ePortfolio Conference in Maastricht “ePortfolio & Digital Identity”
During this year’ conference in Maastricht, “ePortfolio & Digital Identity” I had the opportunity to present my concept of an avatar ePortfolio (see here). It’s a work in progress so far, nevertheless I thought that it could help to communicate my ideas of an ePortfolio to the community of ePortfolio experts. Indeed, the presentation triggered some interesting questions and discussions and was somehow unique during the three days of the conference. In the core, it tackles the question if digital identity can be created (or an existing identity may be made visible) through a new sort of ePortfolio. I call this one Avatar ePortfolio, because, obviously, it is meant for avatars to foster their identity which is created by the community of other avatars.
This concept is an interesting one because of its impact on digital identity. I don’t mean here the process of authentication or identity management within a database or other more complex system / environment. Digital identity is the identity we form about us in the digital sphere. In the case of MMORPGs or synthetic worlds, that’s the avatar identity. it consists of digital fragments here and there. It’s difficult to assemble them to present oneself as one identity, which is true for the visitor to one of these fragments. From the real life (RL) we know the concept of life streams, but this can’t be transferred to avatars just by that. The most important aspect of an lifestream is that this is the life stream of an existing, natural person. Avatars are not only representations, but also roles we (want to) play. Therefore we don’t want always to interconnect the real person and her/his avatars. So we’re not sure about their true identity, and that’s where the livestream falls apart. Who’s lifestream do we follow then? Of a role?
An avatar ePortfolio is designed to create identity, something we don’t need to immediately in real life situations (we are exisiting already!). In the digital sphere, we can design our identity to a certain extent, and like Serge Ravet said in his keynote, we can re-invent ourself. ePortfolios are not only about the past, but also about the future. Avatars are real and fictious at the same time. And they offer us one thing: to re-invent us, many times.
[Technorati Tags: avatar - virtual world - digital identity - ePortfolio]
Oct 26th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Hi Mark,
unfortunately I couldn’t join the conference so I missed your interesting presentation - look’s like you were quite successful
I am keen on your “live-report” when you’re back in Austria and hope we will meet soon!
Regards
Klaus
Oct 27th, 2008 at 6:06 am
[...] Woche war ich im Zuge der Konferenz zu ePortfolio & Digital Identity (mehr dazu hier… ) in Maastricht auf Besuch. Neben einer schönen Altstadt und eines der, zumindest für’s Auge, [...]
Nov 14th, 2008 at 6:10 am
[...] Das digitale Leben als eine Ergänzung des Real Life ist nicht nur eine Spielerei, sondern ein Bereich, der in Zukunft eine immer stärker werdende Rolle spielen wird. Und da spielt das Konzept der Digitalen Identität eine entscheidende Rolle: wenn wir nicht sichtbar sind, sind wir in diesen Welt nicht existent. Und eine Prüfung, ob es sich tatsächlich um uns handelt, oder auch nicht, liefert weniger ein Identitätsmanagement à la Login & Passwort, sondern eine reiche Geschichte. Ich bin versucht zu sagen, eine “dense description” (Anthropologen werden wissen, was ich meine, obwohl das hier ein weiter Bogen ist…). Um das Argument abzuschließen: Erzählungen über eine Person prägen deren Identität, wie sie in der Gruppe / Gemeinschaft / Öffentlichkeit wahrgenommen wird. Und um das geht es bei Digital Identity (siehe auch hier meinen Beitrag zum Thema Digital Identity und ePortfolio). [...]
Apr 6th, 2009 at 6:16 am
[...] hätte genug Material, um auf YouTube präsent zu sein. Da sie es nicht tat und tut, gibt sie einen Teil ihrer digitalen Identität hiermit [...]