The CUNY Academic Commons is an open space where the CUNY community can find like-minded colleagues, build personal or professional websites, teach, learn, and collaborate in open classrooms. The Commons has over thirty thousand members, and each member can join or create sites, groups, or a group + site on the Commons Creation Portal. Members of the Commons are typically CUNY professors, grad students, undergrad students, alums, and staff. Many professors use the Commons as a platform for teaching and ask their students to join their site or group. Professors and students may publish research on the Commons.

The Commons was built by CUNY, for CUNY. It uses open source software which it shares to other institutions world-wide.

There is tremendous activity on the Commons. Before a member logs in, the Commons home page describes what you do on the Commons. It then surfaces the latest news as well as the number of members, groups, sites, and courses on the site. Notice that you can either register to become a new member here, or simply login to your account.

Here is a screenshot of the top half of the home page before logging in:

The Building Blocks of the Commons are Sites, Groups, and Members. Each has an underlying tool set designed to connect members, to create content, to teach and learn, to collaborate and publish research, or post assignments. Members have incremental control over their privacy and email notifications.

The bottom half of the home page is dynamic. We feature two new and exciting sites and groups and list the last four active public sites and groups. We also show the most recently active members.

Here is a screenshot of the bottom half of the home page:

The Commons home page changes dramatically when you login. It becomes your personalized home page.

You don’t need to. We’ve got your stuff all organized for you.

When you are logged into the Commons, you’ll find the Commons home page is personalized for you.

The Commons home page can be accessed from any where on the site by going to the top left hand corner and clicking on the “CUNY Academic Commons” hyperlink, or by going to “https://commons.gc.cuny.edu” or the short link “https://cuny.is“.

Here you can access hyperlinks to all your stuff: your profile, messages, notifications, groups, and sites. There is also a convenient “Create A New Space” hyperlink that will take you to the Commons Creation Portal where you can create a group, a site, or a group + site.

If you have more than three groups or sites, click on the “Show All” and you will see all your groups or sites.

Further down, you will see the “Latest News” on the Commons, as well as a list of “Shortcuts.” The shortcuts are based on your role and your campus(es) which you provided when you registered.

Here is a screenshot of the top part of a personalized home page:

The home page also aggregates activity, both site-wide and on the campuses you are associated with. The first section shows the latest activity on the Commons. Further down, the home page features new and exciting groups and then groups across CUNY and then groups on your campus(es).

Sites are likewise surfaced, according to last active.

And finally, we see the last active members on the entire Commons, and on your campus(es).

Here is a screenshot of the lower portion of the personalized home page:

To register to the Commons, you need a CUNY email address. Once you have finished registering, you can switch to a more convenient email address.

Please note: Commons members have two email addresses.

Your Notification Email Address (i.e. your “official” email address)

This is the address you use to reset your password and to receive Commons notifications. To change this,  go to the top black navigation bar, hover over your avatar in the top right corner and select: My Settings>> Security. To change your email, re-write your preferred email in the ‘Email Address’ field, then scroll down and select “Save Changes.”

Your Profile Email Address

By default, this is not displayed. To add or change the email displayed on your Commons Profile, go to the top black navigation bar, hover over your avatar in the top right corner and select: My Profile>> Edit. Re-write your preferred email in the ‘Email Address’ field, then scroll down and select “Save Changes.”

The @mention system links others to the hyperlinked profile of the individual while notifying the individual of the mention via email. If you are trying to reach out to specific group members, simply put the @ symbol in front of their username and it will send a notification to their email address and show up in their @mention activity stream. To learn more about the @mention system read this blog post.

To reset your password, go to  https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword and enter username or email address. Click “get new password.”

You will receive an email with  a link to a page where you can reset your password.

The Notification link (on the top right bar of the Commons, just to the left of your avatar) indicates if you have a new message, friend request, or invitation to join a group.  Zero indicates that you have no notifications.

After logging into the Commons, go to the top black navigation bar and hover over your existing (or default) photo.  Go to My Profile»Change Profile Photo.  Here you will find detailed instructions on how to upload an image. You can also create a gravatar, which will enable you to use that same image across many different types of websites.

