In the Spotlight: Plan Week Spring 2024

Plan week is here! That means that from March 19 through March 26th, you can take part in Plan Week activities to prepare for advisement and registration for next semester, to ensure you are taking the right courses and asking the right questions to stay on the path to graduation and achieving your future goals.

The Plan Week website has all the information you need to take part and take advantage of all that the week has to offer. There’s also information about how students can enter to win prizes!

On the Plan Week website, you’ll find information about each day in the week, its events, and what to focus on information to help students plan for their next steps at City Tech. Here is the abbreviated list of day-by-day goals–be sure to check out the website for more details:

As you develop your PLAN, remember that you can use the OpenLab to get a preview of the courses you’re interested in registering for, and to develop a better sense of what students are doing as they progress in your major and move toward graduation and their careers. You can use the filters to find courses in particular departments, look at portfolios made by students in your major, see projects related to your studies, and join a club connected to your interests.

Take full advantage of in these events and resources, and happy Planning!

Photo credit: “Lunar Eclipse” by David Yu via Flickr under the license CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed.

Co-working today, F 3/15

The weather is getting better, but there’s always more work to do! Let’s get together TODAY to work and check things off the to-do lists we all have–or take some time to make to-do lists!

The OpenLab Team is hosting a co-working session today, Friday, March 15th, 10:00-11:00AM. Join us to cowork in what we hope is a welcoming space that helps as you focus on accomplishing what you need to finish. Bring whatever you want to work on, OpenLab related or not. We’ll bring bring work, too, plus some good energy for checking things off to-do lists.

You can work silently in the main Zoom room or move into a breakout room to talk with a collaborator or with an OpenLab team member if you have specific questions we can help you with. 

Please share this opportunity with colleagues and students–all are welcome. We hope this co-working session is useful for you–and let us know how else we can help!

Photo credit: “Three is a charm (26/365)” by Chung Ho Leung via Flickr is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 Deed

This Month on the OpenLab: March 2024 Release

Martenitsa made from red and white yarn hanging on a tree branch with a budding flower at the end.
Hanging Martenitsa by Georgi Kirichkov is licensed under CC BY-SA.

On March 12, we released version 1.7.75 of the OpenLab. It included a new plugin and a few minor theme and plugin updates.

New plugin: Zotpress

Zotpress allows you to connect your OpenLab site with your Zotero library for easy citations and bibliography creation.

Typology theme

We made a few changes to the default text and background color settings for Typology to ensure accessible color contrast in the footer text.


As always, please contact us with any questions!

March Support

Stay up-to-date on OpenLab news and make use of our many opportunities for support right here on The Open Road!

As always, reach out to the OpenLab team with questions or ideas: OpenLab@citytech.cuny.edu!

Photo credit: “Coming Soon!” by tdlucas5000 via Flickr using the license CC BY 2.0 Deed.

In the Spotlight: Themes

Themes are what determine your site’s appearance and presentation and what tools and features it has.

Changing your site’s theme is a great way to give your site a new look and feel. If you’ve created a new site recently, it uses a newer theme that will allow your site to have a contemporary style, layout, and range of tools. Once you’ve created your site, you can choose a new theme if you want a different set of customizations or different appearance for your work.

If you’ve been cloning a course for a long time, or if you’ve been adding content to a site you created a log time ago, it might be time for a new theme!

Choosing a new theme can be as simple as previewing and clicking a button to make the change. From your site’s Dashboard, choose Appearance and then Themes to see what’s available, preview your site with the new theme, and activate that new theme. You can follow along with OpenLab Help on changing your site’s appearance with themes.

Screenshot of some thumbnails of WordPress themes available on City Tech's OpenLab.
A sample of theme options on the OpenLab

As new themes are available for WordPress (that’s the software that OpenLab uses), the OpenLab team researches which to add based on whether they are accessible and what they offer in terms of design and functionality.

