Category: OpenLab (Page 1 of 3)

There are a number of new features and improvements included in OpenLab updates from August-October 2025 that may be of interest. 

Resources directory

There is a new directory for resources that contains courses, projects, and clubs that serve as resources for the OpenLab community and beyond. Currently the resources directory will include OER, Model Courses, and Course Hubs.

You can search and filter just as you would in other directories, and this should make it easier to find all the wonderful resources that OpenLab members have built and continue to create. Let the OpenLab Team know if there’s a resource you’d like to see here.

Cloning

When cloning a course, project, or club, there is a group of settings under ‘More Options’ that are now expanded by default, to ensure everyone is aware of these options.

OpenLab Modules

A number of improvements were made to the OpenLab Modules plugin, funded through the MSEIP grant, Connect the DOTS.

Module Export/Import

A new module export/import feature enables the sharing of modules across different WordPress sites so that modules can be shared beyond the OpenLab. Like with cloning, exported modules will contain an attribution to the original site.

Improvements to module cloning

Improvements to module cloning include:

• Allowing cloning from the Dashboard
• Saving the cloned module in draft form rather than published
• Changing the workflow so that after cloning, you can go directly to the Dashboard editor to begin working on the cloned module

Visual improvements

Visual improvements to different parts of a module, include:

• The All Modules page now has two different display options to choose from, where each module in the list can have a featured image.
• Improved design, alignment, and spacing for:
  • Module TOC (Table of Contents) block, previously called the Module Navigation block
  • Back and next navigation that allows you to move between different pages in a module

Other improvements

The attribution block, which appears on a cloned module, is now editable so you can add your own custom text.

Site admins can customize the completion email and pop-up message that students see when they complete a module. 

You can now sort the Module column in Dashboard > Pages to make it easier to find pages by module. 

Default Privacy Settings for Courses, Projects, Clubs, and Portfolios

There are new default privacy settings for some courses, projects, clubs, and portfolios. However, you can still choose different settings during creation. The settings for existing courses, projects, clubs, and portfolios won’t be affected.

While one of the core features of the OpenLab is that it showcases the excellent work being done by City Tech students, faculty, and staff, the OpenLab team wants to make sure that all members are choosing the privacy levels that are right for them.

• For courses, the default setting for the profile will now be private, and the site will be “Ask search engines not to index.”
• For students creating projects, the new default settings are private for the profile and “Ask search engines not to index” for the site.
• For students creating clubs, the new default setting for the site is “Ask search engines not to index.” There’s no change to the profile setting, which will still be public.
• For students creating portfolios, the new default setting for the profile will now be private and the site will be “Ask search engines not to index.”

Remember, you can always choose the settings that are right for you and the work you’re doing – and reach out to the OpenLab team if you have questions.

There are a number of new features and improvements that have been included in the OpenLab updates in January-Spring 2025 that may be of interest for OER. 

New Features and Functionality

Cloning updates

A number of new options for choosing what you clone to your new site were added:

1. Clone posts and pages that are currently set to draft (unpublished). This allows you to choose whether or not to clone any posts or pages currently in draft on the site you are cloning. The default is to clone them, but you can choose not to.
2. Publish all currently-published posts and pages on your new site. By default, all posts and pages that are published on the site you are cloning will also be published on the new site. If you would prefer to publish them gradually, you can choose to set them to draft on the new site.
3. Set post and page publication dates to today (while maintaining the current publication order). This setting prevents posts and pages from appearing out of date, especially if you are cloning an older site. By default, post and page publication dates will be set to the date you are cloning your site, but the current publication order will be maintained. You can change the setting if you prefer to keep the dates from the site you’re cloning.
4. Clone unused media library items. By default, Media Library items that are not being used in a page or post will not be cloned to the new site (with the exception of header images), allowing you to save space on your new site. You can change this if you would like to clone unused items.

In addition, any plugins active on the site you’re cloning but retired on the OpenLab will be deactivated on the new site. This will help prevent potential errors from using old plugins.

