[Sandra Cheng]

I noticed on Blackboard that some of my students are from other CUNY branches, ie Hunter. Will they be able to start an account on the OpenLab? Can they even get Citytech email addresses?

Sandra

PS I’m impressed that I can access the OpenLab via phone!

[Charlie Edwards]

Hi Sandra, thanks so much! We’ll get back to you on this asap.

[Jody R. Rosen]

Sandra, have you met with those students yet? I’m wondering if they actually have City Tech email but were perhaps already enrolled at other CUNY schools first, therefore confusing Blackboard? You might check with them. In the meanwhile, we’re looking into the fix if they don’t in fact have City Tech addresses.

[Bree Zuckerman]

Hi Sandra (and all),

I just realized that there’s actually a sneaky way around this problem. You can add users to your WordPress site who are not already members of the OpenLab, which then generates an account, whether or not they have a City Tech email address. I’m not sure if this is a functionality we actually want for the long run, but for now it would allow you to add students who are not from City Tech. However, they won’t automatically be added as students–they’ll have to edit their profile and specify their role.

To do this:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Users > Add New
2. Under Add New User fill out a username and email address, and choose the appropriate role (Author if you want them to be able to post), and click add new user.
3. They’ll get an email with their username and password.
4. They should then log in and edit their profile and select a student role.

Anyway, this might be a quick way of solving the problem. Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Bree

[Prof. Gold]

Hi Bree and Sandra

Thanks for pointing out this loophole! It’s actually a potentially worrisome one, because anyone with a blog could then add users to the site, thus bypassing (as you pointed out) the basic member control that requiring a City Tech email provides. Since this is not a setting that we want to have on a sitewide basis, I’ve changed the settings to prevent users from adding new members to the OpenLab through this method.

I think that a better way of handling this, Sandra, would be for you to send us a list of non-City Tech students who are enrolled in your courses. We can then create accounts for them manually. Just please send an email to openlab@citytech.cuny.edu with their names and email addresses. (I’m assuming, by the way, that there aren’t too many students we’ll have to do this for; if that’s wrong, please let us know).

Best,

Matt

[Scott]

Still, I’m deeply impressed with that maneuver, Bree!

Best,
Scott

[Bree Zuckerman]

I realized later that I probably should have just reported that as a bug! Sorry about that!

[Prof. Gold]

Not at all — it was a great catch. Thank you!

[Sandra Cheng]

Wow Bree, finding that loophole is very impressive, sorry that Matt closed it! I’m not sure how my students are faring with logging onto the OpenLab and then figuring out how to get to me because I’ve received only one membership request as of now :( But I’ll ask in class tomorrow, their first blog/assignment is due next Thurs, so I suspect I’ll get lots of email next Weds night.

[Bree Zuckerman]

Hi Sandra,
It sounds like you found a good solution, with having your course public and asking students to comment until everyone gets set up!
Best,
Bree