With more than 74,000 active members and millions of interactions, RioConnect demonstrates how online communities can scale belonging and persistence in higher education.
DENVER and TEMPE, Ariz., Oct. 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Rio Salado College, one of the nation’s largest online public colleges, has had over four years of success with RioConnect, its pioneering virtual community that fosters peer-to-peer connection and belonging in online learning. Built in collaboration with InScribe, RioConnect has scaled from an initial pilot into a central hub of student life, with tens of thousands of members and millions of interactions. This long-term partnership demonstrates how belonging can be built and sustained at scale in online environments, offering a model other colleges and universities can adopt to support their own students.
Demonstrated Outcomes
Since its introduction, RioConnect has consistently delivered strong results:
- 40% increase in belonging reported among students who engage on the platform.
- 14% growth in peer connectedness, benefiting both early adopters and late joiners.
- Sustained activity including hundreds of conversations, student help requests, and thousands of views and reactions, year over year.
- High usability and satisfaction, with students describing RioConnect as authentic, inclusive, and easy to use.
Community Engagement
RioConnect’s impact goes beyond short-term gains. Over time, the community has scaled into a high-value knowledge hub where a relatively small number of peer questions generate outsized impact for tens of thousands of students. The result is millions of interactions that give even the quietest students a voice, helping to strengthen belonging, improve persistence, and ease the burden on faculty and staff.
- 74,832 active members
- 9.3 million conversation views
- 157,206 resource views
- 1.17 million live support views
- 1,100 student questions asked and answered
“At Rio Salado College, we know flexibility is essential for our students, but flexibility alone is not enough. Students also need to feel seen, supported, and part of a community. RioConnect allows us to meet students where they are while ensuring they don’t have to navigate their education alone,” said Janelle Elias, Vice President of Strategy & Academic Affairs at Rio Salado College.
Tackling the Challenge of Online Belonging
With more than 40,000 students annually, including 21,000 fully online across all 50 states and internationally, Rio Salado College serves one of the most diverse and distributed student populations in the country. RioConnect was designed to address the challenge of isolation in asynchronous and rolling-enrollment models by:
- Empowering peer-driven leadership to create authentic student engagement.
- Lowering barriers to access with auto-enrollment and simple onboarding.
- Providing safe, inclusive spaces for sharing struggles, advice, and successes.
Proven Institutional Benefits
The benefits of RioConnect extend beyond students. Faculty and advisors experience reduced workload thanks to peer-to-peer support, staff gain actionable insights from student conversations, and the college community as a whole benefits from improved engagement and retention.
From an institutional perspective, 1,100 peer-asked questions have deflected millions of potential support needs that would otherwise land on faculty or staff, translating into significant time and cost savings while allowing educators to focus on higher-value teaching and advising.
“RioConnect has enhanced how our students experience online learning. The measurable gains in belonging and connectedness are powerful, but even more inspiring are the stories of students who said they finally felt part of something bigger than themselves,” added Elias.
“Our partnership with Rio Salado is a powerful example of what’s possible when colleges and EdTech providers work side by side over the long term,” said Katy Kappler, Co-Founder and CEO of InScribe. “By building RioConnect together, we’ve shown that scalable, peer-driven belonging is not only achievable but sustainable.”
Looking Ahead
As Rio Salado College continues to expand RioConnect, InScribe remains a strategic partner in this journey. Together, the two organizations are committed to deepening belonging, refining features through continuous feedback, and modeling how long-term collaboration between colleges and technology providers can transform the student experience.
About InScribe
InScribe is a digital student support platform that leverages the power of community and artificial intelligence to connect students with the answers, resources, and individuals they need to succeed. InScribe’s digital communities cut across the traditional support silos in higher education, giving students a single place to turn when they need help—no matter the topic or time of day. Students benefit from on-demand, peer-to-peer, and student-to-expert collaboration which helps them feel more connected, increasing student engagement, satisfaction, and retention. Learn more about InScribe at https://www.inscribeapp.com/.
About Rio Salado College
Founded in 1978 and headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, Rio Salado College is one of the largest online public colleges in the United States, serving more than 40,000 students annually, including more than 21,000 online learners across all 50 states and internationally. With more than 600 online classes and 135 degree and certificate programs, Rio specializes in flexible pathways that serve diverse populations, including dual enrollment, military, incarcerated, and adult education learners. Learn more about Rio Salado College.
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SOURCE InScribe
