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Title: A study of makerspace health and student tool usage during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
Prior research emphasizes the benefits of university makerspaces, but overall, quantitative metrics to measure how a makerspace is doing have not been available. Drawing on an analogy to metrics used for the health of industrial ecosystems, this article evaluates changes during and after COVID-19 for two makerspaces. The COVID-19 pandemic disturbed normal life worldwide and campuses were closed. When students returned, campus life looked different, and COVID-19-related restrictions changed frequently. This study uses online surveys distributed to two university makerspaces with different restrictions. Building from the analysis of industrial ecosystems, the data were used to create bipartite network models with students and tools as the two interacting actor groups. Modularity, nestedness, and connectance metrics, which are frequently used in ecology for mutualistic ecosystems, quantified the changing usage patterns. This unique approach provides quantitative benchmarks to measure and compare makerspaces. The two makerspaces were found to have responded very differently to the disruption, though both saw a decline in overall usage and impact on students and the space’s health and had different recoveries. Network analysis is shown to be a valuable method to evaluate the functionality of makerspaces and identify if and how much they change, potentially serving as indicators of unseen issues.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2013547 2013505
PAR ID:
10613221
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Cambridge University Press
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Design Science
Volume:
10
ISSN:
2053-4701
Page Range / eLocation ID:
e13
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
Maker space Network analysis Covid-19 Maker Bipartite network model
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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