FLEXspace Update: What's in Store for AY '23-'24?
EDUCAUSE helped advise and support both development of the LSRS and FLEXspace. And EDUCAUSE has provided conference and other communication opportunities to share and publish integration stories of LSRS and FLEXspace — which led to the FLIPP (FLEXspace Integrated Planning Pathway) process. We look forward to continuing that incredibly synergistic relationship.
EDUCAUSE has provided conference and other communication opportunities to share and publish integration stories of LSRS and FLEXspace — which led to the FLIPP (FLEXspace Integrated Planning Pathway) process.
It is a very similar story with SCUP, the Society for College and University Planning, whose staff helped get us off the ground when FLEXspace was still just in the idea space. Along with hundreds of volunteers across the country and beyond, they jumped right in and helped develop taxonomies that describe most of the space elements from a design/architecture perspective. Lisa just presented the FLIPP process at the SCUP international conference in Cleveland last month, and there has been a lot of interest and follow up from the planning and design community.
Our partners at the Higher Education Technology Managers Alliance (HETMA), who publish the Higher Ed AV magazine (online) have also generously provided an opportunity to contribute via a monthly column to keep the AV community updated on upcoming developments.[https://higheredav.com/category/partners/partners-flexspace/] Similarly, our friends at AVIXA, SCHOMS, ETC, ISTE, EDspaces, EDmarket, and the Association for Learning Environments (A4LE) have helped us greatly with visibility and guidance.
We've also received invaluable guidance from our friends and partners from MillerKnoll, ShawContract, Sonic Foundry, Leo A. Daly, WolfVision, JaffeHolden, AVI-SPL, and Occuspace.
And our academic partners have long supported this mission financially and intellectually. Along with SUNY and the Cal State system, academic parters include Penn State, Foothill De Anza Community College District, and Drexel University.
Grush: How will the redesigned portal encourage potential new FLEXspace members, and what are your expectations of how this will affect participation over time?
Stephens: We suspect that a large part of our success has been our commitment to keeping FLEXspace freely available as a resource to all educators. This was the desire of SUNY and the CSU systems from the start: providing a resource that not only helped create better spaces by saving time, energy, effort, and money, but also by ensuring better equity among schools regardless of their postal code. We've had people tell us, "We don't have any nice spaces to share from our school, we don't have a lot of funds to do that." We're very quick to reassure people that FLEXspace is concerned with the exchange of ideas about space… and that it's a huge service to share ideas that engage students in spaces that don't have or require a lot of advanced or expensive technologies. We think the new Idea Board publishing is really going to help get this message out as well. For example, several members have suggested creating Idea Boards that showcase clever hacks with affordable active learning solutions. It will be great to see those come to life.
This was the desire of SUNY and the CSU systems from the start: providing a resource that not only helped create better spaces by saving time, energy, effort, and money, but also by ensuring better equity among schools regardless of their postal code.
Grush: FLEXspace has been going strong for about a decade. Do you find that its relevance is greater than ever?
Stephens: Yes, for sure, and that's coming from our community — not only the directors. The technologies are changing all the time. I was on a web call with a designer and IT manager just a few hours ago, and most of the conversation was about how to create more inclusion for neurodiverse students. When people hear that term, many may think of someone with a form of autism or other learning challenge. What we're starting to recognize is that most of us have some preference about how we engage and interact with others that can be best supported and encouraged in the right kind of space. So how do we learn and share more about this? Yes, FLEXspace has a ton of exemplars, but what continues to impress me most is the generosity of colleagues sharing white papers, references, and research resources that help us to understand these challenges and potential solutions better.