Category: Uncategorized

The first lesson I took away about digital identity, from, Seth’s blog, is the idea that Google never forgets. I think that when we post online or something about us is posted online, it is important to remember that it is very difficult to delete something from the internet, and your past can come back to haunt you. Seth encourages acting as if you are always being watched, which is a little disturbing, but not wrong, and focus on creating a positive digital footprint.

In contrast, the article Footprints in the Digital Age by Will Richardson has a more positive perspective of digital footprints. Richardson suggests that one can use digital footprints to better network, creating connections around the globe, and explore passions. Although it seems obvious now, I had not previously thought about the internet and digitial footprints as a means of networking.

Professors, Start Your Blogs shares the value of blogs as a way to share academic knowledge with a larger audience, increasing accessibility and, essentially, creating a portfolio of work. One digital identity can also be their academic identity.

Who Owns the Digital You suggests that we have given up our privacy in exchange for “free” services that exploit the personal information we share online. This issue has been in the news a lot in the past few years, and it is certainly an area of concern and consideration, especially for those of us who have spent our entire lives online.

The last article I read was Controlling Your Public Apperance, which encourages having an online presence and fostering a positive online identity, cognizant of what you share and who might see it.

As we return from spring break, Madison and I plan on focusing most of our attention on the LibGuides website, since we have already gathered most of the resources we need. However, we do still need to acquire photographs. We have heard that the library archives have some photographs, including one depicting a protest over the 2004 name change, that may be relevant to our project. We would also like to find some documentation of reactions to the 1924 name change, if possible.

Otherwise, though, we are focusing on writing text for the web pages, putting resources up on the website, and working with TimelineJS for a timeline of the institution’s name changes. I am excited to see our website finally start coming together after all our research and collection of resources! Thankfully, we are on schedule and I do not anticipate any major problems or roadblocks appearing—fingers crossed!

When I went to the history and discussion tabs of Wikipedia history entries—namely, those of the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Gallipoli Campaign, and the Boxer Rebellion—I saw a common theme of conversation around sources. Some users expressed concerns about sources being outdated, too one-sided, or inaccurate. I think it is important that these kinds of conversations are being had, because considering the validity and nuances of sources is a significant part of dealing with history. Regarding the weapon used in Ferdinand’s assassination, one user noticed an inconsistency between the article about the asssassination, which claimed the weapon was a Fabrique Nationale model 1910 .32 caliber pistole, but the article about that kind of pistol claims it was inaccurately attributed to the assassination. Through this example, I can see how the community works together to find errors and seek to find answers and solutions. However, I also saw one user call attention to trolling in the article on the Boxer Rebellion, in which foreign casualties were listed as over 50 billion and allusions to a video game were made. The ability for anyone to edit an article is both a benefit and a drawback of Wikipedia. Still, it was interesting to see insight into how the Wikipedia community works and the kinds of discussions they have.

Since our mission is to collect sources and make information about UMW’s time as part of UVA and the history of UMW’s name changes accessible in one location for those who are interested, I think that our work should be able to be used by others for their research. Perhaps the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA license would work best, because it allows others to “remix, adapt, and build upon” our work non-commercially with credit, according to Creative Commons’ license descriptions. For our project, we will need to consider copyright for the work of others we include in the website, particulary regarding photographs. We have not yet decided how we want to implement photographs and which photographs we would want to use, but we are considering looking into whether the UMW archives have a collection of old photographs of the college from the time we are researching. Regardless, we will need to ensure to properly credit and cite the photos, and to ensure that the photographs are under a license that allows us to use them.