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.
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:
One super useful bit of help for the start of the semester: step-by-step instructions for how to add students in bulk to your course by using a list of student emails. Being able to add students to courses this way is so convenient, we even spotlighted it!
Everyone can get inspired by what this community has done on the OpenLab by looking through our past In the Spotlight posts or by navigating directly to what interests you through this helpful index of spotlights.
The faculty and staff working on City Tech’s current Title V grant, the STEM Success Collaborative, have developed student surveys and are asking for faculty members to share one or both with students. Here’s a message from them:
We would like to ask you to participate in the Title V STEM Success Collaborative Grant through having your students take a survey designed to help improve life at the college. The survey takes 10-15 minutes and should be given during the class to help ensure that students complete it. We would ask that you reach out to Anne Leonhardt (aleonhardt@citytech.cuny.edu) to confirm your participation. Students can participate in the surveys through December 21st, 2023.
The Student Surveys
These are the two surveys currently underway, so consider which is most appropriate for the students in your courses as you choose which to invite students to participate in:
The purpose of this survey is to identify the flow of information from the college and amongst students. We will ask you questions about how you find out about City Tech resources. Your participation in this research project is completely voluntary. You have the right to say no. Your continuing to the next page will indicate your consent to participate in this research. The data for this project is being collected anonymously, so your answers are completely confidential. Your willingness to participate in this survey and your responses will not affect your grades or academic standing with CUNY. Please answer the questions as honestly as possible. Thank you for your thought given to responding to these questions.
If you have any questions about how information from this survey will be used or other questions about this survey, please contact Anne Leonhardt at aleonhardt@citytech.cuny.edu.
The purpose of this survey is to understand your sense of belongingness and community within different peer groups, your major/department, and City Tech at large. Your participation in this research project is completely voluntary. You have the right to say no. Your continuing to the next page will indicate your consent to participate in this research. The data for this project is being collected anonymously, so your answers are completely confidential. Your willingness to participate in this survey and your responses will not affect your grades or academic standing with CUNY. Please answer the questions as honestly as possible. Thank you for your input in responding to these questions. Information from this survey will be used to help us understand how students like yourself perceive City Tech and make changes to ensure that all students feel more welcomed and supported here.
If you have any questions about how information from this survey will be used or other questions about this survey, please contact Anne Leonhardt at aleonhardt@citytech.cuny.edu.
The Spotlight is on the Science Fiction at City Tech website leading up to the Eighth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium. This year’s event, Science Fiction, Gender, and Sexuality, will take place on Thursday, November 30th, from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. EST (GMT/UTC -5 hours) online via Zoom Webinar. It will also be available via YouTube Livestream.
Co-organizers Jill Belli, Wanett Clyde, Leigh Gold, Kel Karpinski, Lucas Kwong, Vivian Papp and Sean Scanlan invite everyone to join for the day-long event or stopping by as schedules permit. The online event is free and open to everyone. Links for registration on Zoom and the livestream on YouTube, along with the symposium program and participant bios, are available on the Science Fiction at City Tech’s event post on their OpenLab site.
October 23-29 is International Open Access Week! #OAWeek
To celebrate Open Access Week, Prof. Monica Berger shared some thoughts about open access in a post on the library’s OpenLab site, LIBRARY BUZZ. Entitled “Open Access and knowledge as a public good,” and adapted from her forthcoming book (Winter/Spring 2024) from the Association of College and Research Libraries, Prof. Berger explains the value of openly available shared knowledge. In that post, she shares:
Open access is at its essence a philosophical notion with the guiding principle that scholarly content should be available to all readers without restriction because knowledge itself is a public good and cannot be bought and sold. The idea of knowledge as a public good derives from the work of Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom’s conception of knowledge-as-commons.
“Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe” by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr, CC BY 2.0
Now that the semester is well underway, you might be open to looking at what’s new on the OpenLab. The most recent set of updates to the OpenLab included some great new features and opportunities. If you haven’t already, you might want to read the This Month in the OpenLab post from the end of August to learn about what’s new, different, or otherwise helpful. You can always find This Month in the OpenLab posts in the category OpenLab News.
OpenLab updates address community needs. They include keeping up to date on software updates, making fixes and adjustments to things that need to work better, and new ideas–big and small–that can make new things possible.
The August installment of This Month in the OpenLab announced features and functionality including new templates for sites, options to give members greater ability to customize sites and profiles, improvements to discussion forums and site commenting, and of course new plugins– which are tools that add functionality to your site. Look for the spotlight to shine on some of these important updates soon!
As always, if you have ideas for improvements, you’re welcome to share either by emailing OpenLab@citytech.cuny.edu or by using the contact form.
