Author: Bree Zuckerman

On September 15, 2021 we released version 1.7.54 of the OpenLab. It was a small release that included a few bug fixes and some minor plugin updates.

We fixed a bug causing acknowledgements to appear on portfolio profiles, when they should only appear for Courses, Projects, and Clubs. We also updated the acknowledgements widget that is added to cloned sites. The widget will now include changes we made to the format of acknowledgments on group profiles, added in the August release. It will show any additional group creators added, as well as any additional text. In a future release, we’ll make the widget available on sites for non-cloned groups that include acknowledgments.

As always, please contact us with any questions!

On August 12, 2021 we released version 1.7.53 of the OpenLab. It was a large release, and included multiple new features, new plugins, a few bug fixes, and updates to all existing themes and plugins, and updates to WordPress and BuddyPress, the software that powers the OpenLab.

New Features

Favorites

We added a new feature called “My Favorites,” which allows OpenLab members to save Courses, Projects, Clubs, or Portfolios to a list of “Favorites.” This list appears in a dropdown menu in the My OpenLab toolbar, making it easily accessible from anywhere on the OpenLab.

Acknowledgements for Courses, Projects, and Clubs

We added additional flexibility and options to the acknowledgements that appear on the profile of Courses, Projects, and Clubs. Now you’ll be able to add additional ‘creators’ to a Course, Project, or Club. These may include creators who are not members of the OpenLab so that they can also be credited for their work.

In addition, there’s now a section where you can add custom text that will appear in an acknowledgements section on the profile. This could credit another person, work, or funding source that contributed to the creation of your site.

My OpenLab: Ability to Sort My Courses, Projects, and Clubs

We added a dropdown to the My Courses, My Projects, and My Clubs sections in My OpenLab, which will allow you to sort by last active, alphabetical, and newest, making it easier to find particular groups in My OpenLab. 

Non-joinable Groups

This feature allows admins to define a Course, Project, or Club as non-joinable, meaning that the ‘Join Now’ or ‘Request Membership’ buttons will not appear on the profile. We imagine that this would be useful mainly for groups such as model courses, which are open but not intended for membership, or projects that are used as working groups that are only intended for use by a small number of people.

OpenLab Export / Import plugin

We’re releasing a plugin that will allow members to export a site on the OpenLab to be used on any other WordPress installation, such as the CUNY Academic Commons or a CBOX OpenLab installation. Since cloning can’t be done across different installations, this is a way to provide easier sharing of materials. The plugin has more features than the regular WordPress exporter, and packages up all the site contents, together with a readme file to provide context for the person importing the site contents into their own.

New Plugins

We added two new plugins:

• Quiz Maker Pro replaces WP Pro Quiz, which was retired in June, and removed in this release. It provides an easy way to add quizzes, with many different options for customizing. 
• Posts by Tag adds a widget that allows you to display posts from different tags of your choosing.

Retired Plugins

We retired a number of plugins that are no longer being updated. These plugins will still be active on sites where they’re currently activated but won’t be available for activation on new sites. They include:

• Accordion Shortcodes
• ARI Fancy Lightbox
• CubePoints
• DK PDF
• Download Media Library
• Google for WP
• Link Manager
• WP Twitter
• WP2Static
• Tako Movable Comments

WP Pro Quiz, which was retired in June has now been removed entirely, to avoid any potential security risks. Unlike a retired plugin, it will no longer be available, even on sites where it was activated. 

Bug Fixes

We fixed a bug in the OpenLab Attributions plugin, which caused the ‘Add Attribution’ window to close when using the down arrow on a keyboard to choose a license from the dropdown.

We discovered a conflict between two plugins: WP Lightbox2 and Gravity Forms. If both of these plugins are activated together, the panel for adding fields in Gravity Forms does not display correctly. We’re not able to fix the conflict, but want to make people aware of the issue.

Documentation in Help is coming soon for all new features. And as always, please contact us with any questions!

On June 3, 2021 we released version 1.7.52 of the OpenLab. It included the introduction of a new plugin for portfolios called OpenLab Private Comments, updates to the WP Grade Comments plugin, a change to the site options available during cloning, a few minor plugin and theme updates, and a bug fix for the OpenLab Attributions plugin.

New features and updates

OpenLab Private Comments plugin

This new plugin, based on WP Grade Comments, was designed with student portfolios in mind. It allows private comments to be added to posts and pages on the site where it’s activated. Only the site admin and the commenter can see the private comments.

WP Grade Comments plugin

We made a change to protect against accidental breaches of privacy if the plugin is deactivated. If this plugin was used on a site to provide grades and/or private comments, they will remain hidden even if the plugin is deactivated. This functionality is also included in the new OpenLab Private Comments plugin.

Cloning 

We removed two options in the “Site Details” section while cloning a course, project, or club that were confusing and not relevant to the cloning process. There are now two options available: 

• Choose your cloned site: this will be the choice for the majority of cases, and will copy the contents of the site being cloned to the new site.
• Use an external site: this option may be used when only the profile is being cloned, which will be attached to an external site.

