This Month on the OpenLab: September Release

On September 17, we released version 1.7.35 of the OpenLab. It included some new features, as well as few minor plugin updates and bug fixes.

New Features and Changes

There were three new features or changes to current functionality included this release:

1. There’s a new widget available for use on OpenLab sites called Creative Commons License. We built it based on the widget in use on the CUNY Academic Commons, which allows site admins to choose a Creative Commons license to display in their site’s sidebar. Although all content on the OpenLab is automatically licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, this allows site members to display a license more prominently on their own site, or to choose a different license.
2. We added explanatory text on the OpenLab signup page beneath the field for username to clarify two things: (1) When signing up for the OpenLab, members don’t need to use their real name. (2) Usernames will be visible in the URL of a member’s profile and cannot be changed. For more general information, read the Open Road post, Privacy in Open Learning.
3. We retired the PDF Embedder Premium Plugin, due to accessibility and usability issues. It will continue to work on sites where it’s already activated but will no longer be available for activation on new sites.

Bug Fixes

We fixed four small bugs in this release:

1. There was an issue with the OpenLab Gradebook plugin causing special characters (e.g. accents or other characters, such as å, é, or ã) to appear incorrectly in the downloaded spreadsheet on Mac computers, due to different CSV encoding on Macs.
2. Another Gradebook issue affecting Mac users was that CSVs created in the Apple program, “Numbers” could not be uploaded into a gradebook, also due to different CSV encoding in Numbers.
3. We fixed a bug that was affecting certain sites cloned from a Math Department template site. When the TablePress plugin was activated on these sites, the site admin was not able to see the TablePress Settings page.
4. The OpenLab logo that appears on the sign in page for private sites was incorrectly linked to wordpress.org. It now links to the OpenLab homepage.

As always, please contact us with any questions!