CUNY Academic Commons

The CUNY Academic Commons is an online, academic social network for community members of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Founded in 2009 to foster communication, collaboration, and community-building among CUNY's 25 individual colleges, it has grown into a digital hub for sharing scholarship and connecting faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates.CUNY Libraries. (2023). “CUNY Academic Commons.” Retrieved from https://guides.cuny.edu/digital-toolkit/exhibits/cuny-academic-commons As of 2025, the platform serves over 53,000 members and hosts more than 34,000 sites, 2,000 groups, and 3,000 courses. The open-source web framework powering the CUNY Academic Commons is available through the Commons In a Box project.

Background

The Commons originated from discussions among CUNY faculty and technologists in the late 2000s, who saw a need for a university-wide digital space that encouraged collaboration beyond individual campuses. A 2008 white paper from the CUNY Committee on Academic Technology outlined the initial vision, emphasizing the importance of an open-source, faculty-driven platform to support interdisciplinary work. This document became a foundational blueprint for the Commons, leading to its beta launch in early 2009 and full release by the end of that year.

At the time, CUNY operated as what Gold and Otte (2011) called a “loose federation” of campuses, marked by static websites and limited cross-campus interaction. The absence of a system-wide venue for scholarly exchange and community-building contributed to what scholars described as a problem of institutional silos. Addressing this fragmentation became a key design imperative. The platform aimed not only to counter the prospect of missed connections but to support the kind of serendipitous, interest-driven discovery that static campus infrastructures typically foreclosed.

While initially limited to CUNY faculty and graduate students, early adoption was driven by instructors seeking alternatives to learning management systems. A significant shift in 2017 involved both a membership cleanup and the decision to extend access to CUNY undergraduates, marking a new phase of growth for the platform.

Technical infrastructure

Open-source components and features

The Commons is built on WordPress Multisite, enhanced by BuddyPress, and uses MySQL databases on Linux-based hosting.Lamb, B. & Groom, J. (2010). “Never Mind the Edupunks; or, The Great Web 2.0 Swindle.” EDUCAUSE, 45(4), 50–58. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110406075133/http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/NeverMindtheEdupunksorTheGreat/209326 Previously hosted by the CUNY Graduate Center, the Commons migrated to Reclaim Hosting in January 2025, a service specializing in academic institutions.McDonald, Colin. (2025, January 17). “Hosting Migration Complete!” CUNY Academic Commons News. Retrieved from https://news.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2025/01/17/hosting-migration-complete/ Custom plugins and tools allow members to create groups, build personalized blogs, and manage collaborative projects.Commons Lab. (2019). “Commons in a Box: CBOX.” Retrieved from https://commonslab.be/toollibrary-for-commoners/2019/1/13/commons-in-a-box-cbox The Commons development team regularly updates the platform with new features, maintaining its open-source ethos while integrating community feedback to refine user experience and technical capabilities.CUNY Academic Commons. (2024). “Development Updates and Roadmap.” Retrieved from https://news.commons.gc.cuny.edu/development-roadmap

A Pedagogical Hub

The CUNY Academic Commons has expanded over time to incorporate more robust group and site functionality, becoming both a hub for sharing pedagogical resources and as a tool for teaching courses. Although the Commons was initially developed for faculty, administration, staff, and graduate students, the site opened to undergraduate students in 2017 and experienced significant growth over subsequent years.

Faculty use the platform as an open-source supplement to the university-wide Brightspace learning management system (LMS). While popular LMS software such as Brightspace or Blackboard aims to provide academic course spaces for individual courses within institutions, the Commons is designed to facilitate conversation and collaboration among colleagues both within and between colleges in the system. In light of its do-it-yourself, open-source approach to scholarly communication, the Commons has been characterized as an alternative to LMS systems. In contrast to the LMS model, however, the site neither supports a formal grading system nor does it connect to CUNYfirst, the university's student portal.

Other teaching projects at CUNY that share the open-source ethos and do-it-yourself approach of the Commons includ
ManifoldBlogs@BaruchEportfolios@MacaulayOpenLab at City Tech
an
Looking for Whitman

Facebook comparisons

Many reviews in the current literature point out similarities between the CUNY Academic Commons and Facebook. But a
Kaya
(2010) contends in the ''Chronicle of Higher Education'', Facebook does not offer the kind of academic interaction that is available with sites such as the CUNY Academic Commons which "mix serious academic work, and connections among working scholars." Indeed, the CUNY Academic Commons emphasizes the "productivity oriented features of social networking" and "collaborative academic work"
Gold & Otte
that is not generally found in commercial social networks. A
Gold
(2011) writes in "Beyond Friending: BuddyPress and the Social, Networked, Open-Source Classroom" that students are often reluctant to mix social networks with academic networks. Faculty too, it may be inferred, value distinct, professional networks where they can focus on their scholarship.

Grants and awards

Commons in a Box

In November, 2011, the CUNY Academic Commons received a $107,500 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to create Commons in a Box, a "new open-source project that will help other organizations quickly and easily install and customize their own Commons platforms". Writing in the ''Chronicle of Higher Education''
Jennifer Howard
notes that the CUNY Academic Commons will first "work with the Modern Language Association on a pilot project to create an 'MLA Commons' for its more than 30,000 members" to help promote their scholarship.

