I have to admit that prior to my attendance of the Digital University Conference on April 21, 2010, my understanding of “open access” was essentially non-existent. After attending the afternoon panel, A Digital Future?, my grasp of open access and academic publishing started coming into clearer focus. As someone who has not (yet) published an academic article, I had no idea about the politics of knowledge access in addition to its relation to a faculty member’s tenure track.

Digital University Conference- photo courtesy of Andrea Vasquez

After searching for information about open access on the Commons, I came across Scott Voth’s (@scottvoth) Wiki Wrangler post about his creation of the new wiki page Open Access Publishing. Scott points out that, “As the cost of journals continues to skyrocket, OA needs to be on our minds.” This was certainly on the mind of Jill Cirasella (@cirasella), who created the public group: Open Access Publishing Network @ CUNY (OaPN @ CUNY) a couple of months ago after being inspired by Maura A. Smale (@msmale).

Maura was more than willing to contribute to the group she inspired Jill to create, replying to the forum topic Stephen Francoeur (@stephenfrancoeur) started: Library and info science journals that are OA. Scott used Maura’s comphrensive list of OA journals to create a new wiki page: OA Journals in Library and Information Science, which he tagged under Open Access (OA) and Library Science for easy access.

Most recently, George Otte (@gotte) posted a new blog entitled “An Immodest Proposal” where he discusses the need to create an online journal, suggesting that those who are interested post to the Open Access group’s forum thread: Starting an online journal. With 5 comments on George’s blog post and 21 posts in the forum, the conversation of open access publishing at CUNY has begun. We also learned that Steve Brier (@sbrier) has plans to start an online, open source journal to publish the works of doctoral students in the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy program. With many willing contributors and Scott Voth’s direction for logical platforms and various models, I am certainly looking forward to seeing how this new model of academic publishing unfolds at CUNY.

Want to add your thoughts to the conversation or offer assistance? Jump in here!

I was checking out the agenda on the website for the Digital University Conference (planned by the The Digital University Conference Planning Committee Group on the Academic Commons) and stumbled across “Conference hashtag: #du10” on the right-hand side of the page. I clicked on the hyperlink, which introduced me to another great web2.0 tool Twapper Keeper. What a great find!

For those who don’t know what Twapper Keeper is, it’s basically an archive service for Twitter that keeps track of #hashtags, keywords, and @people. Ok, so what??

Well, that means you can follow a conversation (as either an immediate conversation or extended ongoing conversation). If you want to know all there is to know about Twitter, I recommend checking out Mashable’s Twitter Guidebook.

After I finished reading some of the blog posts on the Digital University website, I read through @MattGold’s email message to those registered for the conference. This email also mentions the Digital University Conference hashtag #du10. Web 2.0 tools like Twapper Keeper act as a conduit for ongoing conversation and collaboration by keeping everything on file. Thanks to whoever found this source in the first place and for Matt explaining how to use it. This is what the Commons is all about!

By ‘this is what it’s all about’ I not simply referring to new technology. I’m referring to the understanding of that technology through ongoing conversation and collaboration for the betterment of all CUNY campuses.

OK, let me step off my soap-box now…

After I read through that email I decided to try out some other hash tags in Twapper Keeper and came across the Commons hashtag #cunycommons!!  This hashtag is a great way to preserve an ongoing conversation about the CUNY Academic Commons. Do you have a resource or information you would like to share with the Commons community?? Just tag that tweet as #cunycommons and it will show up here!

Twitter tracker, twitter tracker, twitter tracker! Speaking of which, did you happen to notice the word mention in the same sentence as @mattgold?? Spoiler alert!!

The new face of the Academic Commons is almost upon us. The latest version of Buddypress includes some great new features such as the Mention System, where members can be brought into conversations simply by putting the @ symbol in front of their username. This new filterable activity feed makes a member’s page more interactive (somewhat like Facebook), merging Status Updates with Wire Posts.

So get Twitter crazy at the #du10 Conference and get ready for some more Twitter-like features on the Commons. OK, that is all for now, but don’t worry there is more to come — and we will tag our tweets with the #cunycommons hashtag!

If you’re interesting in learning how to use sitewide tags on your Academic Commons blog check out Making Sitewide Tags Work on the the CUNY Academic Commons Development Blog.

I was just browsing through the Commons and came across a new blog: HunterGraduateSocialResearch. This peaked my interest not only because I’m interested in sociology (like these fellow members), but because I had recently checked out Hunter’s website for the MA in Applied Research when considering getting back into school.

After reading through the blog I figured I’d check it out Hunter’s website again and clicked on “Thinking about a Master’s Degree in Sociology or Social Research?”. Not only was the article interesting from the perspective of a prospective student, but I was just introduced to the publication Footnotes — an ASA online publication. (not to be confused with our community facilitator Brian Foote’s blog: Footenotes).

What I really liked about my new source is where I read under Changes at Footnotes! that they were making the online edition the official version that would be downloadable as a pdf (which means I’m probably getting access to material I wouldn’t have been able to access during snail-mail only times). This new change reminded me of our recently updated wiki Open Access Publishing. Through a little exploring on the Commons I noticed it was also related to the Academic Commons’ groups: Open Education at CUNY and CUNY Law Green Coalition. Folks it doesn’t end there!… I was also able to find relevant material in the blog posts: Print is Dead…Now What? and Convince Me To Go Green, both from the blog: York College Comm Tech.

*That reminds me, if you have a video that you would like to enter in the Sustainable CUNY Shorts Video Contest, please remember:

“Your submission can be in any form, skit, demonstration, song, short film, etc., but must be submitted to the Sustainable CUNY YouTube channel by April 21, 2010. The judging will be done based on both content and views, so make sure to get your videos up quickly and tell everyone you know to watch it.”

And that folks, is 6 Degrees (or more) of the Academic Commons.

Sorry for the Zero Wing reference, but I was wondering which category the game would go under for CUNY Games Network’s discussion on Categorizing Video Games??  I kid, hopefully no students are playing that game as it was poorly translated when imported from Japan — in the 1980’s!

This topic was posted earlier today by Eva Fernandez, who is working with Michelle Faboni on an upcoming student survey at Queens College about technologies students use in and out of school. This discussion got 1o replies in less than 5 hours and not just to the author, but to each other! Feedback was built upon through open collaboration, which is exactly why the CUNY Academic Commons was created. Resources such as The Civil Potential of Video Games (White Paper), from the Pew Research Center, are now accessable to members from different academic backgrounds. All because a member with this resource was able to share it through a hyperlink on their forum post (yay)!

Since CUNY Games Network is a public group, members throughout the CUNY Academic Commons Community and visitors alike can access this information. While some groups on the Commons were created specifically with private/hidden membership in mind, group administrators should be aware of the positive collaborative aspects of public group access.

The Categorizing Video Games discussion is just getting warmed up, so tap into your inner gamer and post your thoughts!