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As a new academic year begins for many of our colleagues in the Northern Hemisphere and a new season of the academic year unfolds for those in the Southern Hemisphere, we welcome you to the September issue of the HyFlex Learning Community newsletter. Wherever you are in your annual academic cycle, this is a natural time to reflect on what is changing in our institutions, our classrooms, and the ways we support learners.
That sense of change runs through this issue. HyFlex continues to mature as part of the infrastructure of higher education, research is asking increasingly sophisticated questions about engagement, equity, and faculty practice, and generative AI is creating new opportunities and new challenges for teaching and learning. As the HLC enters its own new season, we hope these stories, resources, and upcoming events help you consider what may be worth carrying forward, what may need to change, and what new possibilities are beginning to emerge.
(We had a busy summer and no updates, so this is a bit long.)
Next HLC Gathering — October 2, 2026
Join us for our next HyFlex Learning Community Gathering, A New Season for the HLC: HyFlex, AI, and What’s Ahead, on October 2, 2026, from 9:00–10:00 a.m. Pacific (12:00–1:00 p.m. Eastern). We’ll talk about the HLC’s expanding direction: continuing our work with HyFlex while also exploring the opportunities and challenges AI presents for teaching and learning. We’ll introduce AIMON (AI in the Moment of Learning Need),share plans for new workshops and learning opportunities, and invite your ideas about how four successful years of the HyFlex Collaborative Conference might provide a foundation for an expanded summer event. Most importantly, this will be a community conversation about what this new season of the HLC could become. Registration is free, but please reserve your webinar seat: Register on Eventbritehttps://www.eventbrite.com/e/hyflex-learning-community-gathering-october-2026-registration-1999731259027
HyFlex Continues Its Move into the Infrastructure of Higher Education
For several years, we have watched HyFlex move beyond individual faculty experiments and isolated course implementations toward something more durable: part of the infrastructure of teaching and learning. And by “infrastructure,” I don’t mean only cameras, microphones, displays, and classroom technology. At its best, institutional HyFlex infrastructure also includes course design, scheduling, faculty support, accessibility, policies, and an organizational commitment to providing learners with meaningful choices about how they participate.
Several stories from this summer suggest that this transition is continuing and, in some institutions, happening at considerable scale.
Perhaps the clearest example comes from Birkbeck, University of London. This is not a new initiative. Back in December 2022, Birkbeck announced a £3 million investment that was intended to bring HyFlex technology into more than 100 classrooms over the following three years. The goal was closely connected to Birkbeck’s long-standing mission of serving students who often combine higher education with employment, family responsibilities, and other commitments.
· Birkbeck, University of London. (2022, December 12). New technology boosts flexible learning, providing students with greater choice over where, when, and how they learn.Read the Birkbeck article
By 2026, that long-term investment is becoming visible across the institution. A recent case study from GVAV, the audiovisual firm working with Birkbeck, describes the upgrade of more than 70 teaching rooms and 10 lecture theatres during an 18-month period. Importantly, the project focused not simply on adding technology, but on establishing a consistent experience across classrooms: common controls, integrated Microsoft Teams and Panopto systems, accessible equipment, reliable audio and video, and spaces that instructors can move between without having to relearn the technology each time. Birkbeck now describes HyFlex technology as installed in almost all of its classrooms. That begins to look less like a collection of “HyFlex rooms” and more like a campus designed for flexible participation.
· GVAV. (2026). Birkbeck, University of London — Creative Inclusive Learning Programme.Read the GVAV case study
A different version of this development is taking place at the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville (UACCB). Beginning in Fall 2026, UACCB is formally rolling out HyFlex course delivery that allows students to move among in-person, synchronous online, and asynchronous participation according to their circumstances. The initiative is also connected to an expanded partnership with the University of Arkansas at Monticello, through which students can pursue selected four-year degrees while remaining in Batesville. Here, HyFlex is becoming part of something larger than a classroom delivery decision—it is being used as part of an institutional strategy for expanding educational pathways for learners who may be balancing college with jobs, families, and community commitments.
· University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville. (2026, August 24). UACCB launches innovative HyFlex class model for Fall 2026 to enhance student flexibility. Read the UACCB announcement
A separate news report on the rollout was written by Alex Kienlen for KARK 4 News.
We can see another dimension of this maturation in an August Times Higher Educationarticle by Stuart Samuels, Flexible Learning Manager at Nottingham Trent University. Drawing on six years of experience and more than 200 online and flexible modules, Samuels argues that the difficult part of HyFlex is not simply providing technology or offering students choices. It is designing different participation routes that produce genuinely equivalent learning experiences. His discussion includes workload planning, predictable course structures, learning analytics, timetabling, and designing specifically for how students learn when they are not physically present. In other words, once flexibility becomes established, the conversation increasingly shifts from Can we do this?to How do we support it well?
