At first, I looked over this OERxDomains21 session… then I read the description and was intrigued. Entitled “OpenLab – Open Infrastructure in Action at CUNY” Charlie Edwards, Jody Rosen and Christopher Stein described a virtual space for community building. Rosen described how the project began with a Department of Education grant to support their institution in using technology to help students. The project platform launched in 2011 and they have served over 36,000 members of the CityTech community! They developed the platform for courses, clubs, and faculty and the presenters talked about how the community keeps on building websites and connecting. The websites don’t get deleted so the project keeps on growing. Edwards explained how in 2012 the project was further developed to create a “Commons-in-a-box” OpenLab by partnering with commonsinabox.org. Stein talked about how support for Hispanic Serving Institutions they brought the OpenLab to BMCC (Borough of Manhattan Community College) to foster transfer of students from one institution to another. I like how the project is an umbrella that covers students even as they transfer from institutions! The group talked about federated communities supported by academics and built for educational exchange and community using open source code and practices. Stein explained how instructors and units could put up information easily that could be accessed widely using the WordPress system. I love how Rosen talked about the use of OpenLab sites to provide information asynchronous to students and a system for students doing undergraduate research to share broadly! It was also nice to hear how they obtained funding for the work and then made it open so that others could adopt this system. The moderator also mentioned the impact OpenLab is having by reaching so many students in the CUNY system. We use WordPress a lot for course sites and Delftia research and outreach. I really enjoy the platform and ability to post publicly student work and course information. However, I would like to encourage more participation by learners and the community.
A second presentation that is related and closer to us described the use of WordPress Multisite. Laurie Miles, Shanon Hauser and Colin Madland discussed the adoption of WordPress for student work and clubs. Miles described the growth of the site at UNC Asheville from a pilot in 2016 with a handful of website to over 1400! Madland is at Trinity Western University (Canada) and also implemented WordPress. Madland explained how their institution now uses WordPress sites for incoming students in a foundations course. Students can clone sites with templates and instructions to get up and running with WordPress. Hauser is at University of Mary Washington. Hauser was a student at Mary Washington and has been working there for almost a decade! They use WordPress Multisite and have UMWblogs. Hauser talked about how they are revitalizing their templates and plugins since there is a long legacy of using the system and want to encourage more to use. I agree with Hauser and enjoy the simplicity of WordPress. The group then discussed use of WordPress during the pandemic. Laurie talked about how new faculty are using sites to post syllabi and information on sites that are more mobile-responsive. I do this and truly love it! While I don’t embed the syllabi; I do link to documents (including the syllabus) to help students navigate to key information AND see how students have shared their work!
