 And it's another session of Domains 21 with another crew from CUNY. This might be maybe like the CUNY IT conference that maybe didn't happen this year, I don't know. But welcome everybody. We're here with Charlotte Edwards, Jody Rosen, and Chris Stein all from CUNY. Chris is from the city of Manhattan Borough Community College. I always get that wrong, BMCC, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and New York City Tech, I should be mirroring, is both Charlotte and Jody, welcome all to this session for Domains 21. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Now, we're going to talk today about your project, which is in many ways shared across institutions within CUNY called the Open Lab. So I was hoping to start the discussion, if you might give us a little bit of a history and a context for what the Open Lab is. Yes, I think Jody was going to start off with that, and then we'll talk about how it gets to other institutions. You know, we were certainly not the first to have a Buddy Press WordPress install at our college, but really inspired by other ones around CUNY and also at University of Merritt, Washington. We really were inspired, I guess, most directly by the CUNY Academic Commons and Matt Gold, who was a founder of that, was also a founder of the Open Lab. We really wanted a space that was a community space for city tech. We found that we had not really a lot of gathering places on campus. We wanted something that would allow for community building, for student interaction, for faculty student interaction, for staff to feel like they had a place in the community, and we really wanted something that was beautiful, something that people would want to be in. And I think the Open Lab really speaks to that. If you start to look at it, you see how the aesthetics of it are part of that history, that what the call was, what the need was at city tech. I'm going to also talk a little bit about kind of how it developed at the college was through a five-year Department of Education Title V grant called the Living Laboratory Revitalizing General Education at a 21st Century College of Technology. So really feeling like we, as a college of technology, should be at the fore in thinking about how technology can help us do the things that we should be doing in CUNY, serving our mission and really giving students an opportunity to have technology do something different than just be a place for them to upload their papers at the three times a semester or something like that. I'm going to let anyone else who wants to chime in there go ahead. Well, you talked about how beautiful it is. And I think a question that follows up is we can look at the actual site, but I'd be interesting to hear, you know, based on the original. And I think I was there for the official launch. It was 2000. You were. Yeah, 2012. And it was a big event. And you all have had really impressive uptake across your community at city tech. And I'd love to hear about not only the uptake and how that kind of got woven into the culture, but then how and what examples you've used to kind of move it beyond maybe city tech, if that makes sense. Sure. So, I mean, it, as Jodie said, it started out as this as part of this. It was a grant from the US Department of Art Hispanic serving initiatives. And the the initial group of users was just going to be the faculty who were involved in that grant. So just a few fellows, I think it was 16 fellows, 15 fellows and 18 fellows. Oh, yeah, and their students. And so it launched in the fall of 2011. That's, you know, it's going to be 10 years. And we didn't publicize it to anybody. People just came out of the woodwork and cloned on to it beyond the fellows. And so, you know, by the January, there were a thousand people on the platform already without us having done any advertising at all. So that really kind of seemed to speak to the need there for this kind of of a community space. And then since then, it's really just grown and grown and grown every year. And so we've now served over 36,000 members of the city tech community. That's as Jodie mentioned, students, faculty and staff, obviously the great majority of students. Since it's launching, I think it was this was a phrase that you used, Jim, but we don't break up with with students at the end of the semester. So unlike other platforms that one could mention. So, you know, alumni are free to still use the platform, come and go. And we don't get rid of people's content. So everything is still there from the beginning. So it kind of has its history built into it in a way, which is cool. I don't know if you want to say something else, Jodie. And then we can talk about Seabox as well and bring in Chris. Yeah, just to say that, you know, we when we when it was developed, we really didn't have we knew we wanted to use it for courses. We want we wanted to have a place for clubs to meet for for people to interact in whatever ways that they wanted. But there was no defined limit on that. And I think every semester we see more different uses. And it's really inspiring to see how the community takes advantage of the tools that are available and kind of reinvents them in new ways and finds new uses and new new developments really drives the development. And I think I think Seabox Open Lab is a perfect example of that if we want to transition to talking about that into that. Yeah, sure. So when we, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy mentioned the the CUNY Academic Commons, so that was the precursor, really the direct precursor to the Open Lab. And, you know, after they'd