Before you continue, there are some things you need to be aware of and some decisions you need to make about how you wish to present yourself online.
You should know that this site is open to the public web and can be accessed by anyone with a web browser. Accordingly, you need to decide how comfortable you are with having a public persona on the web. You may already have a public persona in the form of social media, gaming accounts, or even your own websites. The intent of this site is to allow you to build a professional persona on the web as part of the USask community and develop digital literacy skills.
Some of you are being asked to create a site as part of a course; others need to create a professional portfolio. If you are not comfortable with creating an online persona, there are several strategies you may want to consider trying.
- You can sign up without using your real name; you are welcome to choose a pseudonym. This will allow you to develop digital literacies as you build a site but remain anonymous on the web.
- You can choose your privacy settings to hide your site from the web.
- You can password protect your entire site.
- You can protect individual pages or posts on your site with a password.
- You can choose which items on your site are linked in menus or not.
- If none of the above strategies will protect your privacy, you can speak with your instructor about alternate methods of completing the requirements of the assignment.
On personal sites, ensure you are not portraying yourself as representing the University of Saskatchewan. Remember that even though you are acting in your own personal capacity, any inaccurate or illegal content that is injurious to the university, or content that reveals confidential university information may result in action pursuant to university policies, collective bargaining or employment agreements, or the law.
The works posted on sites.usask.ca sites are the property of the authors and should only be used with the permission and appropriate acknowledgement of each author. The site administrator (you) assumes full responsibility for its content; the views expressed in these sites are not to be attributed to the University of Saskatchewan.
“Integrity is expected of all students in their academic work –class participation, examinations, assignments, research, practica –and in their non-academic interactions and activities as well.” (Office of the University Secretary).
It is your responsibility to be familiar with the University of Saskatchewan policies and procedures on Academic Misconduct and Non-Academic Misconduct.
