I’ve just released version 1.14.0 of the CUNY Academic Commons. This is one of our twice-yearly “feature releases”, which are the focus for major new functionality built by the Commons team. For 1.14, we’ve emphasized the site creation and management process, introducing new tools that help Commons users get their sites up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible:

• Our new “site templates” features allows you to spin up a site that matches a template that is pre-filled with a specific use case in mind. Powered by a custom plugin built by our team: http://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac-site-templates
  
• “Plugin packages” are an easy way to offer grouped sets of plugins – such as the “Teaching Package” – for one-click activation. Powered by a custom plugin built by our team: https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac-plugin-packages
• Improved license management for Commons sites, with a focus on Creative Commons licensing. Powered by a custom plugin built by our team: https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac-creative-commons
• New widgets that support classroom use of the Commons, including widgets for CUNY campus affiliation, integration with CUNY OneSearch, and CC licensing.

The new Courses tab on the top-level navigation gives visitors a high-level view of the courses using the Commons.

We’ve also added some new functionality related to group and site management, including the ability for users to leave sites that they’d no longer like to be members of, and the ability to exit the group creation process.

For complete details on the release, visit the 1.14 milestone.