· Samuels, Stuart. (2026, August 20). Give students greater flexibility with HyFlex learning.Times Higher Education Campus. Read the article
And the results of that infrastructure can appear in very practical ways. In New Zealand, Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) highlighted its HyFlex Bachelor of Audio Production this summer, profiling students who were able to remain in Christchurch while completing a degree based in Invercargill through a combination of in-person, live-online, and recorded participation. In an applied discipline where access to facilities, instructors, peers, and professional communities all matter, HyFlex is enabling students to maintain connections to both their academic program and the places where they live and work.
· Southern Institute of Technology. (2026, July 9). HyFlex delivery creating New Zealand’s most flexible degree pathways. Read the SIT article
Taken together, these examples suggest an important next stage in the development of HyFlex.
Scaling HyFlex does not simply mean creating more HyFlex classrooms or offering more HyFlex courses. It means building the institutional capacity to make flexible participation dependable.
Technology is certainly part of that capacity, but so are instructional design, faculty development, accessibility, scheduling, student support, and policies that preserve meaningful learner choice.
Perhaps that is what maturation looks like. As HyFlex becomes infrastructure, the technology itself becomes less remarkable, and we can return our attention to the more important questions: Are students able to participate meaningfully? Are their learning experiences equitable across pathways? And does the flexibility we provide actually help more learners engage, persist, and succeed?
Recent HyFlex Research: From Engagement and Equity to AI-Augmented Learning
Recent HyFlex research continues to move beyond the basic question of whether flexible participation can work. Increasingly, researchers are examining the conditions that make HyFlex effective: how students engage, how instructors learn to teach across modes, how flexibility functions in resource-constrained settings, and how emerging technologies such as AI might extend, or complicate, HyFlex practice. Several studies published since May offer useful perspectives for the HyFlex Learning Community.
Engagement Still Matters—More Than Attendance Alone
Özgür Örün of the Izmir Institute of Technology examined attendance and engagement among 228 students across 18 undergraduate programs. The findings reinforce something familiar to experienced HyFlex practitioners: simply giving students choices about where and how to participate does not ensure meaningful engagement. Greater interaction with instructors, peers, and course content was associated with higher attendance, and greater interaction was also associated with higher academic achievement. Open-ended responses showed that participation was influenced by much more than individual student motivation, including instructor practices, curriculum, course characteristics, institutional conditions, and students' locations.
For HyFlex designers, the implication is important: flexibility and engagement should not be treated as competing goals. A well-designed HyFlex environment needs to create reasons and opportunities for learners to interact, wherever they choose to participate.
- Örün, Ö. (2026). Examining factors affecting attendance and engagement in HyFlex learning environments: A post-crisis mixed-methods study. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 1–18. Read the article / DOI
Becoming a HyFlex Instructor Takes Time
A study by Elnara Mammadova, Nathan Mentzer, Adrie A. Koehler, and Lakshmy Mohandas at Purdue University followed two instructors through their first semester teaching an undergraduate HyFlex design-thinking course. Rather than asking faculty to reflect only after the experience, the researchers collected weekly reflections and interviews over ten weeks, providing a window into how instructors' concerns and practices changed over time.
Technology integration dominated the instructors' early attention—including managing Microsoft Teams, recordings, audio/video systems, and communication channels—but their concerns also included preparing for class, engaging both remote and in-person learners, establishing expectations, and defining what HyFlex teaching actually meant in practice. Viewed through the TPACK framework, technological and pedagogical knowledge emerged as particularly important. The study is very small, but its longitudinal perspective highlights an important point for institutions: learning to teach HyFlex is developmental. Faculty support should extend beyond learning how to operate the classroom technology.
- Mammadova, E., Mentzer, N., Koehler, A. A., & Mohandas, L. (2026). Reflecting on becoming a HyFlex instructor through TPACK: A qualitative study with mixed data analysis. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. Read the open-access article / DOI
What Does HyFlex Look Like When Connectivity Cannot Be Assumed?
Khader Rajabi of Al-Quds Open University and Jamil Itmazi of Palestine Ahliya Universitytake the equity question into a very different context. Their July study examines what they call “HyFlex-Lite” in Palestinian K–12 schools, where reliable broadband, devices, and other resources cannot be taken for granted. Their model provides three pathways: in-person, synchronous low-bandwidth, and asynchronous low-bandwidth, while attempting to maintain equivalent learning objectives, activities, and assessments. The mixed-methods study included survey data from 310 East Jerusalem teachers, supplemented by interviews, observations, and document analysis.
The study surfaces both the potential and the difficulty of designing equitable flexibility under constrained conditions. Low-bandwidth tools and alternatives can preserve participation when connectivity fails, but infrastructure problems also increase instructor workload and can diminish interaction and equity. This broadens an important HyFlex principle: access is not accomplished merely by offering another participation mode. That mode must actually be usable by the learners it is intended to serve.
