Mobius is the Consortium’s mobile-friendly web-based portal that provides interfaces and access for consortium member universities to valuable tools and resources. First, it provides students, facility managers and administrators with a holistic understanding of their university’s entire maker ecosystem. As more students join a maker community, they want to know where to find the tools they need, and how to access the spaces that are available to them. Mobius provides the perfect solution to make it fun and easy to find equipment and makerspaces on campus.
Further, Mobius enables visibility into the maker ecosystem of other member universities. For example, a student at University X in Boston, MA will be able to view what equipment is available at a nearby university and see if that university will grant access. This map of the maker world provides knowledge and awareness of local resources, while universities retain all authority to whom they grant access to their own facilities.
Fig. 1: How the Mobius platform provides value to the maker community
Finally, Mobius enables member universities to post training and safety videos to the site so that all Consortium members’ students gain knowledge from best practices around the world.
Universities that wish to move up to higher levels of membership will be able to select additional features according to a fee schedule to be determined. These features will include a uniquely branded web interface for a university, ability to integrate with that university’s existing authentication system, capability to provide credentialing for safety and training purposes, usage analytics, and other advanced features.
The use of Mobius to display maker information about all member universities opens the possibility for regional “hubs” of members to collaborate together and potentially share access to facilities and equipment by other local member communities, if desired.
MIT Project Manus originally developed Mobius as a way to catalog over 300 different types of maker equipment distributed over 45 major makerspaces on its campus. In response to growing demand, we are now pleased to make this valuable benefit available to Make Impact Consortium university members.