After logging into the Commons, go to the top black navigation bar and hover over your avatar.  Go to: My Settings» General. Enter your current password and  your new password, then scroll down and select “Save Changes.”

After logging into the Commons, go to the top black navigation bar and select: My Profile» Edit.  In the text box under “Full Name (required)” fill in your preferred name, then scroll down and select “Save Changes.”

To send an email to another member, you can either find them on the member list or you can hover over your avatar in the top right corner, click the “My Messages” link on the left, and click “Compose.”  Start typing the person’s first name in the addressee box and the program will give you a list of all the members whose names include the letters you’re typing.  Next to the addressee box is an empty box for copying other members. Do the same thing in this box that you just did for the addressee. Each time, you do this, a new box will appear for another person to whom you might want to send a copy of the message.

Go to the top black navigation bar and hover over your avatar in the top right corner.  Click My Settings >> Email.  Here you can choose whether you want to receive an email notification for a variety of activities, including posts to the groups you belong to, posts by your friends, posts to blogs you subscribe to, or follow, and messages.

Right now, there is not a way to make Profiles private, but we can look into developing that functionality. For now, users worried about privacy should avoid using their full names on their profiles (some combination of initials and first or last names might be good). Certain profile fields can be made visible to only yourself, to your friends on the Commons, logged in members of the Commons, or the default – to everyone.  To change profile field visibility, go to click on the “Change” hyperlink next to the text that reads:

“This field can be seen by: Everyone Change.”

Most, but not every field has this visibility setting.

To delete your account, go to the top black navigation bar and hover over your avatar in the upper right corner.  Click My Settings >> Delete Account, then follow the directions on the page.

Note that you must be logged in to do this. If you no longer remember your password, you can reset it: here – https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword. If you no longer have access to the email you used to register, please contact your campus IT to re-establish the email.

Administrators can do the following things that moderators cannot do:
1) Change group settings, eg turn group blog on or off, turn group forums on or off, change group status from public to private, etc
2) Post Annoucements
3) Change group avatar
4) Manage group members: ie kick/ban members, promote/demote members
5) Delete the group

Group moderators can do the following things that normal members cannot do:
1) Edit the Group Details, including the name of the group and group description
2) Edit, close, and delete forum topics/posts
3) Edit/delete group documents
4) Post Announcements

All content in public groups (member listing, forum posts, activity stream posts) is available to be viewed by anyone, even viewers who aren’t logged into the site. Public groups are listed in the public directory of groups, and any member of the community can join the group without seeking approval from the group owners.

All content in private groups is hidden from the public and is viewable only by members of that group. Private groups are listed in the public directory of groups, but members of the community must request membership to the group and have that request approved before being able to view group content.

All content in hidden groups is hidden from the public and is viewable only by members of that group. Hidden groups are not listed in the public directory of groups. New members must be invited to join by existing group members.

No. When users create or become members of hidden groups, they will see them in the group listing on the homepage, but it will be visible only to members of the group, not to the general public or to members of the Commons who aren’t in the group.

Hidden groups aren’t listed in the groups directory, however, those with access to the group URL can view the group name and description. Group content and member information can only be accessed by members of a hidden group.

We’ve enabled a pretty neat group blog function that makes it easy for group admins to attach a WordPress site to a group. Go to your group and click the “Admin” tab on the left-hand menu.  Click ”enable group blog.”  If you want to use an existing site, select ”Use one of my blogs.” Then select your web site. This will add all members of your group to your chosen site. You can also change the default permission level according to your needs.

To connect an existing site to a group, go to your group home page, and click “Admin” (yes, you need to be an administrator of the group to do this) > Click on Group Blog link > Check the box next to “enable group blog”. Type blog URL to connect the site to your group. That will add all members of your group to your chosen site.Currently, only one site can be attached to a group.

First, please check your notification settings to make sure that you have set your preferences correctly. Second, please check your account’s spam filter or spam folder, as we have received several reports of group activity stream posts being caught by spam filters. Commons emails are sent from the address “noreply@commons.gc.cuny.edu,” so you may need to add that address to your contacts or to your spam filter’s whitelist. If you are still having problems, please contact us.