One new theme we’ve just added is Typology.  This text-based theme looks great with or without images and allows for a lot of customization. Learn more in February’s This Month in the OpenLab.  Help documentation for the theme is coming soon, but there’s also good documentation from the theme authors. Let us know if you’re using it and we may feature your site in the future!

Featured image credit:”Inside the balloon” By Alan E via Flickr under the license CC BY 2.0 Deed

In the Spotlight: BIPOC IN DESIGN

In celebration of Black History Month, we’ve been shining the spotlight on Prof. George Larkins’s BIPOC IN DESIGN site honoring BIPOC creators in the fields of art and design.

In addition to the artists and designers highlighted on BIPOC IN DESIGN’s home page, there are additional resources featuring artists and designers from different backgrounds in the BIPOC Designers section of the site.

Visitors can also learn more by browsing through Events and Stories to find links to websites listing recent and upcoming events, useful resources, and more. The sites linked to for their events are themselves useful resources worth browsing.

How has your department or program celebrated Black History Month this year?

Image credit: Avatar from the OpenLab profile of BIPOC IN DESIGN, called BIPOC Resource Site.

This Month on the OpenLab: February 2024 Release

Orange fritillary butterfly with open wings on a bright yellow, pink, and orange lantana flower.
Valentine’s – a fritillary heart, by Vicki DeLoach, is licensed under CC ​​BY-NC-ND.

On February 13, we released version 1.7.74 of the OpenLab. It included a new theme, a few minor plugin and theme updates, and a bug fix.

New theme

We added a new theme called Typology. It allows for a lot of customization in Dashboard > Theme Options, but also looks good as soon as you activate it, without needing to make any changes. 

Help documentation for the theme is coming soon, but there’s also good documentation from the theme authors. 

Bug fix and other updates

There was a bug in the Discussion forum that appears on a Course, Project, or Club profile that was preventing any pages beyond the first page of discussion from showing. This has been fixed.

We made a few small text changes on the sign up page. One was to clarify that when we ask for your email address to sign up it won’t be displayed publicly on your Profile. We also adjusted the text in the avatar upload section to make it more clear that an avatar doesn’t have to be a picture of yourself – it can be anything that represents you or your interests. 

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As always, please contact us with any questions!

In the Spotlight: Spring 2024 Welcome!

Welcome to a new year and the Spring 2024 semester! City Tech is welcoming even more new students and faculty members–so welcome to everyone new, and welcome back to everyone returning!

The OpenLab team is excited to work with you this semester as you do great things on the OpenLab–and to help you learn more about using the OpenLab and working in an open community.

This Winter Break, there were some exciting new features added to the OpenLab, and some updates in response to members’ needs. You can read about them in the January 2024 edition of This Month on the OpenLab. We’re especially excited about this new option to change the visibility of posts made on open sites–now in addition to posts being as open as the course is or private between author and site admin, authors have the option to share their work with only members of the group or only members of the OpenLab.

As the Spring 2024 semester begins, check out the OpenLab’s synchronous support:

  • Open Hours: students, faculty, and staff can sign up for open hours, one-on-one appointments to ask specific questions or ask to learn more about topics ranging from getting started to using a tool to implementing pedagogical approach. 
  • Workshops: All are welcome for our calendar of workshops, plus any group can request a workshop on a topic or technique! The next workshops are on Thursday, 2/1:
  • Co-working sessions: for quiet working time with others, with the option to move to a breakout room for conversation or questions. The next co-working session is on 2/16:

There are also great asynchronous options for support:

Wishing everyone a safe, healthy, and inspiring new year and Spring 2024 semester. See you on the OpenLab!

Photo Credit: “Frozen Peanuts are Slippery!” by DaPuglet via Flickr under the license CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed.

This Month on the OpenLab: January 2024 Release

Cat bounding through the snow with ears back.

On January 23 we released version 1.7.73 of the OpenLab. It included some new features, as well as updates to all existing themes and plugins, including BuddyPress and WordPress, the two primary plugins that power the OpenLab. 

