Naropa University

Transform yourself. Transform the world.

Naropa is a private, liberal arts university based in Boulder, Colorado and a world leader in the modern mindfulness and contemplative education movements. The university offers a unique style of education that integrates Eastern wisdom studies with mainstream Western academic scholarship. Undergraduate and graduate degree programs include disciplines such as psychology, writing, education, divinity and the arts.

The Naropa School of Extended Studies first approached Interplicity with a vision of expanding public-facing adult education programs from in-person seminar experiences held in Boulder to online experiences that could be offered to the world. With rapid adoption of science-based mindfulness practices in the West, many people look to Naropa for their leadership in the practical applications of mindfulness research and education.

The Authentic Leadership Center (ALC) at Naropa also provides public-facing programs geared toward professional and leadership development. Utilizing the disciplines of mindfulness, organizational learning, expressive arts, neuroscience, and complexity science, the ALC’s transformative learning method fosters deep insight and increased leadership capacity for positive impact in organizations and society.

Project Requirements

Although Naropa had embraced eLearning as an adjunct to their academic degree program tracks for over a decade, their existing learning management system did not provide the kind of consumer-engaging usability or integrated marketing, e-commerce and end user support functionality needed to attract and serve large public audiences. They needed a new system and supporting services to deliver on a vision of a new public-facing business model.

  • Custom Branded Platform 95% 95%
  • E-Commerce & Course Registration 80% 80%
  • Course Building & Curriculum Design 50% 50%
  • Marketing, Communications & Social Media 65% 65%

Strategy

Working with Interplicity, a community learning system was developed based on an open-source software stack. In this way the university would fully own their public-facing learning management system and have the ability to customize its capabilities rather than be bound to functionality limits of turnkey systems. In addition, a customized ecommerce system, again based on an open-source software stack, was implemented to give public programs the ability to register participants plus process payments and donations with multiple payment plans and integrate customer transactions with marketing automation. A marketing web site was deployed to serve as the marketing hub for public programs.

Interplicity additionally supported instructional design and course authoring of multiple versions of ALC leadership development courses. Some of those courses also utilized Interplicity media production services, including high-production-value video and audio lessons plus live streaming production and moderation services.

Interplicity continues to serve Naropa as a development, marketing and end-user support agency. Interplicity provides marketing web pages, blog copy writing, email and social media content marketing, and Interplicity has developed affiliate marketing programs and managed advertising placements. When end users need assistance with online systems, the Interplicity help desk provides timely support.

Results

For the Authentic Leadership Center, who now lead the public-facing program presentations, the system has served new audiences that Naropa has never reached before. Analytics and user surveys indicate that public learners are engaging, completing and showing satisfaction with online courses at much higher rates than eLearning industry averages. The organization’s list of email and social media followers has quadrupled and continues growing. The university now owns an asset that can propel public programs into further expansion and a very competitive future.

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