Online identity

Want a quick briefing from an expert in the field? Our one day online briefings assume no prior knowledge and get you up to speed quickly. They are also useful background experience for some of our longer courses.

This seminar will consider the presence or presences which we project online. In online environments we are to some extent in control of our representations and adopt different habitus in different contexts but are still not in full control of how others may see us. We will focus on the questions of to what extent is identity fixed, immutable and grounded in a physical body, to what extent is it malleable and socially constructed and the influence of this for learning and teaching in higher education.

Online identity has several dimensions. Three important and related ones are:

• those login names and passwords by which we gain access to online services provided by universities and others (VLEs, Facebook, etc)
• the linking of these identities to other, chiefly financial services such as student loans, banks and credit cards forming the (quasi) unified identity of an economic actor, which may be portrayed as vulnerable to identity theft
• Finally and perhaps most important for this seminar is the question of the psychological identity presence or presences, which we project online.

We will see that the first use of the term (log-in) is only very loosely associated with any substrate, while the second (economic actor) is widely assumed to be tightly bound to a physical body. The third (psychological) is far more complex where we are to some extent in control of our representations and adopt different habitus in different contexts but, equally, are not in full control of how others may see us.This interactive seminar will first consider the multiple uses of the term identity in order to be able to discuss the most salient aspects of this complex issue for learning and teaching in Higher Education.

The course will be conducted using the Elluminate environment, which combines audio, video, slide presentations, text discussions and drawing tools. The fee includes a short, practical, hands on introduction to using the Elluminate environment, to prepare you for this course.

Assessment

OCSLD online courses are not formally assessed or accredited. We do offer Certificates of Attendance to those who participate in each of the course's main learning activities.