been up and running for a while, they found that they were asked by people, you know, how can we do? How can we have a CUNY Academic Commons ourselves? And so they launched the CUNY Academic Commons in 2009. We launched the Open Lab in 2011. So in 2012, they built something called Comments in a Box, which basically packaged up the features and functionality of the CUNY Academic Commons and made it available to anybody who wanted to create a commons type community. And so similarly with us, once we started talking to people and sharing what we were doing with the Open Lab, people started approaching us and saying, how can we do that too? And we didn't have a good answer for them. So then we partnered with Matt Gold and the Comments in a Box team to create Comments in a Box Open Lab. So that means now there's two versions of Comments in a Box. There's Comments in a Box Classic, which is the original, which is used by groups of all kinds. The biggest one probably is the Humanities Commons. That's the biggest example. But there are all your hundreds around the world at this point. And so we partnered with them with funding from the NEH and were able to create something called Comments in a Box Open Lab, which means that for people who are watching this, this isn't just of academic interest, what we've been doing at City Tech. It means that anybody can do this too. So and BMCC were early adopters of the platform. So I'll throw it over to Chris now if you want to talk a little bit about about how it's going over there and how you got involved. Yes, sir. So actually, I've been involved in this in one way or another for a while. I was part of the original team on the CUNY Academic Commons. And so I saw the the growth of that and with our development of the CBOX as well and had been wanting to do more of that at BMCC. One of the things the original originally, the Commons didn't allow us undergraduate students on it. So and this is one of the one of the great developments that came with City Tech's Open Lab in terms of, you know, having a platform that was really for undergraduate students and and allowed that to grow. Since then, the Commons now does have undergraduate students on it. But we still wanted to have it at BMCC. And actually, we also were part of a Hispanic serving institutions grant that I was lucky enough to be part of and help write. And so built in some funding to get the CBOX Open Lab in. You know, once I saw that they had put that out and I knew it was going to be a lot easier to bring over to BMCC, I put that in and also we wrote in that they would support that. So the team at City Tech has really been instrumental both in helping to create the CBOX O.L. But also to support our development of a BMCC. And so now we have a thriving community there. We have to have to look again at how many thousand students in faculty we have there and a few hundred courses have been on it as well. So it's it's been going great at BMCC, too. And then, Chris, if I could just add to what you said, the grant that allowed you to bring the Open Lab to BMCC is also, you know, especially fostering transfer. So thinking about how could students come from BMCC to City Tech and how the Open Lab might be part of what facilitates that transfer for them or, you know, is familiar in both places. And then also in terms of development, how can we foster transfer from one Open Lab to the other has, I think, really driven some interesting projects as well. Yeah. And I think that's something that's, you know, now when we're developing a new something for our Open Lab and or thinking about it, we're also thinking about how would this work in Seabox Open Lab and for other people, you know, and as well, too. So it sort of made this larger community and was shared resources and ideas on development. So can I ask, I mean, on that point, is there a federated then relationship between the two Open Labs, the one at BMCC and the one at City Tech? Like, are there abilities to share resources across them, to join groups across different schools? Because that's starting to sound like a broader network that might find its way across all of CUNY. Yeah, I mean, that would be awesome. We're not there yet. But we are about to launch a community hub for Seabox Open Lab. So that will be a space where anyone and they don't have to be at CUNY will be able to come and mingle with other, you know, people who are interested in or who have actually adopted Seabox Open Lab. So we're working on that right, you know, right now. So that will be a place where we can start to have conversations and we're really making this turn from it being the Open Lab being something that's at City Tech to the Open Lab being more of a model, you know, that other people are sharing in and participating in and contributing to. So, you know, the community that's driving development of it isn't just the community at City Tech, but this broader community, which is really, really exciting. So we hope that at some point we'll have enough money to do some like actual federation. But we are going to be with, you know, in addition to the community hub and this is funded through the CUNY OER initiative, which, you know, we should acknowledge. But so they are helping us with creating something that will allow us to pass sites backwards and forwards across installations more easily via an export and import. So kind of, you know, a step up from the built-in WordPress export and import methodologies. That's quite true federation yet, which is actually, you know, something we've kind of all had in the back of our heads to