What if there was an online experiential learning platform that would facilitate safe communication between teachers, students, and external partners? An online marketplace where societal partners could seek out cooperation with students and teachers from our university. A tool that facilitates the matching process for impact-driven education and societal issues. Not only would this increase the impact of our education and the societal engagement of our students. It would also lighten the workload of our teachers when it comes to finding societal partners for their courses and managing collaborative communication channels. Luckily these scenarios are about to become a reality, because Riipen is coming to Erasmus University Rotterdam!
In short, Riipen is an online experiential learning platform and marketplace. Through Riipen, students will have the opportunity to work with societal partners on projects that are directly related to their field of study. This allows students to gain hands-on experience in their field and develop the skills required to tackle today’s societal challenges. All while working with societal partners. In addition to this, by working with students, organizations can gain fresh perspectives and new ideas while also advancing their own initiatives to address the challenges faced by society.
Of course, it is vital that communication between partners and our students is safe, especially when dealing with sensitive information. Currently there is no option to effectively communicate with external partners from within the learning environment. This means that all collaboration and communication within education with partners takes place outside of the learning environment of EUR, leading to extra risks regarding privacy and monitoring, especially when dealing with sensitive information. Through Riipen, student teams can communicate in a secure environment and work together with the stakeholder or partner, considering the privacy needs of external partners and our own organization.
Besides the security risks, it’s no secret that it can be a time-consuming process to integrate real-life problems from external stakeholders into our education. Especially for our teachers. To work with societal partners, teachers heavily rely on their own connection and networks. Something that slows down the process of integrating impact-driven education in our curriculum. This is an issue Impact at the Core has faced repeatedly while designing impact-driven education together with our teachers. This is one of the great benefits of Riipen. Within the platform there is an open central marketplace where our teachers can place an open call for collaborating with external partners, who in their turn, can propose projects in which they want to work together with our students. This will make it much easier to find partners to collaborate. And if there is no suitable partner? Don’t worry, the Impact at the Core knowledge brokers can assist you with finding the perfect societal partner for your course!
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Impact at the Core is working hard behind the scenes to launch Riipen at Erasmus University before May 2023. This means the platform will be up, running, and ready to be used by the start of the next academic year. Do you want more information about Riipen and what it can mean for your education? Please contact us at riipen@eur.nl
In the blog series “Road to Riipen” Impact at the Core will keep you updates about the implementation process of Riipen at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Next in the series: a look behind the scenes.
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Impact at the Core is a central innovation program at Erasmus University Rotterdam that works on education within which students work together on solutions for societal problems. We do this by designing, strengthening and co-developing initiatives for so-called impact-driven education. By that, we mean education in which our positive contribution to society plays a central role.
