Complete College America (CCA) and Riipen are thrilled to announce a groundbreaking initiative that aims to revolutionize higher education by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) education and work-based learning into curricula.

5 visionary open-access institutions will join this transformative consortium and collaborate to equip students with cutting-edge AI skills and real-world experience, preparing them for the rapidly evolving workforce of tomorrow.

Program Objectives

Broaden equitable access to experiential learning opportunities in a cost-effective and scalable way.
Utilize employer-integrated project-based experiential learning as a proven vehicle to increase student success and provide skills for learners to be responsive to a disrupted labor economy.Utilize employer-integrated project-based experiential learning as a proven vehicle to increase student success and provide skills for learners to be responsive to a disrupted labor economy.
Through experiential learning opportunities, embed artificial intelligence education competencies into academic programs to provide needed skills for the most at-risk workers in industries/roles that will be disrupted by AI technology. Participants will learn skills needed now to secure roles that increase economic and social mobility today and into the future.
Provide higher education institutions experiential learning tools and resources to innovate academic skill mastery and become responsive to quickly changing workforce needs.

How the Consortium Works

Each selected institution will form a dynamic team consisting of:
- 5 Full-time faculty members from diverse disciplines
- A career services or workforce alignment / readiness executive
- The chief academic officer or equivalent senior administrator
Faculty, career services teams, and employers will engage in developing AI-focused experiential learning competencies that authentically assesses student learning and skill mastery.
Faculty champions will be tasked with integrating AI-focused work-based learning projects into new or existing courses.
During the first six months of the project - all team members will participate in a series of webinars developed and offered by the Riipen staff. These webinars will introduce team members to the Riipen platform and provide detailed guidance on how to integrate work-based learning projects with industry partners into existing or new courses.
Participating colleges will offer courses at least once during each of the next two academic years, starting in Spring 2025.
The career services professional and academic officer will play crucial roles in aligning AI work-based learning projects with broader curricular goals and career preparation activities.
All team members will actively participate in evaluating the project's success and impact on student outcomes and economic mobility.

Project Timeline

September 30, 2024
Application deadline. 
October 30, 2024
Selection of participating institutions. 
January 2025 
Launch of community of practice. 
Spring 2025
Take part in collaborations to develop AI experiential learning competencies with employers, and AI expert consultants.
Spring 2025
Intensive training of faculty champions on the Riipen platform and course design.
Summer 2025 - Fall 2025
First round of work-based learning (WBL) course.
Fall 2025 - Spring 2026
The community of practice discusses evaluation results from the first round of courses. Campus teams assess the first round of courses from their institutions and begin making revisions. The external evaluator collects data on WBL courses and controls courses at the institutions.
Fall 2025
Second round of WBL courses. 
Spring 2026
Final evaluation activities (institutions submit data to CCA, CCA conducts evaluation).

Project Implementation

Webinars and training

Participants will engage in a series of webinars with Riipen staff, learning best practices for using the platform, integrating work-based learning projects with industry partners, and establishing successful collaborations with peers at similar institutions.
Platform setup

Riipen will create a dedicated hub for the network on its marketplace and develop individual landing pages for each participating institution. Faculty members will receive guidance on setting up their course pages and recruiting potential employer partners.
Access to resources

Participants will gain access to Riipen's extensive library of work-based learning resources, templates, and case studies, allowing them to effectively design and implement courses tailored to their specific needs and institutional contexts.
Ongoing support

Throughout the project, Riipen and CCA staff will provide continuous support to the institutional teams, working closely with them to ensure successful course launches and revisions for each academic year.
Collaboration & Knowledge Sharing

Institutional teams will meet regularly, facilitated by CCA and Riipen staff, to share their experiences, challenges, and successes in integrating work-based learning into their courses. This collaboration will foster a community of practice focused on the continuous improvement of work-based learning in member institutions. 

Project Funder

Axim Collaborative


Axim Collaborative is a joint endeavor by Harvard and MIT. It is the successor to edX, the online learning platform launched by the two universities in 2012. edX was created with the goal of increasing access to high-quality learning opportunities, advancing digital learning technologies, and enhancing teaching and learning on campus and online through research. Today, Axim and its trustees bring forth this pioneering experience in online education matched with a dedication to making a meaningful difference in post-secondary education for students everywhere.

To learn more, visit www.axim.org

About CCA & Riipen

Complete College America


Complete College America (CCA) is a bold national advocate for dramatically increasing college completion rates and closing institutional performance gaps by working with states, systems, institutions, and partners to scale highly effective structural reforms and promote policies that improve student success.

To learn more, visit www.completecollege.org

Riipen


Riipen is a work-based learning platform helping educators, organizations, and learners collaborate on real industry projects to bridge the gap between higher education and employment. With a network of 27000+ employers and trusted by 430 academic institutions and training providers, Riipen helps educators integrate real-employer projects into program curriculum leading to improved student engagement and employability outcomes.

To learn more, visit www.riipen.com

Consortium members will be announced in Fall 2024.

Resources & FAQ's

Powered by Riipen, the leading work-based learning (WBL) platform, the CCA AI Readiness Consortium is a national network integrating work-based learning into the curriculum to broaden equitable access to experiential learning opportunities and embed artificial intelligence education competencies into academic programs to provide needed skills for the most at-risk workers in industries/roles that will be disrupted by AI technology.

Frequently Asked Questions

What institutions are eligible to apply for the Consortium?

CCA seeks to attract a diverse cohort of member institutions to the AI Readiness Consortium. Selection priority will be given to institutions that serve (or seek to serve) students who have historically faced barriers to participating in traditional internships. This includes first-generation students, low-income students, students of color, and students who attend institutions in rural areas. Recognizing the critical role community colleges play in serving traditionally underserved learners, this program is open only to community colleges in the United States.