do. There are some complexities in that that have, you know, made it a little bit further off, perhaps, than we might want. But that is definitely something that we're all interested in and looking forward to. I remember early on with the promise of buddy press was the idea that you could have these federated communities, which would then stand in for some of the, you know, liabilities we've come to know with places like Facebook and et cetera, like you could have these distributed networks and these would be education specific. They would be open source and they would be built and supported by a community of academics and educational technologists, which I think CUNY has been doing a phenomenal job, which you three stand in as a great example of that. Now, let me ask you a question on that note. How have you or have you, I don't want to, I don't want to lead the question too much, but have you seen the open lab instances, both at BMCC and City Tech take on a new importance over the last year when things kind of have gone online overnight, so to speak? I'd be interested in knowing. Yes, I'd say at BMCC we, it was very helpful in a number of different ways. You know, some like in my department, people had already started, a lot of faculty didn't necessarily use our CUNY LMS as well. And so this was a great place to go to it and to allow students to easily and quickly get on it. You know, we also, that's one of the nice parts about it is that you can make it open. And so if you need to, you can put up a course and let anyone come on it and not have to worry about whether they currently have access or not, or if they're on their phone or whatever else they are. So we found that very helpful. We also found that a few departments and other areas who used it to put up information for faculty and staff as well, right? So it was a place to gather and put up information and we could do it on our own without sort of permission, you know, getting permission or, you know, asking someone else to put it up for us as well. So I think in a number of different ways and City Tech probably has some as well. They were much more established when COVID hit, obviously than we were, but still even for us with a relatively new installation, it was still very helpful. I just thought we very much took an approach of wanting faculty to use what they were comfortable with. So rather than, you know, doing some super heavy advertising about the open lab, I think we wanted people to do what they were comfortable with, you know, what their support network, their, you know, office mate that they text with all the time, if they're, you know, using something else, we wanted them to feel comfortable with that. But we definitely wanted to support the open lab because of some of the ways that we saw it as being more helpful to a really, you know, new set of challenges. And I think some of those that have been really helpful are things like having an open course. So when students are not sure what their login is yet and they're, you know, trying to get a whole bunch of first semester students on board before they, you know, when they've never even set foot on campus, they don't know who the resources are and whatnot, you know, being able to work in the open was really valuable. So I think that's one thing that really stood out for us being able to provide a lot of asynchronous support. So things like modules about using the open lab, teaching on the open lab, learning, our extensive help section, things like that, I think are really helpful. And then I would just add something that I think was a long time coming, but really just took off was we were asked to set up spaces for, we have a lot of poster sessions and to be able to do those poster sessions on the open lab. And I think it was just a really exciting way, I mean, not that poster sessions are necessarily the most exciting places to interact, but it was really great because it gave a much wider audience to our students who are doing undergraduate research and then now their work is visible to a much broader group and they can send that to their families or add it to their e-portfolio more readily and really let other people see the work that they're doing. I think the other dimension especially that this conference is OER, we already had the OER program at City Tech was on the open lab from its launch, which was several years ago now. And then there was this big influx of funding from the state and CUNY and they were really able to leverage that to really advance that program. And we've had a very deep collaboration with them over several years. And so OER obviously became extremely important during this time. And so that's something where we were already really well positioned to help out with that. And so that's really been kind of a cool part of our mission is the OER aspect. I'm like the guy, it won't stop asking questions. And this is more of a comment than a question, that guy, but I'm interested in this really also because you mentioned OER and the notion of what does this platform look like in regards to OER? For example, I know Moodle is building like the Moodle network. And the idea was people would upload open educational resources and people would use them magically and there was always that idea of creation reuse. So how do you think that's gonna happen or work within the open lab? And the fact that people are already established there doesn't that like, almost it's like already where you're eating. So when you bring the food, it will be like, it almost seems like a natural length. So I'll stop commenting. I