Riipen Networks

Riipen Networks Riipen is the world’s leading online work-integrated learning platform.

🥑 Feature focus: Easier collaboration on learner submissions.Employers can now tag teammates directly in milestone and f...
06/23/2026

🥑 Feature focus: Easier collaboration on learner submissions.

Employers can now tag teammates directly in milestone and final submission comments, making it easier to bring a colleague’s attention to a specific deliverable.

When someone is tagged, they’ll receive both an in-app notification and an email, helping teams stay aligned without needing to send a separate message.

A simpler way to keep project feedback moving.

What’s new?
✅ Tag teammates in milestone and final submission comments.
✅ Notify tagged users by email and in-app activity.
✅ Bring colleague input into specific deliverables.
✅ Keep feedback and context in one place.

A small update that helps employers collaborate more easily when supporting learner projects.

Read the Help Center article through the link in the comments. ⤵️

What actually creates lasting systems change?💡 Not a single program. Not one policy. Not one partnership.In the final pi...
06/18/2026

What actually creates lasting systems change?

💡 Not a single program. Not one policy. Not one partnership.

In the final piece of this series, Riipen’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, Dr. Mara Woody, brings together the three levers she has explored throughout her work: convening, financial policy, and statutory policy, and explains why transformation only happens when they move in alignment.

This reflection goes beyond theory. It examines what happens when institutions, employers, policymakers, and communities stop working in parallel and begin building toward shared outcomes together.

At the center of it all is a simple idea: systems do not change through isolated action. They change through trust.

In this piece, Mara explores:
✅ Why no single lever creates sustainable change
✅ How alignment, funding, and policy reinforce one another
✅ The role of trust in building stronger ecosystems
✅ What enablement looks like through the ADVE Framework
✅ Why scaling work-based learning requires systems, not pilots

📚 Read more through the link in the comments.

A class project became a paid client opportunity. ✨Jane Pham, an international student at Bow Valley College, worked wi...
06/16/2026

A class project became a paid client opportunity. ✨

Jane Pham, an international student at Bow Valley College, worked with OnLocation through Riipen as part of her Digital Marketing Capstone.

The experience helped her gain Canadian client experience, build confidence, strengthen her portfolio, and take the next step in her marketing career.

Read Jane’s story through the link in the comments. ⤵️

Career readiness isn't produced by one experience at the end of a degree, it's built across the whole of it.This is the ...
06/15/2026

Career readiness isn't produced by one experience at the end of a degree, it's built across the whole of it.

This is the foundation for Riipen's Career Connected Campus: a scaffolded continuum of career-connected learning that starts early, builds year over year, and reaches students across every major. Each experience prepares students for the next, so readiness compounds rather than resting on a single high-stakes moment.

When students reach those moments already prepared, every existing investment works harder. Retention strengthens, employment outcomes improve, and the institution can differentiate its degree with a concrete promise of what it will produce.

This isn't something you can build program by program. It's institutional infrastructure, and Riipen makes it operational at scale. The institutions that treat it that way will lead on graduate outcomes in the next decade.

As Dana Stephenson, Co-Founder and CEO of Riipen, puts it:

"Institutions have already done remarkable work to prepare students. Career Connected Campus is how that work compounds, opening real pathways to economic mobility for students across every major and background."

Read more below. ⤵️

Dr. Mara Woody, Riipen’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, questions:⭐ What turns work-based learning from a promising...
06/11/2026

Dr. Mara Woody, Riipen’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, questions:

⭐ What turns work-based learning from a promising initiative into an institutional expectation?
⭐ What happens when experiential learning is no longer optional, but embedded into the structure of higher education itself?

While funding can create momentum, Mara argues that statutory policy defines what systems are ultimately designed to deliver. Through examples from Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado, she examines how legislation can shift work-based learning from an isolated opportunity to a shared expectation across institutions.

This is not just about policy. It is about architecture.

