Riipen is a collaboration platform that facilitates experiential work integrated learning opportunities between post-secondary institutions, educators, industry partners and students. The platform allows all parties in your ecosystem to co-create, manage, assess and report on meaningful experiential learning opportunities efficiently and effectively. Riipen features a unique bi-directional matchmaking process in a robust marketplace, bringing together educators and learners to select from opportunities with over 42,000 business and industry partners.
For more information and to check out the platform, visit the Riipen website, check out the Riipen One Pager, or reach out to Riipen directly at yorku@riipen.com for a personalized discussion of your experiential learning needs.
What is experiential project-based learning?
Experiential project-based learning is a teaching method that involves working collaboratively on an authentic, real-world problem with a company or non-profit partner. Using project-based learning, students can build upon their skills, develop their portfolio of experiences, and engage in impactful opportunities. The students typically work on these projects in small teams, with a deliverable at the conclusion of the project that can become part of your course requirements.
Riipen is available for all faculty at York University, in all disciplines, working with all levels of students in all modalities of delivery, including in-class and online experiences. Project opportunities are generally virtual in nature, and may be synchronous or asynchronous. Limited in-person engagements may also available. Riipen provides end-to-end support, including course project ideation and design, technical support and student onboarding, and matchmaking with industry partners locally and globally. Generally, the process should be started 4-6 weeks prior to semester start to afford time for successful alignment between educators and industry partners.
Steps for Educators to Get Started on Riipen:
Getting started to bring opportunities to your course with Riipen is easy! Take a look at this quick overview, or contact the dedicated Riipen-York team at yorku@riipen.com for further assistance:
- Join the School Portal as an educator.
- Connect with the dedicated Riipen-York team directly to schedule your course planning and onboarding session by emailing yorku@riipen.com.
- During your course planning session, you’ll collaborate to build a draft experience post on Riipen which will be used to match with the best industry partners. You’ll also establish requirements, milestones, and expected timelines.
- Riipen will provide project recommendations, and you’ll also have full access to thousands of options in the Riipen open marketplace.
- You will approve the company projects that you want to pair with students.
- The students start working on the projects with requirements and a timeline you determine.
Steps for Employers to Get Started on Riipen:
Getting started to work with York students is easy! Take a look at this quick overview for next steps, or reach out to the dedicated Riipen-York University team for further assistance yorku@riipen.com.
- Sign Up for Riipen. If you haven’t already received an email invitation directly to the York portal, please sign up for Riipen using this special link.
- Create your personal and company profiles. As part of the sign-up, you’ll be walked through creating both a personal profile and a profile for your company, which you can invite colleagues to.
- Create a Project on Riipen. Your project will be a description of what you would like students to do for your company. If you are setting up your account based on an email invitation from Riipen, you may already have a draft project started for you! You can check this by going to your dashboard.
- Publish your project so that it is live and ready to be matched with students!
- After you’ve signed up using the access link, you will be able to see all of the Riipen courses that are currently being offered at York University. Click ‘Schools’ in your dashboard to see the school(s) you are working with.
- If you see a course or program that looks like a good fit, click on “Submit Project” in the top right corner of the posting. This will prompt you to select a project that you have created.
- It is also possible to browse courses and programs before creating a project. If you see a posting that you’re interested in, clicking on “Submit Project” in the top right corner will take you straight to the Project Wizard in order to create a new project from scratch.
- Watch for notifications about your acceptance by educators, where you’ll dialogue about alignment and next steps in working with students.