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• Building the Commons Update: May 2023

  Over the past month The Commons hasn’t had any significant user-facing updates, but we have many some behind-the-scenes improvements and we have been making steady progress on many projects. To better communicate all of these projects, we have created a public roadmap on the Building blog. If want an overview of all the things we’re…

• Building the Commons Update: April 2023

  Here’s another update on what the Commons development team has been up to in the last month! Recent Developments This month we didn’t deploy any new functionality. However, we did make a couple of small changes to the site that I think are illustrative for understanding the nature of development work on the Commons and…

• Support Independent Scholarly Communication Infrastructure This Giving Tuesday

  Want the TL;DR? We’re seeking donations to support our Mastodon server! If you believe this is a worthwhile cause and are in a position to help, we would be hugely grateful for your donation. Academic communities need infrastructure, just as our local communities do. And infrastructure requires investment, which is why this Giving Tuesday we’re…

• Humanities Commons Launches Mastodon Server Open to Scholars

  Anyone using or observing Twitter will be well aware of the recent purchase of the company, which throws the future of the platform into, at best, uncertainty, and at worst, turmoil. In response, many scholars have been considering a move to Mastodon, a non-profit, federated alternative social network. Being federated, Mastodon requires access to a…

• A Bumpy Start to the Joys of Open Access: A Festive Perspective

  Today, as we continue to celebrate International Open Access Week and reflect on finding joy in OA work, we’ve got a guest post from our friends at H-Net and the Journal of Festive Studies. More than six years ago, the open access joy of The Journal of Festive Studies began. Patrick Cox, the then-Vice-President for…

• NSF Grant for New STEM-focused Commons

  The Commons team is delighted to have been awarded one of the inaugural FAIROS RCN grants from the NSF, in order to establish DBER+ Commons. That’s a big pile of acronyms, so here’s a breakdown: the NSF is of course the National Science Foundation, one of the most important federal funding bodies in the United…

• New and Updated Support and Sustaining Sites

  We’ve made major updates to two of our own sites: Commons Support and Sustaining the Commons. Not only is there new content, but both sites were redesigned using the block-based theme Blockbase, and the full site editing tools in WordPress 5.9. While full site editing (FSE) is in beta it’s a powerful way to customize…

• Humanities Commons Groups Month Week 4!

  Welcome to week four of the Humanities Commons Group Month! We’re dedicating this time with you to explore groups features, network, and build online community. Each week features a quick challenge (only 5-10 minutes required of your time) to help you familiarize yourself with groups and develop your online presence. As you complete each challenge, share your…

• Scholars, It’s Time to Take Control of Your Online Communities

  -Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Digital Humanities at Michigan State University, Project Director for Humanities Commons A couple of years ago, I got a bit fed up with the ways that certain for-profit networks were purporting to provide scholars with opportunities to share their work openly with one another, and I decided that it was time…

• Rethinking Scholarly Communication: Open Peer Review

  A central goal for Humanities Commons has always been to provide humanities scholars with a platform for communicating, sharing work, and collaborating. Beyond simply facilitating these processes––a significant task in itself––we strive to innovate on them, pushing for scholarship that is more open and engaged with communities. Often, this means rethinking the assumptions and practices…