New Features and Functionality

We created additional post privacy options that appear on public sites, allowing you to choose from three different privacy options, for more fine-grained visibility choices when working in the open: 

  • Everyone: This is the default setting, which matches the setting of the open site. 
  • Site members: Only logged-in members of the site can see the post. 
  • OpenLab members: Only logged-in members of the OpenLab can see the post.

You don’t need to activate anything. These options will appear automatically when a site is set to either “Allow search engines to index” or “Ask search engines not to index this site.”

Additional privacy options, as described above.

We added a space for uploading an avatar when people first create an OpenLab account. We’re hoping this will encourage more members to add an avatar to their profile. It doesn’t have to be a picture of yourself – it can be a pet, a drawing, a photograph, or anything!

During the process of portfolio creation, the name and URL of the portfolio has always autofilled with the creator’s first initial and last name. It was possible to change it, but most people did not. In order to better protect members’ privacy and support people’s autonomy in how they choose to be identified on the OpenLab, we removed these default values so that portfolio title and URL must be filled in at the time of creation. People can choose to use their real name or their Display Name, which may not be the same. 

Plugins

We added four new plugins, and retired one plugin, CM Tooltip Glossary, in favor of a more accessible glossary plugin. The new plugins are:

TranslatePress 
We recently added the GTranslate plugin, which allows you to add an automatic translation option to your site. TranslatePress allows you to translate it manually, for a more accurate translation.

Reading Time WP 
This plugin adds an estimated reading time to posts and pages. 

WP Reading Progress 
Used alone or together with Reading Time WP, this plugin adds a progress bar to posts and pages, indicating to the reader how far along they are in the text.

Name Directory 
This plugin allows you to create a glossary, or multiple glossaries for your site. You can also allow others to submit glossary entries. 

Bug Fixes

We fixed an issue where the ‘Favorites’ dropdown in the OpenLab Toolbar was being skipped when navigating the site with a keyboard.

We made a few fixes to the OpenLab Attributions plugin to improve keyboard navigation, and to fix an issue preventing existing attributions from being edited.

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As always, please contact us with any questions!

In the Spotlight: Pre-semester Prep

It may be cold and snowy outside, but preparing for the upcoming semester is heating up. The OpenLab team is here to support your course building efforts!

Join a Workshop

Click here to view the full schedule and register to receive the Zoom link for the workshops.

Monday, 1/22/24

  • Getting Started on the OpenLab: 10:00-10:30am
  • Creating a Course Site: 10:30-11:30am
    (30 min break following this workshop)
  • Fostering an Interactive Course Site: 12:00-1:00pm
  • Co-working session: 1:00-2:00pm

Register for the 1/22/2024 Workshops

Tuesday, 1/23/24

  • Getting Started on the OpenLab: 1:00-1:30pm
  • Creating a Course Site: 1:30-2:30pm
    (30 min break following this workshop)
  • Fostering an Interactive Course Site: 3:00-4:00pm
  • Co-working session: 4:00-5:00pm

Register for the 1/23/2024 Workshops

Co-work with us

Last year, the OpenLab team piloted co-working session for quiet working time with others, with the option to move to a breakout room for conversation or questions. You’ll notice there are some co-working sessions listed above–and one just for First Year Writing (your group can request a co-working session, too). Whether you’ve come to the workshops or not, join OpenLab team to work on your course site, build out your portfolio, sort through your email, anything OpenLab or not OpenLab, or just to be a positive force for anyone else joining who needs that energy!

Help is here

Use Help materials and screencasts to guide your work. Search for your specific topic in the OpenLab’s Help section or navigate through the different sections. You can also reach out for email support by sending a message to us at OpenLab@CityTech.cuny.edu or via our contact form.

Want more? Request a workshop or co-working session for your group, or contact us to ask a question, or let us know what else we can do to support you!

Photo Credit

Spring Will Not Be Held Back” by Tim Dennell via Flickr under the license CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed