As we finish the year this month’s Ground Control has certainly been inspired by the abundance of spring.  With almost 3,000 members, 350 groups and 585 blogs this year has been one of  robust growth for our community.  It’s been exciting to watch new projects flourish and to see folks take advantage of the flexibility built into the Commons WordPress/BuddyPress platform.  We saw the creation of several new online journals including Zeteo and the Journal of Interactive Technology & Pedagogy, with more on the way.  There were also tons of job and internship postings thanks to our own Scott Voth’s excellent Help Wanted site.  As our community has grown so has our ambitions; this year we announced we would be working to develop “Commons in a Box” with the support of the Sloan Foundation.  With so much growth and so many new projects we were able to bring aboard two new members to the Commons team to help support these efforts.  Raymond Hoh and Dominic Giglio have both hit the ground running and are already invaluable contributors to the project.  In this month’s Ground Control you’ll hear from Dominic as he introduces himself and tells us a little about what brought him here.

Our Outreach Coordinator, Michael Smith, takes the readers with him as he discusses what our campus presentations are like.  While much of our success depends on community members telling their colleagues about the Commons, we frequently do presentations all over CUNY’s 24 campuses.  Michael also checks in with fellow presenters and attendees to get their perspective on the benefits of live presentations.  If you would like to arrange for a CUNY Academic Commons presentation for your department, committee or project don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Fellow Community Facilitator Sarah Morgano has a fantastic post this month about outreach as well, plus she’s included a great new update to our video tour!  There’s also a list of resources for the community to easily discover who to reach out to here.  One thing she discusses that I’d like to mention again is recruiting your help to keep our site resources current.  As she mentions, things change, with WordPress updates and upgrades to the Commons sometimes we find that a few things get snagged.  If you notice a plug-in acting funny or find some information in the Wiki that doesn’t reflect your experience please send us a note.

I don’t think any of us on the team could have predicted all of the ways our site and the community has grown in the last year.  My lips are sealed but I can tell you we’ve got a bunch of new features in the works to make sure the Commons continues to be an invaluable resource for you at CUNY and around the world.  As always we encourage you to get in touch with us if there’s something we could do to make your experience here better.

-Brian Foote

Community Facilitator