Case Study: CUNY Academic Commons
A ReclaimEDU Case Study
In this case study we look at the mighty CUNY Academic Commons, a community-driven platform that supports faculty, staff and students across CUNY. We hear from Matthew K. Gold, Director of the CUNY Academic Commons; Boone Gorges, Lead Developer of the CUNY Academic Commons and Luke Waltzer, Director, Teaching and Learning Center as we explore:
- what makes this open source platform so successful;
- how the team has continued to adapt to the changing needs of students and faculty;
- the impact of this project within the institution and beyond it.
Since its launch in 2009, the Commons has served faculty, staff, and students who have collectively created 42,116 sites, 2,259 groups and 3,464 courses. In the past year alone over 5,000 new members have joined, and the Commons continues to thrive and empowers its community to connect, create and build things together.
Read an Excerpt from the Case Study
The CUNY Academic Commons developed in an iterative way into a space for faculty who wanted to build something for themselves while gaining the digital skills along the way. In contrast to the highly structured and restrictive institutional digital spaces run by the university, the new platform offered more scope for experimentation and innovation.
As the platform grew, it quickly became apparent that more dedicated expertise would be needed to realise its potential and thus Lead Developer, Boone Gorges, joined the team. He reflects on how the CUNY Academic Commons continued to develop:
I came to the project with a background in Philosophy. At the time, Wordpress offered a simpler way for people who were keen to build things on the open web, encouraging modification and experimentation. As open source projects gained momentum in education, the work stimulated conversations across communities, helping to grow the software and grow the movement. Fundamental to our approach was and is our commitment to public scholarship and public accountability.
