Full paper presented at PLE Conference 2013 in Berlin, July 11, 2013.

1. www.le.ac.uk
Use of PLEs by security and investigation
professionals
Antony E. (Tony) Ratcliffe
PhD Student
Institute of Learning Innovation
University of Leicester
tony@tonyratcliffe.com

2. How it came to be
Investigations
Security
management
Policing
Insurance
Professional
cooking

3. Purpose
• Recent revelations in the media
• http://www.pontydysgu.org/2013/06/give-us-back-
our-data/

4. Research questions
Main question:
How are security management and investigation
professionals using Personal Learning Environments
and digital literacies for work-based learning and, in
particular, continuing professional development?

5. Online research methods
• Questionnaire
– Fluid Surveys
– 20 day period
• Interviews
– Skype to Skype
– Skype to telephone
– Call Recorder for Skype

6. Responses – questionnaire
• 137 accessed
• 67 completions, 35 agreed to interview
• 17 countries
– Canada 36% (n=24)
– United Kingdom 22% (n=15)
– United States of America 10% (n=7)
– Australia 7% (n=5)

7. Responses – questionnaire
Bahrain (2) Lithuania (1)
Burma (1) Mexico (1)
Cambodia (1) New Zealand (2)
China (1) Romania (1)
France (1) Russia (1)
Hong Kong (1) South Africa (2)
India (1)

8. Responses – questionnaire

9. Responses – questionnaire

10. Responses - interviews

11. Themes
• Online activities
• Online challenges

12. Online activities

14. Some of what they do
• Research, reading, news
• Course work, professional certification
• Online training programmes, webinars, podcasts
• Global communication, access opinions of many
• Virtual conferences
• Making learning continuous, after course ends

18. Online challenges
• Personal decisions to minimise activities
• Workplace restrictions

19. No time, no need, status quo
• “‘entertainment’ social media…a waste of time”
• “I don’t tweet, I think it’s idiotic frankly.”
• “I dislike social media.”
• “I think blogs are a waste of time: reading about
some idiot and what he had for breakfast: nobody
cares.”
• “I don't care about somebody's personal opinion on
something…ranks up there with blogging as a
complete waste of time.”

20. Standing in the way - restrictions
• Non-business use, rules on use, special permissions
• Can’t download
• Firewalls, restrictions
• Outdated technologies, compatibility
• “Formal society groupings (corporations,
governments, universities) have not fully grasped the
big change in distributive, collaborative learning and
how that will affect people in everyday real world.”

21. Security, privacy, sensitive issues
• Computer hacking & espionage
• Remote access
• How long online and for whom to see?
• Identity theft
• Lack of trust
• Credibility

22. It is not helped by the news…
• Edward Snowden
• Wikileaks
• Internal emails made public

23. Answering the research sub questions
• No surprises beyond computers & mobile devices for
Internet access, email, and telephone
• Limited mention of digital literacy skills
• No lack of ability to develop skills when needed
• Potential for development of participatory cultures &
learning communities, but low participation
• Transformative activities might be access to
education

24. Conclusions
• Active consumers of online content
• Study limited to those who responded to request
• Other activities are yet to be explored

25. Contact info
Tony Ratcliffe
Institute of Learning Innovation, University of Leicester
tony@tonyratcliffe.com