wonder if we should show people that the open lab a little bit, just so that people can see, you know, what it looks like. And then, you know, it might be easier to understand. Maybe just pop over. I will say just to Jim's question more specifically, I think when I get asked about different aspects of the open lab, I think the fact that portfolios and OER are part of the system is a really big deal because it means that you're working all within one platform and you're not saying, okay, I have my courses but then my portfolio is somewhere altogether different or I have my course here, but the OER for it is in this other platform, that they're all really together means both that the skills you learn you apply to everything, but also that you're able to really transfer not just skills, but content or conversations from one place to another within the platform. And I think one more thing on top of that, Jody, that I'm interested in and I think you all are doing very well is that sense of cohesion, right? Like there is a relationship between where you would do a poster, where you'd have your portfolio and then where those resources across classes and groups you, like that's one of the things the LMS actually figured out. It wasn't the best tool, but it had a sense of cohesion so you felt that you were getting everything you needed and it was one stop. But in fact, the open lab using open source technologies and hoping some APIs and stuff can really seem a lot of that together and that federation you're dreaming of and that idea of having these spaces where people can own it and then move on it's a natural fit for OER, I love it. It's actually also, you know, because people were already working in the open and so you're just a little hop, a skiff and a jump from sharing your work. We can show that in a second, but just to give maybe a mini tour, we've got the open lab homepage which is really designed to showcase members' work so it kind of, to give a beautiful presentation space for members' work. So there are courses, projects, clubs and portfolios on the open lab, on a CBOX open lab you don't need to use all of those things, you don't need to use all of those terms, you can really change it to be whatever you want. And the homepage has a place where you can communicate with members via the slider, via spotlight to showcase things that are going on in the community and then it shows, you know, the most active, most recently active groups in the open lab. Charlie, I wonder if you want to flip over to BMCCs just to show the... Sure, yes, just to show parallel, but different. Yes, we were very similar, although we decided to use the term communities as one thing that would be shown as a little different instead of clubs on ours, which is, you know, one of the great things about the CBOX OLs is that you can kind of modify and take it to be what you want it to be. And I think the other thing too with OER, which by the way, you know, our OER money is funding the BMCC open lab as well in terms of both hosting, I'd be claim hosting, and also a instructional designer who's helping as well. You know, and I think that all those are part of it as well that, you know, while it's this nice one place that you can go and do all of it, also having support there and just the way that it's thought of is open from the beginning, right? So, you know, you can come in and create a course or, you know, other material and then someone else can go and you can say, anyone can go copy this, right? And it's like one click and you're on your way to, you know, bringing in the resource. And I also have found, at least personally, I'm also a department chair as well. So in looking at faculty development, one of the things I've found, too, is that the more you can tie it directly into what someone's doing, especially if you're talking about faculty adoption, the more likely they are to use it. It can be really awkward for people to go to a large place like Merlot or whatever sometimes and then try to search and search and search for something that might work versus, you know, someone you already know or a class you've already seen and that person is like, here's my thing and, you know, here's what I do. You can take it and use it. It's, you know, much more likely that that person is going to then adopt that material and use it as well. It localizes the resource, right? Like it's part of a community and it speaks around that. I mean, it's just powerful. And I think, and I'm a fan of CUNY pretty unabashedly, but I think the other thing, which deserves the credit is you all open source, that the fact that Open Lab at BMCC could do so easily what City Tech did is because there is a commons in the box package that you all pay for, open source and allow people to do this. And like you said, hundreds of schools are doing that across the nation and beyond. So it's an interesting model. And I really do think like, you know, whether it's the Rebel Alliance or whether this is something that you can mainstream more broadly at CUNY, it's a very important project. And I know folks who we work with at the State University of New York are also super interested in your work. So can you talk a little bit about it? Like, do you want to remain in the shadows or is there a point where using some of the resources, both state and city, to kind of push this as like the new normal and as a real alternative to what we're doing right now? Definitely. I mean, I would just say that the hundreds, the number was for the Seabox Classic. So I think we're a small but growing community on the Seabox Open Lab