The flex redesign strategy applies to almost all non-instructional services and selectively to academic programs.  The customizable, self-service portal captures the concept of flex services and promises to integrate administrative and academic services while increasing service access and flexibility. Many colleges and universities have implemented a campus portal, typically after migrating their administrative "back-office" systems—financial, human resources, and student information systems—to the latest technologies to create an information infrastructure.  In the systems migration and integration process, some of these campuses redesigned key administrative service processes in order to avoid bolting the new system onto old service processes at additional, ongoing expense. When system migration and redesign are accomplished together, the benefits include the following:

• Better integration of data and services between departments (e.g., the admissions and business offices)
• Administrative staff reductions or an increased administrative capacity to serve more students, either of which means unit expense reductions
• Improved satisfaction among students, alums, instructors, and staff members
• Opportunities for evidence-supported academic decision-making via a next-phase analytics infrastructure (e.g., projected student performance profiles, admission yields, projected net revenues from tuition, per-credit expenses, and so on)

The academic focus of the flex redesign strategy is typically on redesigning entire degree and certificate programs or important course clusters for flex delivery to students who cannot (or prefer not to) participate in curricula that require a significant amount of real-time interaction.  Target programs are often those in high demand or those that respond to economic development, professional, or workforce needs—the performance obligation for program accountability in markets demanding convenience of access.  Such programs might include business, nursing, teacher training and certification, college preparatory programs, and general-education clusters or programs.

To be successful, the institution must understand the delivery and pricing factors that will allow a selected program to compete in a targeted market, while also balancing these factors with any necessary requirements for real-time student/instructor interactions.  Any effort to develop a flex academic program is likely to fail unless it carefully addresses a number of success factors, such as:

• understanding the targeted student audience profile;
• understanding the delivery modes preferred or required by the targeted students;
• assessing the competition and tuition elasticity;
• providing appropriate marketing and recruiting services;
• applying instructional design practices that have proven effective for flex programs;
• providing professional instructional design and course development support for faculty members and instructors; and
• providing all the instructional and administrative flex services required to support flex students and their instructors.