Bug Fix

We fixed a bug in the OpenLab Attributions plugin, which caused the superscript number that links to an attribution to remain in the text even when the attribution was deleted.

As always, please contact us with any questions!

On March 15 and April 15, 2021 we released versions 1.7.49 and 1.7.50 of the OpenLab. They were both small releases, which included some changes to the OpenLab Attributions plugin, a few minor plugin and theme updates, and a small bug fix. 

OpenLab Attribution Plugin

We changed a few of the labels to make them more clear. In addition, we changed “Derivative Work” to “Adapted From” and under “Adapted From” added three additional items: Item Title, Author Name, and License. 

Bug Fix

In My Profile > My Settings > Email Notifications there was a duplicate section for “Individual Group Email Settings,” which we removed.

As always, please contact us with any questions!

On February 18, 2021 we released version 1.7.49 of the OpenLab. It was a very small release, which included one new plugin and a few small bug fixes. 

The new plugin is called Block Navigation, and adds a sidebar panel to the Block editor that shows an outline of all the blocks on the page or post. It provides an easy way to view the order and reorganize blocks.

We added a missing “required” label for the “account type” dropdown on the sign up page. We also eliminated the “Brute Force Protection” section in the Jetpack plugin’s settings because it was causing an error. 

As always, please contact us with any questions!

On January 21, 2021 we released version 1.7.48 of the OpenLab. It included a few new features and updates to all existing themes and plugins, including BuddyPress, the main plugin that together with WordPress, powers the OpenLab. We are postponing a WordPress update until the summer 2021 release because of some significant changes that could impact many of the themes and plugins on the OpenLab. We’re also holding off on updating the Gutenberg plugin that powers the WordPress block editor because it introduces block editing for widgets, which is a significant change to the interface and we wanted to provide additional time to introduce this change to OpenLab members.

New Features and Functionality

1. We made a change to the default settings in the block editor, so that the block settings toolbar now appears in the “top toolbar” location rather than hovering at the top of the active block, where it can sometimes obscure what’s in the block.

You can always change this by toggling the “top toolbar” location setting off or in the Block Editor Options menu. Click the icon with 3 vertical dots to access this menu.

2. We made a number of changes to the sign up page to help make the process easier for new members. We moved account type (student, faculty, staff, alumni) before email address, so that once you choose account type and then begin to type in your email address, there is an auto-complete suggestion that appears.

3. We made some improvements to the School and Office filters on the Projects directory page so that “All Schools” and “All Offices” are now selectable in the filters.

4. We also finished most of the work on a plugin we’re developing called OpenLab Private Comments, which is based on WP Grade Comments, but is designed for use with Portfolios. When activated by a site admin (e.g.  students as admins of their portfolio sites) it allows commenters (e.g. professors) to leave private comments as feedback on their portfolios. We’re planning to release this in February.

Bug Fixes

We fixed one bug. The modal window that appears when you click the Add to Portfolio button to add the contents of a post, comment, or page you’ve authored to your portfolio site from another site was not mobile friendly. We’ve fixed this so it can be used on mobile devices.  

As always, please contact us with any questions!

On November 19, 2020 we released version 1.7.47 of the OpenLab. It included two new features and five new plugins, as well as a few minor plugin and theme updates.

New Features

1. We added a link on Course, Project, and Club directory pages allowing OpenLab members to create or clone these groups from the directory page, in addition to the usual location in My OpenLab. Please note that you must be logged in for the links to be visible, and the link on the Courses directory page will only be visible to faculty.
   
   
   
   
2. We added a link to My OpenLab on the red login box on the homepage of the OpenLab, to make it even quicker and easier to access.
   
   

Plugins

We added five new plugins:

1. Advanced Sidebar Menu: allows you to add a widget to your sidebar that generates a menu based on the section of your site you’re viewing. It will show all the subpages related to the page being viewed, and could be helpful for sites with large amounts of content.
   
   
2. Nested Pages – This plugin replaces the functionality of the Page Mash plugin, which is no longer supported and has been retired. It provides an easy interface for dragging and dropping pages to change the order and hierarchy of all pages on your site.
   
   
3. Breadcrumb – This plugin allows you to add breadcrumb navigation to any theme, and using a shortcode. We have another plugin called Breadcrumb NavXT, but it only works with OpenLab Twenty Sixteen and OpenLab Twenty Thirteen themes. 
   
   
4. Pager Widget – This simple widget allows you to add next and back links to navigate between pages on your site. 
   
   
5. ARI Fancy Lightbox – this plugin adds a mobile-friendly lightbox effect to images on any site. It works with individual images, native WordPress galleries, and can also be used with the NextGEN Gallery plugin as the preferred lightbox for NextGEN galleries.

Documentation for the new plugins is coming soon.

As always, please contact us with any questions!

On September 21, 2020 we released version 1.7.45 of the OpenLab. It was a fairly large release, and included improvements to cloning functionality, a few additional improvements and updates, and a new plugin.

