How do I decide what privacy options I should choose?

This site is designed to create a sense of community among students and to build a place for students to start crafting their professional social media presence and finding their own voice in the LIS field. The community of students depends on you adding your voice to the mix and being heard, but that doesn’t mean that you are required to go outside the bounds of what makes you comfortable.

Many students do use their full names to help begin building that professional presence that will continue to grow over time. However, we want you to be comfortable, as this will be the only way that your developing voice will be true to you and your professional comfort level.

Unlike Canvas and other traditional learning management systems, this course site is open to the public and accessible by everyone online. We encourage you to be highly social with your peers and connected to this community by making interpersonal and professional connections, and we understand that this means there might be some extra things for you to think about and keep in mind while creating your profile and as you move through the course.

Your privacy options and things to think about:

As noted in the directions you followed when you set up your account, your blog must be set to allow indexing for your activity and blogging to be visible in our network. However, there are other privacy options for you to keep in mind.

Your name and your image

You can choose to use any form of your name or even a pseudonym, if you’d prefer. Note that your username will become a way for people to contact you, so be aware that if you use your name within your username, it will be visible as well.

You may choose to use a photograph of yourself, an avatar that depicts you in some way, or a picture that you feel best represents you.

(See the images along the right for examples.)

Your profile visibility

When you add information to your profile, you also have the ability to limit who sees different sections to the following options:

• Everyone (public)
• Only Me (private)
• All Members (only registered site members)
• My Friends (only registered members that you’ve accepted as or requested to be your friend while on the site)

If you aren’t sure what the public (unregistered site users) can see, you should copy the link to your profile and open it in a browser where you are not logged into the site. What a logged in member sees can be different than a public user’s view.

Your posts and activity

Your blog posts can and should still be reflective and engaging while showing strong critical thinking skills. While crafting posts, be aware of the information you are sharing. You are making not only professional and educational choices in what you’re writing, but sometimes also personal choices in sharing specific information. Only you can determine your comfort level while knowing that these posts are open to the internet.

Final thoughts

Your privacy is important, so think through each option carefully with full knowledge of what each choice means. There is no one right way to get your voice out there, but being comfortable with the choices you make is also an important part of professional activity.