Investigating Digital Reputation Management upon Social Media During the Professional Transition

Investigators: Chris James Carter, Professor Claire O’Malley and Dr Lee Martin

School of Psychology, University of Nottingham Dear Participant Please take some time to read through the following information. If at any point you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask the researcher, Chris, or contact him at a later date at: psxcc@nottingham.ac.uk. Overview

You have been invited to take part in a PhD research study exploring how users of social media managed their online profiles while making the transition from student to full-time employee. What you have been asked to do

You have been asked to participate in a confidential and anonymous face-to-face interview session, lasting around90 minutes. This will be arranged for a time, date and location of your convenience, prior to the end of April 2014. This interview session will be divided into two sections. First, you will be asked questions about your current role and experience of using social media during your job search. You will also be asked to think of as many instances as possible of where you or someone else dealt particularly effectively, or ineffectively, with content that you felt was professionally ‘risky’. You are not obliged to, but you might find it useful to have a think about some of these prior to the interview. In the second part of the session, you will be asked to use two websites designed to assist social media users in managing their online reputation. These sites work by scanning content upon your social media profiles and reporting back to you any posts that it has identified as being potentially risky for your career. The researcher will ask you to think aloud as you use the sites to identify content you think could pose a risk to your professional reputation. At the end of the session you will be asked to reflect on your experience of using the sites and in particular, what behaviours you feel a digital reputation system would need to support. Your data

For the purposes of enhancing the accuracy of the qualitative analysis of the data from our interview session, with your consent I will record the audio of the session. Also with your permission, I may include selective quotes from the transcription to illustrate points in my thesis and any resulting publications. These will be anonymised and great care taken to ensure that any quotes cannot be attributed to you as an employee of your current organisation. No social media content flagged as potentially risky during your use of the reputation management sites will be observed or recorded directly by the researcher. Your interview responses and experiences of using the reputation management sites will be confidential. Notes and recordings will be anonymised and stored within an encrypted folder,

accessible only to the lead researcher, Chris Carter. Your responses will not be discussed with any fellow interviewees in the study and your identity will not be discussed with either of the researcher’s PhD supervisors, Professor Claire O’Malley (School of Psychology) and Dr Lee Martin (Nottingham University Business School). It is important to note that in order to participate in this study, you will need to provide the digital reputation management sites with permission to link to your social media profiles. You should be aware that whilst both services state in their privacy policies (see www.reppler.com/privacy/) and www.persona-co.com/privacy-policy/ for more details)that they do not collect, monitor or sell any individualised data that is generated from your social media content, they may access and view usage data (e.g. IP addresses, browser type, timestamps) and store cookies on your computer for system performance analysis. In consenting to participate in the current research study, you consent to your social media data being used by the reputation management services in the ways outlined through their privacy policies. Additionally, you should be aware that because the sites work by identifying potentially ‘risky’ content from your social media profiles, you may be presented with posts that either you or your networked connections made that are unflattering or embarrassing. For this reason, the researcher will not directly observe your use of the reputation management systems – only an audio recording of your thoughts whilst you use the systems will be made. Regardless of this, it is important to note that the researcher would have an ethical and legal obligation to disclose any evidence of illegal activity that could be considered serious and immediately harmful to others if discussed in the recordings. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. You may choose not to answer any of the pre-planned questions asked of you or to use the websites previously outlined. You may withdraw your participation at any time during or after the interview session up until any potential publication of the findings. Compensation In exchange for your time, you will be provided with any refreshments that you would like and reimbursed for any reasonable travel costs incurred as a consequence of participating. As a reminder, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact the lead researcher, Chris Carter, on the contact details provided below. Thank you for reading this information sheet and we hope to speak with you soon!

Chris James Carter Horizon Doctoral Training Centre/School of Psychology University of Nottingham e: psxcc@nottingham.ac.uk b: chrisjamescarter.wordpress.com l: uk.linkedin.com/in/chrisjamescarter t: @chriscarter83