Last semester, the OpenLab hit an impressing milestone, welcoming its 25,000th member at the start of the fall. This term, the OpenLab reached an even more impressive 28,000 members: we continue our retrospective series here, looking back at how the OpenLab has grown and evolved since its inception in 2011. This growth was made possible by the many City Tech partners and stakeholders who participate in the platform, and push the site in new and exciting directions. A few shout-outs to some of our partners:
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- The OpenLab was created as part of the Title V grant, “A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st Century College of Technology.” The Living Lab faculty fellows helped to shape the early days of the OpenLab, and one of its culminating grant projects, the L4 (Living Lab Learning Library) resource exchange site, continues to grow on the OpenLab.
- The OpenLab was created as part of the Title V grant, “A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st Century College of Technology.” The Living Lab faculty fellows helped to shape the early days of the OpenLab, and one of its culminating grant projects, the L4 (Living Lab Learning Library) resource exchange site, continues to grow on the OpenLab.
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- Faculty and staff have been building OER course sites on the OpenLab and have an OER Fellowship project site to coordinate their efforts. OER courses are identifiable through an OER badge, which appears on the avatar of the course or project. Courses and projects with an OER badge can also be searched for in course and project directories. You can read more about OER badges in our help section.
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- Students and faculty have been working together on math problems from the open source math homework site, WeBWorK, on the OpenLab WeBWorK site, developed as a part of the Title V grant, “Opening Gateways to Completion: Open Digital Pedagogies for Student Success in STEM.” The site will be released publicly as a WordPress plugin at the end of the project.
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- The OpenLab has partnered with Commons in a Box, to produce an open platform for teaching and learning that anyone can use. Commons in a Box OpenLab recently launched, and greatly extends the public reach of the work we do here at City Tech.
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- As part of the HSI-STEM Digital Pathways grant, led by the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), in partnership with City Tech and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and to support students enrolled in STEM courses- especially computer science and digital media arts and technology -BMCC will be one of the first institutions to use Commons in a Box OpenLab beginning in Spring 2019.
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- Open Pedagogy events and Office Hours have been generously hosted by the Faculty Commons and the Office of the Provost.
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- The OpenLab has been collaborating with Student Life & Development, on its programming and shared goals of student engagement and the student experience. We’ve run workshops in partnership with them (such as for Presenting Yourself Online and Clubs) Finally, the OpenLab has collaborated with FYLC and STEM Success to support student advancement.
Each new OpenLab initiative and partner has expanded the possibilities of what work can be curated, showcased, collaborated on and discussed on the platform. We’re excited to see much more of this work unfold in the future. There are, of course, many more OpenLab collaborators than could be named in this brief post. Let’s keep the conversation going-reply to this post in a comment, and briefly describe OpenLab your site/ project (don’t forget to give us the link!). You are building the OpenLab, and we’d love to highlight your work!
