Dear all,

As of this week, CUNY Manifold has been upgraded to Manifold  version 5.0! The new version boasts a number of accessibility and usability enhancements as well as key features on our way to even greater flexibility for Open Educational Resources! The centerpiece of this release, a new Access Controls feature, allows users to limit access to selected projects on a Manifold installation.

With this feature, teachers can switch on restricted access to any existing or new Manifold project, and can grant project access to any number of registered users on a Manifold site. This option means that teachers can create educational materials that can be shared only with students in a particular class (mobilizing the Reading Group feature). Works in progress can be shared with a select group of peer reviewers. Creators of collaborative projects can share drafts with a team for feedback.

Knowing that you can put limits on who views what materials, you certainly need not use this feature. Manifold is an open-source project, and it is oriented toward open access in conception and development. However, as our community of publishers has grown, and we’ve listened to feedback from our users, it has become clear that Manifold publishers need the flexibility of this new feature to carry out their work, serve their communities, and sustain themselves in an increasingly complex and challenging digital environment. As we are a community platform, we hope you\’ll continue to take advantage of Manifold to share Open Education Resources with our whole community.

I encourage you to watch lead developer Zach Davis\’s helpful video which explains all the exciting changes to Manifold in greater detail.

https://vimeo.com/423616600

For more on the current directions of the Manifold project, check out this recording of our recent panel discussion at Coko’s Open Publishing Fest. We look forward to hearing about how you will use Access Controls on CUNY Manifold, and answering your questions on our Commons group (cuny.is/group-cuny-manifold-users), on Slack, and on Github.

Hope you\’re all doing okay in these tumultuous times,

Jojo

 

Dear all,

As of this week, CUNY Manifold has been upgraded to Manifold  version 5.0! The new version boasts a number of accessibility and usability enhancements as well as key features on our way to even greater flexibility for Open Educational Resources! The centerpiece of this release, a new Access Controls feature, allows users to limit access to selected projects on a Manifold installation.

With this feature, teachers can switch on restricted access to any existing or new Manifold project, and can grant project access to any number of registered users on a Manifold site. This option means that teachers can create educational materials that can be shared only with students in a particular class (mobilizing the Reading Group feature). Works in progress can be shared with a select group of peer reviewers. Creators of collaborative projects can share drafts with a team for feedback.

Knowing that you can put limits on who views what materials, you certainly need not use this feature. Manifold is an open-source project, and it is oriented toward open access in conception and development. However, as our community of publishers has grown, and we’ve listened to feedback from our users, it has become clear that Manifold publishers need the flexibility of this new feature to carry out their work, serve their communities, and sustain themselves in an increasingly complex and challenging digital environment. As we are a community platform, we hope you\’ll continue to take advantage of Manifold to share Open Education Resources with our whole community.

I encourage you to watch lead developer Zach Davis\’s helpful video which explains all the exciting changes to Manifold in greater detail.

https://vimeo.com/423616600

For more on the current directions of the Manifold project, check out this recording of our recent panel discussion at Coko’s Open Publishing Fest. We look forward to hearing about how you will use Access Controls on CUNY Manifold, and answering your questions on our Commons group (cuny.is/group-cuny-manifold-users), on Slack, and on Github.

Hope you\’re all doing okay in these tumultuous times,

Jojo