Welcome to a new academic year! 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 summer, 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 August 2023 edition of This Month on the OpenLab. The option to have different course templates is a great innovation that will make it easier for instructors to build a course site tailored to the course’s needs.
As the Fall 2023 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!
Co-working sessions: for quiet working time with others, with the option to move to a breakout room for conversation or questions.
There are also great asynchronous options for support:
Faculty members with any questions about getting your course site ready for the semester can refer to the helpful tips posted in the Teaching with the OpenLab module.
Students getting ready to use the OpenLab this semester can use the helpful OpenLab for Students module.
Everyone can get inspired by what this community has done on the OpenLab by looking through our past In the Spotlight posts or by navigating directly to what interests you through this helpful index of spotlights.
It might not look like spring outside, but welcome back for the Spring 2023 semester!
The OpenLab team is excited to work with you as you do great things on the OpenLab–and to help you learn more about using the OpenLab and working in an open community.
The OpenLab team has been busy adding new features and functionality. For example, you may have noticed some changes to the tools that are on by default in the profile of your course, project, or club. One addition is an Announcements feature, which allows admins of a Course, Project, or Club to post announcements that appear just beneath the avatar on a group’s profile. These provide an easy and prominent way to share announcements with members, such as an upcoming class, event, meeting. In addition to appearing on the profile, these announcements will also be sent via email notification to help ensure that everyone who needs to see them does. Announcements are activated by default, but admins can deactivate them in Profile > Settings, if you don’t plan to use them.
There are other helpful improvements that we described in the January 2023 Release Notes–we’ll be spotlighting some of them soon!
Be sure to check out the Spring 2023 OpenLab support options and join us for 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. We’ve added a new tool for registering for open hours, which allows site admins to embed Calendly–many of you use this tool already, and now you can feature your Calendly directly in a page or post on your site–activate the Embed Calendly plugin via Dashboard>Plugins>Embed Calendly.
Workshops: If you missed the OpenLab workshops during intersession, you can request a workshop on any topic or technique! Bring a few colleagues, fellow students, or officemates to learn about how to build something, do something, or use something on the OpenLab!
There are also great asynchronous options for support:
Faculty members with any questions about getting your course site ready for the semester can refer to the helpful tips posted in the Teaching with the OpenLab module.
Students getting ready to use the OpenLab this semester can use the helpful OpenLab for Students module.
Everyone can get inspired by what this community has done on the OpenLab by looking through our past In the Spotlight posts.
The Help materials on the OpenLab are extensive, guiding members through creating and working in Courses, Projects, Clubs, and Portfolios. For example, our help documentation will walk instructors through step-by-step how to add students in bulk to your course by using a list of student emails, a feature we added a few semesters ago. Being able to add students to courses this way is so convenient, we even spotlighted it! Students, this means you might find yourself *automagically* added into a course without having to request membership or join it yourself.
The Spotlight is on the Science Fiction at City Tech website leading up to the Seventh Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on December 6th, from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. E.ST. The theme for this year is “Science Fiction and the Archive.” The discussions will be on various questions like What role do digital technologies and social networks play in creating the Science Fiction Archive? How can the SF Archive be inclusive and representative? For the second time, the winner of the Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices will be announced by Analog Science Fiction and Fact.
Co-organizers Jill Belli, Wanett Clyde, Jason W. Ellis, Kel Karpinski, and Lucas Kwong invite everyone to join for the day-long event or stopping by as schedules permit. The event will happen online, free and open to everyone, and will also be livestreamed on YouTube. Links for registration and the livestream on YouTube, along with the symposium program, are available on the Science Fiction at City Tech OpenLab site–that’s also where you can register, RSVP, and learn more about the program.
The event is sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.
“Welcome” by Stuart Caie on Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0
Welcome to a new academic year! We’ve heard that this 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. Check out the Fall 2022 OpenLab support options and join us for 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: We have workshops slated for the next two weeks, on Getting Started and on Working on the OpenLab. All are welcome.
Requested Workshops: Any group can request a workshop on a topic or technique!
There are also great asynchronous options for support:
Faculty members with any questions about getting your course site ready for the semester can refer to the helpful tips posted in the Teaching with the OpenLab module.
Students getting ready to use the OpenLab this semester can use the helpful OpenLab for Students module.
Everyone can get inspired by what this community has done on the OpenLab by looking through our past In the Spotlight posts or by navigating directly to what interests you through this helpful index of spotlights.
Remember, returning OpenLab members will need to reset their password. If you need help, these password reset instructions will guide you through the process. Reach out to us if you need additional help!
Wishing everyone a safe, healthy, and inspiring start to the semester. See you on the OpenLab!