To unsubscribe from a group, go to the group’s page and click ”Leave Group.” The link is right under the group icon image. Click here for a screenshot showing the the process.

There are two ways to reply to email notifications. You can click on the link supplied in the notification, log into the Commons, and reply; OR you can Reply By Email, from the comfort of your inbox. For more information about Reply by Email, follow this link. You can use Reply by Email to reply to discussion threads on group forums, to personal messages and @mentions, and to group announcements.

In order to post, you must have a Commons account and be an Author on the site where you will be posting. You must be logged in to post.

Log in to the Commons and go to site where you will be posting. You can find the site by clicking “Sites” in the Main Menu and then clicking “My Sites”.

Once you are on the site, you can create posts in one of  two ways.

Option 1:  When you get to the site, locate the black admin bar at the top of the page. Click “+New”.

Option 2: In the dashboard of the site where you will be posting, visit the “Posts” area and click the “Add New” button on the top left.

There are two Editor layouts. To post in the Block Editor (below), add a title and post content (green boxes below). Make sure not to write in the “Simple CSS” area (red box) because this will not be visible to the post reader. Once your post is complete, click Publish (blue box). If you’d like to switch to the classic editor click the three dots (yellow box) and select classic editor.

In the Classic Editor, add a post title and content. If needed, select the post “category” from the Categories section of the right sidebar.

Once your have written your post, click “PUBLISH” on the right and the post will go live.

You’re done!

To adjust the privacy settings on your individual or group site go, on your WordPress dashboard to Settings >> Reading.

Select one of the five visibility options.

To make your site open to everyone on the web, choose “Allow search engines to index this site.”

On the other end of privacy, especially if your site is in development, you might choose “I would like my site visible only to its Admins.”

See more about site privacy settings.

A post is a chronological, journal style entry that has a date and time. A page is a more static type of entry and has the feel of a traditional website. If your site is a “blog” you probably will want your homepage to display your most recent posts. If your site is more of a traditional web site, you might want to assign one of your pages as your homepage.

No.  You can create as many Web sites on the Commons as you want.

You can find “Best Practices” at WordPress’s Help at Writing Posts. Have a web site going already on the Commons? Check out Tweaking Your Site.

To make a particular post private, follow these steps when you are editing your post: 1.Navigate to the Publish module on the right side of the page. (The Publish module is used to set who can read your posts.)

Under the Visibility area you can choose to make your post either:

• “Password protected” (in which case you will enter a password that you will then share with whomever you wish to view your post) or;
• “Private” (which means that only blog Editors and Administrators will be able to view your post).

Select “OK” then “Publish”/”Update”. These changes will go into effect immediately, but can be updated anytime if you choose to change the visibility of your post.

This page describes all site privacy settings.

Here is the list of accepted file types (through the WordPress media uploader):

• jpg
• jpeg
• png
• gif
• mp3
• mov
• avi
• wmv
• midi
• mid
• pdf
• doc
• docx

Please check out Michael Cripps’s wonderful guide to aligning images in WPMu.

Go to Dashboard, then Plugins (on the left):

and search for PDF Embedder. Activate it:

Once installed, click Add Media while creating your post or page to insert the PDF

Upload your PDF into the Media Library

Click Insert into Post

In your post it will look like this

Click Publish and it will be like this when you view the post (or page)

On your WordPress Dashboard, go to Appearance>>Reading. Make sure you have a page set up to be your front page. Optionally, create a page that will display your posts. Select page(s) from drop down.

If you want to delete a site on the Commons, you must be an admin of the site. On the WordPress Dashboard  go to Tools >> Delete Site:

Click on the checkbox:  “I’m sure I want to permanently delete my site , and I am aware I can never get it back …”

Then click on the  Delete My Site Permanently button. You should see the following:

Please note that the email will be sent to your current Commons email. If you need to change this email, follow these steps.

Open your email client to receive the confirmation email. It will look something like this:

Finally, click on the hyperlink to finalize the delete of your site. You should receive a confirmation:

Plugins extend the functionality of WordPress. There are thousands of plugins of various qualities, but the Commons only makes a small subset of these available. If you need a plugin that is not available on the Commons, let us know and we can evaluate and install it if it meets our standards and does not closely replicate a plugin we already have.