Checking my Digital Foot Prints
  A positive online identity appropriate for a professional or formal learning community

1.1 Digital Citizenship

Digital citizenship is about using the Internet to acquire and process information as well as transforming it to create and distribute new content to solve everyday problems in a way that serves the common good. To be a good digital citizen one must understand how the internet works, have empathy to avoid harsh judgements on someone’s comments online, know how user data is generated and analyzed by companies to generate profit and targeted marketing, have basic device and network security knowledge so that they can securely use the Internet and do not fall victim to malware or spam, know that not everyone has internet access, practicing digital literacy and can refrain from the use of screen when it is not healthy to continue. Mossberger et al. (2007, p 1) defined Digital Citizens as “those use the Internet regularly and effectively —that is, on a daily basis”.

 

References:

Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C., & McNeal, R. (2007). Digital citizenship the Internet, society, and          

           participation. The  MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/digital-citizenship


1.2 Digital Citizenship in my formal learning

In my formal learning, digital citizenship means I need to understand that the Internet is a platform for common good and I need to be responsible for what I do or share on the Internet. 

1.3 Audit of Digital Footprint

Audit 1: If my email has been compromised.


Figure 1 Screen shot of haveyibeenpawned

 

Audit 2: My public visibility online


Figure 2 Screen shot of google search on my name

1.4 Public Profiles:

Here are two examples of my public profile, the first one is accessible for linkedin users and the second one is for public:

1.      https://www.linkedin.com/in/hasansf/

2.      https://www.du.ac.bd/faculty/faculty_details/CSE/1772

 I use both the profile for my professional network. The linkedin profile has more detail information about my professional background including a snippet about my personal interests:

 


Figure 3 Screen shot of of LinkedIn profile

The highlighted part of the above linked profile shows some of my personal interests. I used this to show a more authentic portray of my persona which is really important as part of my professional being. However, this does not compromise any of my privacy that can be security threat. I did not disclose my data of birth or address which can be used by hackers to create a false identity to get to breach my back account or compromise authentication and physical security.

The second link is (from my previous employer since OP does not have any public space for faculty profile) available for anyone on the Internet. This fits very well to my profile as an academic in a tertiary institution as it shows my research interest, list of publications :

 


Figure 4 Screen shot of academic profile

The above screenshot from my profile shows that I have used my personal email instead of my institutional email. I do email this gmail account for professional purposes as it allows me to keep in touch with important contacts even when I change my employer. Even though listing email address in a publicly available site is not always a good idea due to likelihood of email spam from spammers who crawl the web to discover potential email address for spamming. However, I have relied on gmail’s strong spam filtering feature which has worked for me very well for the last 14 years. 

Annotated examples:

1.     A blog post: A perspective of my teaching

https://hasansf.blogspot.com/2021/01/joy-of-teaching-thejoy-of-watching.html

I have annotated this post through hypothesis.io: https://via.hypothes.is/https://hasansf.blogspot.com/2021/01/joy-of-teaching-thejoy-of-watching.html

Here is a screenshot of the annotation that reflections my professional identity and social commitment:

 

Figure 5 Screen shot of annotation on teaching reflections

2. A public online post: I have created annotation on a popular  public online post: 

https://hyp.is/dSdosit7Eeu8Eo8W9CrwEA/www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2016/02/03/knowing-the-difference-between-digital-skills-and-digital-literacies-and-teaching-both

The following screenshot from this post has been annotated to show how this contribute to establish my professional identity:

Bo                     3. Bookmarks: The following is a screenshot of my bookmarks which are available for public:

    

            https://bookmarks.oeru.org/search.php/all/hasansf 

Figure 7 Screen shot of bookmarks


 This collection of bookmarks portrays the research I am doing on the topic of digital literacy, OER and online learning. This adds to my professional profile as an IT educator who wants to improve teaching through doing research on relevant topics. This does establish a positive online identity that is inline with my profession.

 

This bookmarks do not pose any privacy and security risks as it do not expose any personal details.

4.      YouTube video: One of my talks and an interviews available online for public viewing:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jQDlMETg_0 

Annotation:  

This youtube video is from one of my talks at a conference. Here I am talking about latest security issues on the Internet, called for an collaborative approach focusing on security education and awareness. This does adds on to my professional promoting digital literacy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eYKJDaSGSg

 Annotation:

In this short video clip captured at a global event of Internet society in 2012. Here I talked about the future of Internet and highlighted my home for a more inclusive internet with improved access to Internet and education. This does go with my professional commitment for improving digital literacy globally.

5.     News Paper Publication: This is published on December 1, 2006:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/meet-the-future-leaders-of-multicultural-new-zealand/33JECYMDAUHFOXI3NZAPUHS3QU/ 

Here is a screenshot from this article where I have annotated:


Figure 8 Screen shot of Newspaper post


 The article includes a brief information about my interest to improve computer literacy and Internet access.  This information about my professional interest does align with my current professional identity.

 This post does not have any privacy or security risks. 

6.     Social Media Post: Here is a screenshot of a part of my Facebook profile that is available for any Facebook member:

https://www.facebook.com/syed.f.hasan

Figure 9 Screen shot of Facebook public view


 This screenshot shows part of my Facebook profile that is available for any Facebook user. This profile does have some personal information like three of my family photos. However, there are two other photos which shows some of my professional activities where I was captured with two founders of the Internet Vint Cerf and Leonard Kleinrock. This mix of personal photos with professional ones makes my profile more genuine to my audiences who would just look me up out of curiosity. Along with my public photos I have few professional posts related to digital literacy, Internet issues and links online educational contents.

 

I made these post available for general Facebook users as often people might be interested to know bit about me. With the personal information (photos) I do have a bit of compromise in my privacy and security. However, I am willing to take that risk to establish my profile as a genuine one. 

7.     OERU Forum posts: available for public viewing

         https://forums.oeru.org/t/digital-literacy-and-security/2512?u=hasansf

        Here is a screenshot from this post where I have annotated:

Figure 10 Screen shot of public forum post


 In this post I have written about the connection between digital literacy and security. This post establishes my professional profile as an educator who is passionate about digital literacy and understands its relation in enhancing organizational security.

Each of the above online foot prints leave a positive impression about me. People cannot find my private information (e,g Date of Birth, Address etc) from online publicly accessible sources. However, they can find about my professional profile, publications, talks, a collection of bibliography and employment history. This is indeed inline with the best practices for privacy, security and interpersonal communication. Since my personal information is not exposed, that makes me less vulnerable to social engineering attacks or phishing, but a curated collection of footprints like my LinkedIn profile, YouTube videos

1.5 Reflections

I have been using the Internet since 1996 and throughout this long period I have had posted on blogs, social media and various online forums. I have also given talks at many international venues and some of those got recorded and posted online.  I do check my digital foot prints every now and then just to check how much of my information is available for public viewing.

As can be seen from digital footprint audit 1, I use google search for with my full name, often specify different locations and organizations I have worked before, do image search to find out if any of my images became public without my knowledge.

 I also check https://haveibeenpwned.com/ if my email or username for web accounts show up in the list of breached accounts as shown in audit 2. I also check my personal Facebook profile if any of unwanted information is available for public due to changes in Facebook privacy policy. I also use the Facebook’s ‘view as’ option to check how people in my friends list can see my contents.

This audits together with my online presence in social media, blog/forum posts, youtube videos, news paper article and bookmarks, I can safely say I have established a positive online footprint that follows the security and privacy principles.

 

 

 

 

 


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