MCS Instructor Kelli Marshall recently published an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "How to Curate Your Digital Identity as an Academic."
Marshall asks "how might academics—particularly those without tenure, published books, or established freelance gigs—avoid having their digital identities taken over by the negative or the uncharacteristic?" Her advice is to take control of the process: "In a nutshell, if you do not have a clear online presence, you are allowing Google, Yahoo, and Bing to create your identity for you.
An online search for academics without strong digital identities almost always yields two initial results: first, the name of their institution or department, and, second, their webpage on Rate My Professors. While the latter is not inherently bad news for all academics, many will likely cringe at what’s written about them there, whether justified or not."
The best advice to "search your own name, particularly if you’re going on the job market and perhaps also if you’re going up for tenure. See what committees will see when they engage with you digitally," says Marshall.
