tools like Twitter to using data portability technologies to solve the problem of digital identity aggregation.

The workshop itself broke down into to distinct phases:

Part 1: Mapping the forces within the scenarios. Here we asked each group to identify and map out the forces in tension within a particular scenario. These were the tensions that a pattern would need to resolve to produce a potentially successful solution.

Part 2: Designing solutions using patterns. Using the force map each group then looked through the pattern collection to see if any of the patterns developed so far could be applied. One of the major themes that had emerged from the earlier analysis of the scenarios was how to control who views our data. This was related to two dimensions of managing distributed digital identity data (i) aggregation versus compartmentalization and (ii) public versus private.

A solution was developed that addressed both of these tensions using the architectural metaphor of the house and the notion of progressive disclosure. This represented a simple but powerful idea whereby access to our digital identity is managed through the creation of differing spaces for intimacy. Megan Smith gives a deeper insight into the ways that this approach might work in a posting written for her blog.

What developed was a link to two patterns. The first from the Digital Identity pattern collection called ‘Facet Me’ and second, to one of Alexander’s patterns. As Jim pointed out this idea had resonance with number 127 ‘Intimacy Gradient’:

Conflict: Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence that corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests, clients, family, will always be a little awkward.
Resolution: Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and finally to the most private domains.

Overall the format of this workshop worked well and produced two new candidate patterns with supporting case-stories:
Pattern 7: Purposeful delay
Pattern 8: Leaving trails

So what next? We want to build on the success of this workshop and hold a final session to complete the series, which we are planning for September 2009. Invites will be sent out shortly and we look forward to seeing you there.

1.    Desk research based on a review of the existing and heterogeneous literature surrounding online identities and their deployment in the spheres of education and research aiming to:

• Unify research in online identities from the technical aspects relating to authentication and data security through to aspects related to the discursive and contextual nature of digital personas;
• Address the lack of critical analysis surrounding the complex technological landscape of major identity players, for example transactional identity services, where the goals and information handling methods do not always match ethical, functional or usability standards;
• Understand how these services operate given different technologies, environment and user needs;
• Address legal and ethical issues through consultation with the TELOS research group at King’s College London.

2.    A collection and discursive analysis of narrative case studies of online identity deployment in education and research aimed at teasing out user needs, user behaviours, opportunities, challenges and trends. This will be based on a storytelling methodology (Kubler Labosky 2002, Andrews et al. 2008) as an approach for capturing meaningful personal stories to provide insights into individual experiences and perceptions of online identity. This will be driven by two key research questions:

a.    How people manage their own understanding of digital identity in online environments (personal, corporate and administrative) and how identity operates within different contexts?
b.    What kinds of [digital] literacies are needed to support and manage online identity development?

A validated template will be used to collect individual narratives from an identified set of actors in the educational field. The stories will be analysed to create themes and then opened to the community for discussion and commentary to discover patterns and similarities and followed by a final round of analysis. This activity will be supported by two workshop sessions. As documents of contextualised practice the stories will be used as a baseline for identifying and building a framework for good practice providing evidence for patterns of activity that are both successful and problematic.

3.    A scenario building (van der Heijden, 2003) exercise will be used to as a basis for road mapping possible futures in the sphere of online identity. This will be organised online and supported by a roundtable workshop with identified stakeholders who will include decision makers, experts and creative thinkers. Exploratory scenarios will be developed (Schwartz 1996, Ringland 2002) with the aim of fostering the exchange of ideas, identification of challenges and the barriers to the deployment of an online identity research agenda, as well as development and implementation roadmaps in the UK.

4.    The outputs from the above activities will be synthesised to form the basis for the conceptual framework leading to a position paper that will address practical, social and political issues that stem from the research. The paper will be validated by a consultation process involving semi-structured interviews and open comment through a consensus building process with the key stakeholders and main players across the landscape of digital identity production.

5.    Development work on an Open Source software solution will run in parallel and be informed by the outputs from the story and scenario research. This phase of the project will be focussed on the enhancement of a plug-in for the Open Source WordPress blogging tool (http://www.wordpress.org) and involve design techniques based on user needs analyses and phased testing of the sotware.