We’re excited to share that we have launched a WordPress upgrade across Knowledge Commons Sites (KCSites), bringing the platform to the most recent release.
This upgrade brings a faster editing experience, improved design tools, better navigation, and accessibility enhancements, making it easier to create and maintain websites for research projects, academic conferences, courses, labs, and professional portfolios.
Below you’ll see an overview of these upgrades, as well as an introduction (or reintroduction, if you haven’t checked in for a while!) to what you can do with Commons sites.
What’s New
Improved Navigation
WordPress 7.0 introduces several updates for improved navigation across your site. A new Breadcrumbs block helps orient users within your site, making it easier to explore larger sites with many pages. The WordPress administrative panel has also been updated, with improved options for configuring and working with your site, and common site management tasks are quicker and easier to find.
More Ways to Customize
The update also brings a centralized font library available across all themes and additional new formatting controls, giving you greater control over how your site is customized. The Icons block lets you add pre-designed icons to your site, making it even easier to create polished, professional-looking sites for your scholarly projects. These features are available when using a Full Site Editing theme.
New Drafting and Collaboration Tools
Because this upgrade moves our sites directly from version 6.8 to 7.0, you’ll also gain access to useful workflow features introduced in version 6.9. Hidden Blocks allow you to mark individual blocks as “hidden” within the editor. This keeps them visible only when you are editing, allowing you to draft, test, and build new sections of your pages without publishing them until they are ready. Inline Editor Notes is another feature that allows you to leave feedback, suggestions and comments to colleagues and collaborators when you are building and editing pages, much like you are able to do with comments in a word processor.
Better Performance and Improved Design
WordPress 7.0 adds a number of improvements behind the scenes. Updates help pages load more quickly, make content editing more responsive, and changes to the site revisions function make it easier to maintain a complete revision history of your work.
The update also includes enhancements to accessibility and responsive design, helping ensure your content is easier to access for persons with disabilities and displays more consistently across desktop and mobile devices.
We are excited about the potential this upgrade brings and are pleased to keep the Commons and Sites running on the latest version of WordPress.
Learn more about the update!
The above list is just an overview of what’s been added! For more information, see the WordPress release notes or “What’s New in WordPress 7.0?“ at WP Beginner.
Where will I see these new features?
The update has already been deployed to all Commons sites, whether personal or group-associated. Some of the newest design features are available only when using a Full Site Editing theme, such as Twenty Twenty-Four or Twenty Twenty-Five. Upgrade your site to one of these themes to take full advantage of the new features.
What are Commons sites and how can I use them?
Knowledge Commons Sites provide a flexible, WordPress-based environment for building websites without requiring coding experience. Sites offer an easy way to establish a digital presence, whether you are creating a professional portfolio, hosting a research project, starting a course blog, or organizing a conference. You can choose from a variety of themes, customize your layout using the WordPress block editor, and control the visibility and accessibility of your content all within the Knowledge Commons platform. Sites are fully hosted by Knowledge Commons, so you don’t have to worry about web hosting, software updates, or ongoing maintenance, and are always free (though we will always welcome you as a KC Champion).
Support Knowledge Commons
Keeping Knowledge Commons running smoothly is a significant undertaking. Every upgrade must be carefully tested across tens of thousands of sites to ensure everything is working as expected. Beyond upgrades, our team maintains the platform, develops new features, and provides support to our community of partners and users.
If Knowledge Commons has been valuable to you or your institution, please encourage your campus decision-makers to support us. Institutional memberships help sustain the platform and offer options for customized domains and branding. We offer a range of institutional packages that include an institutional repository (KC Works), our Sites and Groups functionality, and our Profiles system for your academic presence. If you would like to discuss further, please email us!