Interested in more insights? Read on and explore what it takes to build work-based learning into the system itself: https://hubs.li/Q04kMSLC0

Dr. Mara Woody, Riipen’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, explores why financial policy may be one of the most overlo...
06/05/2026

Dr. Mara Woody, Riipen’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, explores why financial policy may be one of the most overlooked drivers of systems change in higher education and workforce development.

Drawing on examples from states like California, Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, and Virginia, Mara examines how funding can turn work-based learning from an isolated opportunity into a scalable infrastructure.

The takeaway is clear: where funding flows, systems follow.

This is not just about investment. It is about intentional design.

In the blog, Mara reflects on:
💡 How states are using funding to expand work-based learning
🤔 Why employer participation depends on reducing barriers
⭐ The difference between isolated programs and ecosystem investment
🤝 Why community and trust matter as much as policy
💰 How financial levers fit within the ADVE Framework

Read more and explore how financial policy can help systems move from intention to scale: https://hubs.li/Q04jy2yY0

06/04/2026

Strada's recent research on entry-level hiring in the AI era is reshaping how a lot of academic leaders are thinking about experiential strategy.

The core finding is that employers are starting to view graduates with project-based learning experience as comparably valuable to candidates with internship experience. That equivalence is new, and it tells us something important about what employers are actually screening for.

Employers are increasingly looking for the durable human capabilities that AI cannot easily replace: communication, critical thinking, working through ambiguity, and the ability to deliver real professional work alongside real stakeholders. Those are exactly the capabilities authentic project-based work develops, which is why employers are reading PBL experience as a credible signal of professional readiness.

That changes what career-connected learning needs to deliver. The question employers ask is whether a graduate can do the work themselves, and project-based learning provides concrete evidence.

More on this signal and others in our upcoming research brief.

👉 Read Strada's full analysis: https://hubs.li/Q04k3fPT0

Riipen is heading to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) 2026 conference in Denver.🍽️ On Wednesday...
06/03/2026

Riipen is heading to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) 2026 conference in Denver.

🍽️ On Wednesday, June 10, we’re sponsoring a luncheon session: “Scaling work-based learning: What it actually takes to reach every student”.

🎤 Moderated by Dr. Mara Woody, Riipen’s Director, Strategic Partnerships, the panel will feature Dr. Gabe Dunbar of Bowling Green State University, Christian Garcia of the University of Virginia, Melissa Martin of the Colorado Community College System, and Dr. Steve Russell of Bowling Green State University for a practical conversation on expanding access to meaningful, career-connected learning.

Are you headed to NACE 26? See you there!

What does it actually take to scale systems change in higher education?Dr. Mara Woody explores this question and more, h...
05/29/2026

What does it actually take to scale systems change in higher education?

Dr. Mara Woody explores this question and more, highlighting what many institutions are asking: why do strong ideas, aligned partners, and promising pilots so often struggle to last? 🤔

Examining the role of convening as a powerful but often misunderstood lever for change, Mara argues that scaling work-based learning is not about creating more isolated programs. It is about building the infrastructure, trust, and community needed to sustain meaningful collaboration.

For academic leaders, policymakers, and institutions working to expand access to experiential learning, this perspective offers a thoughtful look at how ecosystems are built and sustained.

🔓 Unlock more now! https://hubs.li/Q04hSZ350

05/28/2026

Finding the right talent shouldn’t feel overwhelming.

💡 For Nicolas Frendo and the team at Acephalt Inc., FuturePath helped simplify the hiring process by connecting them with candidates aligned to the roles they actually needed to fill.

The result? Less time sorting through applications, less hiring stress, and more time focused on growing their engineering team.

🎥 Hear how FuturePath supported their hiring journey.

👉 Interested in connecting with skilled student talent? Learn more about FuturePath: https://hubs.li/Q04gvw5w0

This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Initiative.

The ideas, views and opinions in this publication belong to the author(s). They may not reflect those of the Government of Canada.

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