Sloan-C Award For Effective Practice

At thei
5th Annual International Symposium for Emerging Technologies for Online Learning
on July 25–27, 2012, the Sloan Consortium presented an award to the CUNY Academic Commons for effective practices in online and blended education. "The CUNY Academic Commons: Social Network as Hatchery" was one of six winning practices recognized for a number of criteria, including "innovation and replicability" and the ability to advance “the goals of access, learning effectiveness, faculty and student satisfaction, and scalability.”

What members build

The tag line from the site'
brochure
- "What will you build?" is a good introduction to the diverse materials posted on the CUNY Academic Commons. The following links provide examples of what is available on the site:

Personal blogs

Helldriver's Pit StopTurf WallsTony's ThoughtsRuthOBrien.org

Group blogs

CUNY Hybrid Initiative
Established in November 2012 as an open resource to help faculty, instructional designers, and administrators in creating, teaching, and supporting hybrid courses.
A Living Laboratory: General Education Seminars at City TechQueens College Graduate School of Library and Information StudiesOpen Access at CUNYCUNY Pie – A Pizza blog for CUNY Geeks

Groups and forums

E-Books in the LibrariesMath Matterse-PortfoliosNew Media LabCreative Commons and Copyright: Resources for the Teaching Faculty

Program Community Pages

PhilosophyAnthropologyGraduate Center Music Program Community PortalUrban Education Graduate Commons

See also

*WordPress
*BuddyPress
*MediaWiki

Sources and further reading

*Kaya, T. (2010). "CUNY Social Network Mixes Scholarship With Facebook-Style Friendship." ''Chronicle of Higher Education''. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/cuny-social-network-mixes-scholarship-with-facebook-style-friendship/27266
*Parry. (2010). "WordPress a Better LMS." ''Chronicle of Higher Education''. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/wordpress-a-better-lms/23050
*Degl'innocenti, J. (2010, December 20). "The 20 Most Outstanding BuddyPress sites of 2010." Retrieved March 25, 2011, from https://web.archive.org/web/20110805140057/http://buddydress.com/2010/12/the-20-most-outstanding-buddypress-sites-of-2010-by-jerome-degl%E2%80%99innocenti
*Kaya, T. (2010). "New College Social Networks, Unlike Facebook, Foster Academic Interaction." ''Chronicle of Higher Education''. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/New-College-Networks-Unlike/124871/
*Nantel, R. (2010, October 1). "Internal Social Networks May Help Break Down Institutional Silos." Retrieved March 21, 2011, from http://www.brandon-hall.com/workplacelearningtoday/?p=12348
*Lamb, B., & Groom, J. (2010). "Never Mind the Edupunks; or, The Great Web 2.0 Swindle" ''EDUCAUSE''. July/August 2010, 45(4), 50–58. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110406075133/http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/NeverMindtheEdupunksorTheGreat/209326
*Gold, M. (2011). "Beyond Friending: BuddyPress and the Social, Networked, Open-Source Classroom." Learning Through Digital Media Experiments in Technology and Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110621111244/http://learningthroughdigitalmedia.net/beyond-friending-buddypress-and-the-social-networked-open-source-classroom
*Gold, M. (2011). "The CUNY Academic Commons announces the Commons in a Box project." Academic Commons News. Retrieved August 4, 2012, from http://news.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2011/11/22/the-cuny-academic-commons-announces-the-commons-in-a-box-project/
*
*Gong, K. (2011, March 2). "The CUNY Academic Commons: Building the Social University." Collaborative Learning Center, Yale University. Retrieved March 19, 2011, from http://clc.yale.edu/2011/03/02/the-cuny-academic-commons-building-the-social-university/
*Ambrose, S. (2011, February 22). "15 Go-To Places for WordPress and BuddyPress News, Tips and Tutorials." WordPress News at WPMU.org. Retrieved June 8, 2011, from https://web.archive.org/web/20110723021140/http://wpmu.org/15-go-to-places-for-wordpress-and-buddypress-news-tips-and-tutorials/
*Roel, R. (2010, April 1). "A Facebook for Faculty." ''CUNY Matters''. April 2010. Retrieved June 8, 2011, from http://www.cuny.edu/news/publications/cunymatters/april2010/facebook-for-faculty.html
*
*Jones, K. & Farrington, P. (2012). "Learning from Libraries Using WordPress: Content-Management System Best Practices and Case Studies." ALA Editions. orthcomingRetrieved June 8, 2011 from http://www.alatechsource.org/taxonomy/term/106/using-wordpress-as-a-library-content-management-system
*Howard, J. (2011). "Creating new academic networks with 'Commons in a Box'." ''Chronicle of Higher Education''. Retrieved August 5, 2012 from http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/creating-new-academic-networks-with-commons-in-a-box/34453

References

{{Reflist

External links

CUNY Academic Commons
(official site)
CUNY Academic Commons
on Twitter
Commons In A Box
open source release of CUNY Academic Commons
Philosophy Commons

City University of New York
Education in New York City
American social networking websites
Public commons
Community building
Community development