Part of a regular day in the life of most people today includes making a conscious decision to choose to recycle, reuse, or reduce waste at some point. It has become a collective goal to reduce the carbon footprint and replace it with a digital one as often as possible. From going to the grocery store with your own reusable bags to using a QR code on your smartphone to look at a restaurant’s menu, the digital world is everywhere.

In the landscape of academia, you see digital articles as the predominant method of publishing. Open access has transformed the way scholarly literature is disseminated, reducing the carbon footprint of publications significantly. Because of the substantial weight of your digital footprint on your scholarly reputation, it’s important to have an online presence where you can, and many researchers are using an academic website to enhance their digital footprint and create a cohesive whole for their scholastic presence.

What is a Digital Footprint?

Just like a footprint in the sand, when you go online you leave a presence behind, whether you want to or not. This happens in any interaction you make, from leaving a comment on someone’s feed, creating a social media account, posting a blog, or querying on a search engine. Online activity is collected through Big Data, and you’re leaving a footprint behind when you use social media in any context.

Think of a digital footprint as a trail of what you do online. It can be traced back from you at any time, and it’s linked to your identity, so if someone searches you out on a search engine, they can see your posts, tweets, pictures, and comments, unless you increase your privacy settings.

Anything you leave behind while you’re browsing the web is considered to be a passive footprint. You know those sites that tell you they’re recording your activity through cookies? That’s part of your digital footprint. IP addresses are often stored, documenting which sites you visit. This is supposed to help them collect data on their users, but it also benefits you because the sites load faster and your experience can be tailored individually.

Why Your Digital Presence is Essential in Academia

Employers often use digital footprints as a way to vet out potential hires. They can look up your social media and get a picture of you as a person before they choose to offer you a job. In academia, this is more important than in almost any other field, because your digital footprint can impact your scholastic reputation.

Many scholarships have been lost by high school or college students who seemed impressive on paper, had the right GPA and admissions application, but posted unsavory, discriminatory, or otherwise unprofessional pictures or comments on their social media. Even posts that had been made years ago can count against your reputation and cost you scholarships, admission acceptance, and job offers.

On the other hand, a solid social media presence and impressive digital footprint can help you get your foot in the door over your competition. Using an academic website correctly improves your chances, too.

Using Impactio to Share Your Academic Website

When you decide to create a personal academic website, it’s not something to go in lightly. To set it up is a complex undertaking, and then you have to keep up with it over time to make sure the information on it remains relevant. But it’s worthwhile as a researcher or student if you know you’re going to want to showcase your achievements.

An academic website ensures you have a solid online presence beyond social media. It can be used long-term to let others know about your teaching history, any research and publications you were part of, upcoming and previous speaking engagements you made, and any acts of service that are pertinent to your career.

Once your site is up and running and ready to share, the next step is to build an audience. Your reputation can be cohesive when you include social media, open access publications, and an academic website, but the hard part is letting everyone know about your achievements and your website. Impactio, designed for researchers and scholars specifically, offers you a wide network of your peers to communicate with, sharing your website and social media globally.

When you’re ready to boost your presence, improve your citation indicators and monitor them, and increase your digital footprint through your online presence, use Impactio to get the job done easily.