Spaces are the next evolution of Community Groups. They’re designed to feel more intuitive and familiar for students, with a scrollable feed, threaded conversations and a more visually-rich experience.
Spaces are different to existing Groups as they introduce a more social, feed-style experience. They are built for sustained engagement, not just bursts of chat.
Conversations are organised into threads, so replies don’t get lost.
Find answers instantly: Search makes it easy to browse past discussions, reducing repetitive questions.
Students can like and comment, lowering the barrier to engagement.
Multiple conversations can happen at once without becoming chaotic.
The experience supports both real-time and asynchronous participation.
How do I create a new Space?
Creating a new Space for your Community is quick and easy. Simply follow these steps:
Log into your University Dashboard
Navigate to the Community tab on the left-hand navigation menu
Click on the Community you'd like to add new Spaces to
Go to the Spaces tab, then click on Create New Space.
Add your new Space's title - something that clearly defines to your students what this Space is all about. Your title can be up to 200 characters - and should offer a clear and concise overview of what this Space is - i.e. Find a Roommate, or Life in Manchester.
Feel free to add emojis!
You can do this by right-clicking > selecting Emojis and Symbols on Mac, or following these steps on Windows.
Add a description. This will be visible to students in your Community, and you can use this to go into a little more detail and set expectations - what will a student get out of joining this particular Space, and why should they join it?
Add a cover photo - you might have one to hand, or you can AI-generate an image.
The upload limit for a cover photo is 15mb, and accepted formats are jpgs, jpegs and .pngs.
Please note: Cover images will automatically resize to fit different screen sizes and devices. We recommend using a landscape image where possible. However, because the available display area varies across screens, we cannot guarantee a single aspect ratio that will display perfectly in all cases. To achieve the best results, use an image with some space around the main subject and avoid placing faces, text or logos too close to the edges of the image. This helps ensure important parts of the image remain visible when it is automatically resized and cropped across different devices.
Click Create space
Your Space has now been created and will be visible to everyone who has been invited to join your Community.
🌐 Admins can also access Spaces via the web. This enables you to view and manage Spaces from your desktop, respond to posts, and oversee multiple Spaces.
For Space requests from students and ambassadors, see Managing Space Requests.
For available actions by role, see Community: Account roles & permissions.
What about my existing Community groups?
Your existing Community groups will not be affected. They will remain as Groups - but you will still be able to create Spaces, so your Community members can benefit. Students will still be able to find and join your current Groups.
You can no longer create new public Groups. Existing public Groups remain available and can be managed alongside Spaces on the Community tab within your University Dashboard. Any Spaces you create will be displayed first in your dashboard, with existing Groups stacked underneath.
Private Group chats remain available. Please note that at the moment ambassadors cannot join private groups via the ambassador app, they need to accept and join the group via the desktop version of Community.
What does it look like if I have both Spaces and Groups in a Community?
Groups will remain editable, but new engagement will naturally shift towards Spaces.
This phased approach allows you to move at a comfortable pace without disrupting active Communities. Spaces will live under the Spaces tab, and Groups will still live under the Connect tab.
The below video shows that user experience for students in a Community with both Groups and Spaces.