side. So the Seabox Classic has been around a lot longer than we have. So, but we do get the feeling now that we are kind of, you know, this is the beginning of the movement here. As you mentioned, you know, we are engaging with other people who are piloting Seabox Open Lab and in other institutions. And we would love this to become more widely used, for sure. Yes, yes. And I think that it's an interesting take two because it's instead of trying to build just a single resource that everyone comes to, right? Like, you know, as you might do if you're Facebook or whatever, right? You're, it's important for them that everyone goes to there, right? They don't want you to make another app or anything like that. In the model we have, we're sort of building a resource that people can then use and build themselves. You know, and so it's sort of like the platform is what's being shared as well. And so I think it's the part of the interesting piece on the next one is both sharing that ability to do it and then looking at other ways we can share across platforms once they're built too. And I will say that this is, it takes a lot, while it does take resources, you know, it takes people and time to do all of this, it takes a lot less often than a standard sort of sort of vendor-based system where you're paying someone to do everything for you and someone else is running everything. Yeah, absolutely. You're not investing in people in CUNY when you're doing it that way. And I think that's really important to think about who are the people who are supporting it and how is everyone who's involved, you know, developing in their, you know, open education skills and what they're bringing to it and how we're mentoring people who are coming up through the Graduate Center, let's say. Exactly. We're on our campuses. Yes, yes, and that's what's actually allowed for, you know, that sort of development of people and talent and of that sharing of knowledge has helped it to grow in different places, right? Like if I hadn't been involved in CUNY Academic Commons, we might not have brought the CBOXOL here. You know, if Matt wasn't involved in that either, he, you know, it might have been harder to get the open lab at City Tech, you know, and then, you know, other things at CUNY as well, there's a number of other different projects. And it's, so I think that you, those dividends you get from investing in people when you do an open sourcing like this really pay off in a number of ways. It's interesting. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, please. I would just add, you know, every conversation that I've been part of with people who are, who have an install of CBOX Open Lab or who are interested in it, have a somewhat different sense of kind of where it's going on their campus or what, you know, what it's centered in and also what they want it to do. And then they're not just saying, okay, hey, we can install this, give me the instructions. But they're saying, we wanna be able to do this. How about this? And invest in developing that and then giving that back to the larger community. And I think that's really exciting to have the perspective of so many different situations, so many different communities and then contribute to it. It's also interesting. I'm sorry, Charlotte. I can't start, Charlie. Go ahead. No, please. I was just gonna say like, every time you bring somebody into the community, whether it's on the individual community level, like at the city tech or BMCC or now in this growing community of adopters, you bring in different perspectives and different ideas. You know, every day, I mean, you would think we've been doing this now for 10 years, but every day pretty much you go to the Open Lab and you see something that you didn't expect, you didn't know would be there. Some idea that somebody's had that they are able to realize because these are open tools that they have in their own hands that they can do things with, you know, without asking anyone's permission or so it's awesome. And now that's happening on the larger level now through this CBOX Open Lab community that we're starting to build. So it's very cool. And it's interesting, like the way of which CUNY works scale-wise. I think it's the biggest city university in the United States. I'm not sure of that, but I believe, but it's got 27 campuses. And so 25, 23, I don't know. Don't quote me on any of that right now. I guess that's the only one. A lot of campuses and it actually can scale some of this stuff and you have enough people that you can reach a critical mass and really test out these tools. So in that way, like the investment in this kind of technology and this kind of innovation and this kind of experimentation is gigantic because you can have a gigantic impact on a really, I love CUNY, it's like I'm a big CUNY fan, but I love their recent thing. It's like no one produces more kind of, not only scholars, but promotes people into the middle class and creates this sense of like belonging than the city university in New York. And I think that's such a brilliant frame for the work that's happening on the ground. And we know the challenges that technology bring in to that equation of equity and the fact that you all are working towards building an infrastructure that might help that. It's really, really like, for me, it's empowering and really like awesome work. So thank you all for the work you do. Thank you so much, Jim, for having us. We really appreciate it, thank you. I am a big fan. And I mean that, I am your number one fan. Thanks again, and well now go to this commercial break.