Hybrid Spaces in Higher Education: A Comprehensive Guide to Pedagogical, Space and Technology Design

With this case report article, we hope to provide an overview of many important factors that positively impact or hinder the development and activities within hybrid spaces in higher education. Our findings gravitate around an exploratory case study on a unique shared physical/hybrid space called the “The Portal,” designed to host a joint international master program connecting the two largest universities in Norway. The origin of our research comes from a cross-university physical/hybrid space. However, any of our findings will also fit other similar solutions described as physical/hybrid/online cross-campus, multi-campus, or distributed spaces for teaching and learning. This paper contains selected research and gathered experiences from 2016–2024 within the SALTO research program, designing hybrid learning environments/spaces and finding the appropriate technical and pedagogical approaches focusing on the learning/teaching experience.