Designing for Uncertainty: Three Approaches1

Higher education wishes to get long life and good returns on its investment in learning spaces. Doing this has become difficult because rapid changes in information technology have created fundamental uncertainties about the future in which capital investments must deliver value. Three approaches to designing for this uncertainty are described using data from recent surveys. Many of these data are related to the National Survey of Student Engagement; for another essay that employs NSSE data, see the author's “First Questions for Designing Higher Education Learning Spaces” in the January 2007 issue of the Journal of Academic Librarianship.