Bulk user import

The bulk user import functionality was expanded beyond courses so that faculty and staff can use it in projects and clubs to import larger lists of members. You can easily paste in a list of member emails, and any that already have OpenLab accounts will automatically be added to the course, project, or club. 

Retired theme notice

You will now see a notice on your site’s Dashboard if you are using a theme that has been retired. Please switch to a new theme if you see this notice, to avoid potential problems with your site. There is help for changing your theme, as well as help for many different themes available on the OpenLab.

Plugins

Some significant revisions were made to two of the OpenLab-developed and OER-funded plugins, OpenLab Inline Comments and OpenLab Text to Speech, to make them more visually appealing and improve ease of use.

A new translation plugin, Polylang, was added, allowing you to translate your site into multiple languages. It’s intended for sites where a more accurate translation is desired, because the translation is done manually. For automatic translation, there is the GTranslate plugin, which uses Google Translate to create an automatic translation of your site in multiple languages of your choosing. 

A few plugins that are no longer being maintained by their developer were retired: 

• Admin Commenter Count
• TablePress Responsive Tables Add-on. 
• WTI Like Post plugin

These will still remain activated on sites where they are already enabled, but won’t be available for activation on new sites. If they’re activated on your site, please disable them.

The Easy Custom Sidebars plugin was also retired because it is no longer being maintained by its developer, and the plugin’s settings page is no longer accessible from the dashboard. If you were already using the plugin it will continue to work on your site for the time being, but we suggest that you deactivate it and switch to Content Aware Sidebars, a new plugin added in this release that does the same thing. This plugin won’t appear in Dashboard > Plugins, so please contact the OpenLab Team to activate it.

Themes

A few new themes were added:

• Astra
• Kadence
• Neve

In addition to these, a number of block or full site editing themes were added. These use blocks for all parts of the site, allowing for more control over the design and layout of the site as a whole. These themes would work especially well for portfolios, but could be used for any site where you want more flexibility in determining the appearance of the site. They are: 

• Aeonium
• Hello Agency
• JinJang
• Stacks 
• Twenty Twenty-Four
• Twenty Twenty-Five 

A number of older themes that have become outdated were retired. As with retired plugins, if a retired theme is active on a site it will remain enabled on that site. However, retired themes can’t be activated on new sites. 

• Twenty Twelve
• Twenty Thirteen
• Twenty Sixteen
• Education Pro
• Gillian 
• Typology

Bug Fixes

We fixed an issue with the OpenLab Attributions plugin that prevented attributions from being added to quote, pullquote, or list blocks.

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Please contact the OpenLab team with any questions!

There were a number of new features and improvements that have been included in the OpenLab updates during Spring-Fall 2024 that may be of interest for OER. 

New Features

OpenLab Modules

The MSEIP grant “Connect the DOTS” funded the creation of a custom plugin called Openlab Modules, which allows anyone to create modules on an OpenLab site. 

A module is a collection of related information, grouped together for easy and convenient access, that is shareable and remixable. It could be a review of a particular topic for a course, an introduction to a subject, an online professional development unit, a collection of related works of art, information about a research project, or any other collection of related content.

You can see it in action on the “Designing for Access” OER Accessibility module.

‘Open’ badge 

The definition of the ‘Open’ badge in course, project, club, and portfolio directories was expanded to include all courses, projects, and clubs with either a public profile or a public site. Previously the badge was only applied when both were public. 

Plugins

There were a few new plugins added:

• Enable Media Replace allows site admins to swap out a previous version of a file for a new one. Rather than just changing the file in the media library, it will swap out the file on any pages or posts where that file was included, saving site admins from having to update each post or page where the file was included.
• Zotpress allows you to connect your OpenLab site with your Zotero library for easy citations and bibliography creation.

In addition, the following plugins were deactivated because they’re no longer being maintained by their developers:

• Category Sticky Post
• Highlighter Pro
• Setmore Plus
• ShareThis 

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Please contact the OpenLab team with any questions!