I run (rather badly) three blogs - thus none of them are that active - one quite obviously as a personal/professional blog that discusses events/issues that seem worth sharing with others. The tone is respectful (I hope) and considered and is a reflection of how I wish others to perceive me and deal with to avoid linking any comments back to my experiences as an employee of an organisation.

The second is a work blog, on a hosted platform of the organisation who employs me - in fact I have two platforms for blogging on that platform - one related to direct work responsibilities and the other a more reflective view on life as I see it within the organisation I work for.

Finally, I have a closed, private blog which I share only with family members.

The content is clearly different for each blog. The language I use is also quite different - because the contexts are different.

As for twitter - there’s a real skill in a tweet and I agree with those who’ve said that this is pure personal reflection and musing; it’s information sharing in all senses and meanings of the phrase and yes it’s pure “you”. It’s not JISC, Cardiff University, UCISA, WNL or any of the other organisations I’m connected with BUT because I have so many “identities” I’m (again hopefully) rather careful with the language I use in tweets. To date, I have only been caught out twice, but it is a discipline that leads me to think that teaching awareness of context and language is a new literacy that should be learnt by all who wish to engage in blogging or micro-blogging or anything that leads to publication.

I know that Chris Rusbridge has commented that he can’t but help write a blog from a personal, as opposed to institutional, point of view - and he’s probably more readable and more interesting as a result. But there are times when I’ve wished for a place to write which is more distant from my institution because there are things I would not be comfortable saying from that perspective.

That said, I wasn’t aware that the jiscinvolve platform was quite so official. We (UKOLN and ULCC) have been using it for a project blog for some time and I don’t for one moment see that as having any sort of JISC officialness to it.

Blogging is a differnt paradigm from a presentation etc

Look forward to others professional/personal views?

Zak

That said, you’re entitled to personal opinions, just as you are face to face in a meeting to which you have been invited as a JISC employee.

JISC isn’t the sort of organisation to employ sheep who will blithely spout the official line. You weren’t employed for your filing abilities, but for your knowledge and expertise in a particular space. JISC (should, and almost certainly does) value that expertise, and JISC should trust you to express your own opinions in a way that won’t bring you or your employer into disrepute.

That official role does NOT mean that you are unable to say things that might offend or ’cause trouble’, and it also doesn’t mean that you’re unable to criticise. As in any other forum, you should be trusted to exercise your own judgement as to when you might be about to go too far.

If things are ‘wrong’ or in need of challenge, and you fail to do so in order not to offend or get your bosses hot under the collar, how exactly are you being honest to yourself or serving your community?

I don’t agree with Robert when he says “Peoples comments and statements should all be regarded in the same way - whether they are on Twitter, a blog, at a committee meeting, presentation or whatever else.” - I think these are different venues, and statements in each should be treated differently. I’d treat something you said to me down the pub differently to what you said in a committee meeting. My point about this blog is that it seems to me (and it is a personal view) like an ‘official’ JISC blog, so what you say here is more closely (for me) connected to your JISC role.

Since Twitter is clearly not a JISC platform I’d tend to take those things you say on Twitter as less closely connected to your JISC role - when I tweet “Another Sunday evening coming to an end, and I have yet again failed to do any ironing” I’m hardly doing this in a professional context!

There is also a question of your role in an organisation - I’d say it would be very difficult for a senior politician to blog about aspects of their work without it being linked back to their ‘official’ identity - if Gordon Brown muses on the economy it hardly matters which ‘hat’ he is wearing.

I have a personal blog which is purely personal, and I have another personal blog which is professional in its scope. When I started in my current role I did look at moving my professional blogging activity to a institutional platform - but my place of work (Imperial College) were unable to provide this (or indeed a blogging policy) at the time. I’m actually quite glad in retrospect, as I think it gives me a slightly freer hand (and something I can carry with me if I move jobs at any point) - however there is also some stuff I don’t blog about to avoid conflicts between my professional and personal identities.

Whether you feel you can successfully establish a personal blog that gives you slightly freer expression than a ‘work’ one is clearly a question only you (and perhaps your employer) can answer. I don’t think that Robert is right that this is ’simply used as a way to be critical of someone or something without being prepared to take the consequences of their comments’ - if I wanted to do that I could set up an anonymous blog (as some librarians have e.g. http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/580000658.html) - and although it is sometimes tempting to get things off your chest, I’m not particularly in favour of this approach.

I do think we have a right to maintain an individual identity that is separate from our work identity - but this is not just an issue for the online world, as the suspension (and subsequent departure) of Lee Harvey from the HEA shows (at least according to the Times Higher) “His crime was to have written a personal letter for publication to Times Higher Education criticising the National Student Survey” (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=403060)

By the way; “These are my personal views and not necessarily the views of JISC”