In this lecture series Bart Rienties (Professor of Learning Analytics, head of Academic Professional Development) will discuss how from the safety of your home you could use existing trace data to explore interactions between people (e.g., Twitter data, engagement data in a virtual learning environment, public data sets), and what the affordances and limitations of these trace data might be.
The vast array of data points that make up "personal information" in the age of online media are nearly impossible to quantify or neatly define. Name, address, and phone number are just the basics in a world where voluntarily posting self-authored content such as text, photos, and video has become a cornerstone of engagement in the era of the participatory Web.
The more content we contribute voluntarily to the public or semi-public corners of the Web, the more we are not only findable, but also knowable.