- Rajabi, K., & Itmazi, J. (2026). HyFlex-Lite in Palestinian schools: Classroom orchestration strategies and equity in low-connectivity environments. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 22, 025. Read the open-access article / DOI
AI Begins to Enter the HyFlex Design Conversation
Julie Lindsay and Lisa Jacka of the University of Southern Queensland explicitly bring artificial intelligence into the HyFlex conversation in their July article, A Rose by Any Other Name: AI Augmented HyFlex Learning. Drawing on their university's participation in the Jisc Beyond Blended pilot and an internal HyFlex initiative, they examine ways intelligent tools were incorporated into learning design, content creation, and synchronous and asynchronous participation.
One particularly interesting finding concerns framing. The authors suggest that educators were more receptive when intelligent tools were introduced according to the pedagogical function they could perform, rather than simply being presented under the broad, and sometimes polarizing label of “AI.” They describe uses of purpose-built AI agents for learning design, automated content-development tools, and conversational AI to support asynchronous engagement. At the same time, they acknowledge infrastructure limitations, continuing engagement challenges, and limited student feedback. Their work raises a question that is becoming increasingly relevant for the HLC: How might AI support the principles and practices we already value in HyFlex rather than becoming a separate technology initiative?
And an Even Newer Look at AI, HyFlex, and Equity
A study published September 1 extends that conversation. Ridwan Daud Mahande, NurulMukhlisah Abdal, Muhammad Riska, Shabrina Syntha Dewi, and Muhlis Muhlis, working across Universitas Negeri Makassar and Universitas Mulawarman in Indonesia, examined AI-adaptive learning and HyFlex together in digitally constrained higher-education settings. Their mixed-methods study involved 469 students from three Indonesian universities, along with follow-up interviews.
The researchers found significant associations among students' perceptions of HyFlex, inclusive education, personalization, and equitable access. Particularly noteworthy was the relationship between HyFlex and perceived equitable access through inclusive education. Interviews, however, again surfaced connectivity, device availability, digital literacy, and faculty preparedness as important constraints. The authors appropriately caution that they are measuring students' perceptions of equitable access, not demonstrating objectively that institutional equity has been achieved. That distinction is important, but so is the emerging idea behind the study: AI-enabled support and flexible participation may be complementary rather than competing approaches to increasing learners' access to appropriate support.
- Mahande, R. D., Abdal, N. M., Riska, M., Dewi, S. S., & Muhlis, M. (2026). AI-adaptive and HyFlex learning modalities for personalized, inclusive, and perceived equitable access in digitally constrained higher education. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 1–15. Read the article / DOI
Taken together, these studies suggest that the HyFlex research conversation itself is maturing. The question is increasingly not simply whether HyFlex works, but what conditions help it work well, for whom, and at what cost. Interaction, faculty capability, infrastructure, equitable access, and institutional support continue to matter. And now AI is beginning to appear within that conversation, not necessarily as a replacement for established HyFlex practice, but as another potential means of supporting learners across the varied pathways they choose. This is indeed also becoming a larger part of the professional development offered through the HyFlex Learning Community (read on ...).
HLC Workshops Expand to Support HyFlex and AI-Enabled Learning Design
The HyFlex Learning Community has expanded and refreshed its workshop offerings for the coming year. Alongside our established HyFlex design workshops, we are adding new opportunities for educators who want to explore thoughtful uses of generative AI to support learning and teaching. Across the offerings, the emphasis remains consistent: begin with learners and learning needs, then make purposeful choices about technology, participation, and support.
Our new AIMON Learning Design Studio is a guided synchronous experience focused on designing support around authentic moments of learner need. Participants use the AIMON: AI in the Moment of Learning Need framework to decide where AI might, or might not, provide useful support and develop an initial design they can test in practice. Designing on the Edge: Teaching Smarter with AI offers a more flexible, asynchronous pathway for exploring GenAI in course design, student engagement, assessment, and learning support. Both workshops are designed for learning experiences in any delivery mode, not only HyFlex.
Our HyFlex Course Design Workshop has also been revised to incorporate GenAI tools throughout the design process, including custom GPTs that support course planning and model ways AI can assist learners. It continues to be available in synchronous and asynchronous formats. And for those looking for a more focused introduction to redesigning individual lessons, 3-Steps for Transitioning to HyFlex remains available as a self-paced asynchronous experience.
Together, these workshops reflect the HLC’s expanding interest in supporting flexible, human-centered learning, whether that flexibility comes through participation choices, new forms of AI-enabled support, or both. Visit the HLC Workshops page for full descriptions, upcoming dates, formats, and registration information. Explore HLC Workshops
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