InSpace, a groundbreaking virtual learning platform, and Southern New Hampshire University, one of the country’s most innovative and fastest-growing higher education institutions, recently announced a multi-year strategic partnership to strengthen online learning by giving students more control over their online learning environment. As a part of this collaboration, SNHU will use InSpace’s immersive AI-powered video platform to give students more control over their online learning environment, empowering them to make meaningful connections with their peers, staff, and professors with the click of a button.
The multi-year strategic partnership began in September 2022, intending to bring InSpace’s immersive, collaborative platform to SNHU’s online offerings. SNHU’s pioneering leadership in online education and Inspace’s strength in human-centred technology will create a new front-door experience for online learning, streamlining processes and logistics for students and staff.
In the next phase, InSpace will launch new AI-powered features, including a virtual assistant that harnesses institutional knowledge to answer students’ questions in real time. If a student still needs help, with one click, they can see when someone is available, make an appointment, add it to their calendar, and join a meeting—all in one beautiful, welcoming space where it’s fun to collaborate with others. An innovative Live Notes tool seamlessly captures conference notes between students and staff and generates shared summaries and action items so students know what to focus on and do next. Notes are archived in a centralized, searchable archive, where students can quickly find answers to their questions.
Faculty and staff can deepen their strong relationships with students and help them build engaging learning communities. These wrap-around support services and easily accessible resources will help students focus on their learning and navigate school, work, and life’s challenges with fewer distractions.
Commenting on the partnership, the President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), Paul LeBlanc, said:
At SNHU, we are committed to our learners’ success. This exciting new technology will help us as we scale our systems of care for our students by providing a level of personalization we haven’t seen with any other video platform. InSpace will give our students more control over their learning environment and help them build valuable social networks and lasting relationships with staff, faculty, and peers.
The partnership is part of a three-year commercial contract the two entities formed to reimagine the technology stack for the next era of education. After months of collaboration, SNHU also became a minority investor in InSpace. It will offer its Shared Live Notes virtual assistant tool more widely in the fall of 2023, and universities interested in demoing the platform or bringing it to their schools can learn more from the InSpace website.
InSpace aims to cultivate engaging and immersive learning experiences where people learn and create knowledge together through authentic visual, real-time collaboration. Its virtual communication platform is explicitly designed to make teaching and to understand the joyful, meaningful, and effective endeavours it knows it can be. By honouring how humans interact in the real world with its human-centred, research-informed design, the startup enables teachers and learners to cultivate connections, support one another, and co-create engaging learning experiences.
Chief Executive Officer of InSpace, Dr Narine Hall, added:
Our work at InSpace is about making the online student experience more personal, collaborative, and joyful, and we couldn’t be more excited about this partnership. SNHU is at the forefront of online higher education. Their work allows students — regardless of age, employment, or location — to learn in ways that are tailored to their lives and needs. And with InSpace, students can now experience more powerful ‘aha’ moments when learning comes to life as they build rapport with mentors or solve problems with other students. Learners who develop meaningful connections with faculty, staff, and peers are more likely to continue with school and succeed when they graduate.
Travis Willard, Chief Product Officer for SNHU, commented:
InSpace’s personal, interactive platform simulates face-to-face collaboration, making it an ideal choice for SNHU. It reflects our commitment to offering innovative, learner-centric opportunities to learners worldwide. By fostering relationship-building and collaboration, we can enable learners to make valuable connections that will serve them long after graduation and set them on a path of lifelong learning.
Southern New Hampshire University is a private, nonprofit, accredited institution with more than 3,000 on-campus students and over 170,000 online students, making it one of the fastest-growing universities in the nation. Since its founding in 1932, the University has transformed from a school of accounting and secretarial science into an institution offering over 200 programs, from certificates to doctoral-level degrees, including business, education, liberal arts, social sciences and STEM. By reinventing higher education to fit the needs of today’s students and workforce, SNHU ensures that students keep pace with new technologies and professional requirements. It offers unparalleled support and service to help students achieve their dreams and transform their lives and the lives of those around them.
