Like Leading a World-Class Orchestra: The FLEXspace Community
Stephens: Interestingly, Mary, while FLEXspace is huge, it doesn't feel so massive or cumbersome. It kind of feels like people sharing the story of a space, and maybe giving a little bit of advice while encouraging others to share their stories as well by putting them up in FLEXspace. I think people also understand that the resource becomes more valuable with additional content. And more and more records seem to appear almost magically in FLEXspace!
Grush: What will make that apparent magic sustainable? Is that where some technical work is happening in the background?
Stephens: We are in the process right now of upgrading the portal from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 or 10. We spoke with several developers and learned that it's a pretty heavy lift, but we've identified some people who can help us do that. We'll be working with KWALL, and they have a very good track record with higher education projects. So, we're pretty excited about all that, and we're going to make it even easier for people to participate in FLEXspace — improving the way they upload spaces, search for particular attributes, and connect with each other to share stories of usage and evidence of impact.
We're going to make it even easier for people to participate in FLEXspace — improving the way they upload spaces, search for particular attributes, and connect with each other to share stories of usage and evidence of impact.
It's like my friend and mentor Gerry Hanley, who has led the MERLOT community for many years, often says, "Give a gift, not a burden." We want to be sure to make our tools as easy to use as possible, which will help maintain that community flavor, as you say, by taking away the complexity of sharing all this data and information.
One good example of this is our built-in shared idea board, where small groups can work together privately, using the portal to connect people on their space committee who can look through the lens of their own curricular expertise, to see what kinds of attributes in classrooms would best serve their particular campus.
Related Reading
Earlier this year, CT spoke in-depth with Lisa Stephens about FLEXspace and the FLEXspace Integrated Planning Pathway. Learn more:
Grush: Is that also an example of FLIPP?
Yes! Using the FLEXspace Integrated Planning Pathway (FLIPP) to combine the Learning Space Rating System
(LSRS) with FLEXspace at the campus level — before engaging external consultants — saves time and perhaps money, because you can get your campus advisors aligned along the same principles early in the planning process. FLIPP, along with many of our integrated tools, such as the shared idea board and the toolkit, will facilitate all that in a seemingly simple manner. We invite participants to use our integrated tools, and to share with us how to make them better before the new portal foundation is poured!
We invite participants to use our integrated tools, and to share with us how to make them better before the new portal foundation is poured!
And I'm pretty proud of the fact that FLEXspace has helped more people be invited to the planning table. That alone goes a long way toward preventing some problems. It might be that the A/V people can foresee a problem that an architect may not, and visa versa.
FLEXspace has helped more people be invited to the planning table.
People working in education are so incredibly well intended, and we all work hard. But sometimes the jargon of our expertise can cause us to talk past each other. FLEXspace is a tool to bring people together and help them to see each other's perspectives.