What courses would make the best fit for the Consortium?

Community college applicants should name five faculty champions who will each revise one course each year of the pilot. These courses can be drawn from across either academic and professional fields, with the main consideration being if these courses are able to connect learners to career pathways and employers in that career pathway, and have some opportunity for AI-technology to enhance the experiential learning opportunity. In selecting courses and disciplines, applicants should also consider how these courses will serve the student populations who are most likely to face barriers to traditional internship experiences, particularly African-American students, Latina/o students, first-generation students, and students from lower-income households.

What types of employers do colleges and universities work with through the Riipen platform?

Employers on Riipen come from a variety of backgrounds, geographies, and sizes. They’re brought into the Riipen ecosystem from a variety of sources including events, digital ads, partner networks, chambers of commerce, direct outreach, referrals, and search engines. With nearly 30,000 small to mid-sized businesses and charities operating in 31 industries in the ecosystem, as well as familiar names like Deloitte, IMAX, there is a wide variety of employers and projects on the Riipen platform. Riipen is used at more than 400 colleges and universities, ranging in size and locations, state and private and community colleges.

Are students compensated for their work with employers?

As the Riipen platform integrates work-based learning projects into coursework, these projects are considered part of a student’s course credit and are not compensated. These projects are above all an educational experience for students, with faculty members and employers working together to design projects that help students develop workplace skills and to provide mentorship and network-building opportunities.

What is the cost of the Riipen platform for Consortium members?

For the 5 institutions selected to participate in the AI Readiness Consortium, the Riipen platform will be made available at no cost for the five courses in the 2024-2025 & 2025-2026 academic years.

Can participating community colleges include additional faculty members/courses in the Consortium?

The grant-funded AI Readiness Consortium is limited to the five faculty champions at the 5 participating institutions, so these are the only courses that will be paid for by the grant or included in the consortium programming. However, institutions are welcome to pay for additional educators to use the Riipen platform and integrate these work-based learning projects into their courses on a case-by-case basis. Contact CCA and Riipen staff for further guidance. Riipen will share a pricing plan with selected institutions who wish to host additional faculty members on Riipen's platform.

Will participating institutions have an obligation to continue hosting the Riipen platform at their own expense after the grant concludes in 2026?

Institutions are not required to commit to paying for the Riipen platform after the grant concludes. However, CCA requests that applicants think ahead beyond the grant-funded stage: if this program is a good fit for the institution, how would the expense be covered through the operating budget and/or fundraising.

What types of projects do students undertake through the Riipen platform?

Projects that students complete on the Riipen platform are vetted, and approved by their educator and curated for them to work on for course credit. Projects vary in scope and duration based on the type of program and how the educator wants to deliver the work-based learning experience in their course. Projects are typically completed in groups, and collaboration with employers is enabled through Riipen communication and collaboration tools. The number of hours required for students for each project is up to their educator, and ranges from 10 hours to 200 hours, however the average is around 40 hours per student over the course of an academic semester. Riipen project marketplace has a very diverse range of categories and types, however the most common include; marketing, strategic consulting, communications, data analytics, software development, website development, digital content strategy, cyber security, human resources, grant writing, and market research. Review live project scopes here.

What is the expected time commitment for the faculty champions at the selected institutions?

The first phase of the pilot project will consist of developing AI competencies, which will include focus groups and working sessions, that convene either virtually or in-person, as well as labor market data analysis and AI-integration into institutional priorities. This work will be guided and supported by Complete College America. 

To start using Riipen and have a successful course experience, onboarding and training for first time users is approximately 5-6 hours in total. This would include creating the course page, utilizing the marketplace for projects and connecting with employers as part of the matching process. A huge part of course success is making sure that the relationship and expectations between the faculty and employer are well aligned. Committing to connecting with the employers introduced by Riipen should be considered as a part of that time commitment.

How will faculty members be trained on using Riipen’s platform?

Faculty members will have an onboarding experience that is designed to support how to best utilize the Riipen platform and support their students. The journey starts with pre-onboarding where we gather early stage requirements from faculty such as course materials, employer partner preferences and their ideal timelines. Onboarding is done directly with their assigned Riipen Experience Consultant and walks them through the platform from getting signed up, setting up their course experience page, how to use the marketplace and how to get students into the platform. We’ll also walk through some hand selected employer projects to start the matchmaking process. After onboarding they will continue to work with their Experience Consultant if they need support with troubleshooting or how to use any Riipen features. In addition to this they’ll have 24/7 access to all of the Riipen training materials and guides available online.

Riipen Platform Tour

The CCA AI Readiness Consortium on Riipen

Each consortium member manages its WBL experiences in their own private Riipen portal with customizable branding and workflows, and their own employer ecosystem. This ensures brand recognition and trust from partners while integrating with each college's software tools to make onboarding and usage seamless. Riipen’s sub-portal feature connects member portals to ensure centralized data collection and impact reporting for the whole consortium.


Open Marketplace

Match your experiences to real company projects through the largest project based learning marketplace in the world.

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Private Marketplace

Match your experiences to real company projects through the largest project based learning marketplace in the world.

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Custom Reporting

Riipen reports are vital when it comes to understanding the outcomes of all of your partners and learners, identifying trends, and assessing the impact of work based learning experiences. View, customise, and build reporting across all of your data inside Riipen and track the inputs and outcomes of all your experiences.

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Surveying

Use surveys to assess skills before and after a project, track learning outcomes from learners and employers, or to check-in mid project to ensure everything is on track. Riipen’s custom surveys feature is designed to capture skill development, enhance employability outcome tracking, and elevate overall project satisfaction.

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