Changes to Cloning Functionality

1. In shared cloning, authorship of all content from the group being cloned will now be switched by default to the person cloning the group. For example, if you clone a model course created by Professor Smith, unless you change the authorship settings, you will appear as the author for all posts and pages on your cloned site rather than Professor Smith. This setting can be changed during the cloning process if you would prefer to retain the same authorship.

2. We made a few changes to the “Credits” section on the profile of groups that have been created through shared cloning. Credits are now called “Acknowledgements” and they have been moved down and reformatted slightly.

3. On cloneable groups, we added to the course profile a count that shows the number of times the group has been cloned, with a link to view all clones of that group.

4. An additional change was made for both shared and regular cloning. Rather than copy privacy and member role settings from the group being cloned, you will now see the usual default settings during the cloning process, where you can choose whatever you would like for these settings.

Changes to Search and Badges

We made a few improvements to the new search and filter functionality introduced in the August release, and the “badges” that differentiate types of Courses, Projects, Clubs, and Portfolios:

1. Searches that include members’ names are better matched with faculty name or project/club contact.
2. You can now use quotes in your search to include multiple terms so that results include all terms rather than any of the terms.
3. To improve clarity, we changed the short version of the “Cloneable” badge from “Clone” to the full name, “Cloneable.”

Other Fixes

1. We fixed an issue with “Button” blocks, causing buttons created with an outline style to be invisible in the Block Editor.
2. We fixed some display issues with the Search & Filter sidebar widget (part of the Search & Filter plugin).
3. We made a few more minor theme styling fixes for Education Pro and Hemingway.

New Plugin

We added the Post Types Order plugin, which allows you to change the order of posts and pages through a simple drag and drop interface.

Retired and Removed Plugins

We retired one plugin that is no longer being updated and removed one for security reasons.

1. Google Docs Embedder was no longer being maintained and was not working consistently. For this reason we retired it, which means that it will still be active on sites where it’s currently activated but won’t be available for activation on new sites.
2. Captcha was removed from the wordpress.org plugin repository for security reasons. Out of caution we have removed rather than retired it. This means it won’t be available on sites where it was activated, and won’t be available for activation on new sites.

As always, please contact us with any questions!

This semester, you may have noticed Model Courses and Course Hubs on the OpenLab. 

Model Courses

• Model Courses are department-specific OpenLab courses that faculty can clone to use with their students, via the OpenLab’s “shared cloning” feature.
• They are built by course coordinators and/or other faculty, reviewed by colleagues, and assigned a “Model” badge by the OpenLab team.
• Model courses contain course information, example assignments, resources for students, and other materials, and are designed to help faculty meet recommended best practices for teaching online.
• They are created as freely-available open educational resources (OER), meaning that faculty can choose to use them in whole or in part, adapting and remixing them to meet their needs, and they can be accessed by all, including faculty and students using Blackboard. 

Three departments/programs created Model Courses as part of the OpenLab Model Course Initiative in the summer: Communication Design, the English Department’s First Year Writing program, and Mathematics. 

You can find them in the Courses directory by checking the “Model” checkbox. 

Faculty and students are already using the Model Courses this semester: the Profile page shows how many times each course has been cloned. 

Course Hubs

• Depending on the department, Course Hubs may contain course materials for students and faculty to use alongside the model courses and/or resources to help faculty who are teaching the course. 
• Like Model Courses, they are built by course coordinators and/or other faculty, reviewed by colleagues, and assigned a “Department Resource” badge by the OpenLab team.
• They are not designed to be cloned but, like Model Courses, are created as freely-available open educational resources (OER), so they can be accessed by all, including faculty and students using Blackboard. 

The English First Year Writing team created a single Course Hub designed to support faculty teaching with the Model Courses. 

The Math Department team created a Course Hub for each of the Model Courses; they’re  designed to act as a central resource for courses with syllabus, lessons, review sheets, and other resources for students and faculty. Faculty can link to the Course Hub from their own course in Blackboard or OpenLab, use it to supplement their own instruction, or as part of a “flipped classroom” model. Students can use it to catch up or refresh their knowledge, check out a course, or prepare for an exam.  

You can find Course Hubs in the Projects directory by checking the “Department Resources” checkbox. 

Freely available for all!

Both Model Courses and Course Hubs are open educational resources (OER) made freely available on the OpenLab for others to use, edit, and remix. Because they’re available to everyone, they can be accessed by faculty and students here at City Tech and anywhere in the world. 

Want to learn more?

Interested in bringing Model Courses and/or Course Hubs to your Department? Contact the OpenLab team! We’re happy to help and advise.  

For general information and instructions on cloning a Model Course, see the Working with Model Courses section of Teaching with the OpenLab. 

For more about the Communication Design Model Courses and how they were created, check out the Working with a Model Course and Model Course Development sections of the COMD Pedagogy Project.

For more about the Mathematics materials, see the Model Course and Course Hub sections of the Math Department Instructor Resources site.