Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is often framed as an example of a broader practice known as Virtual Exchange (VE). The term Virtual Exchange has increasingly been used as an attempt to unify a fragmented field of Higher Education practice and is often used interchangeably with the term COIL. However, the design of COIL, with its strong focus on collaborative and intercultural learning, is often very different to other VE initiatives. Labelling all VE initiatives, including COIL, generally as VE, can lead to both educators and researchers having difficulty identifying and distinguishing COIL. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of VE and define COIL and its key characteristics. This article also describes how theory can inform practice and explains why continued interchangeable use of the term COIL with the umbrella term Virtual Exchange is unhelpful for future research and practice.
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This chapter discusses the following keywords for learning outcomes for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). 1. Clarity: Knowing what you want your students to achieve. 2. Shared: Designed together with your partner to match your course content. 3. Aligned: Linking different components (outcomes, assessment, and activities) of your COIL project together.
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Collaborative learning is not a new teaching and learning approach; it has been around since the 1970s and is an evidence-based practice that has been proven to be effective time after time. Therefore, instead of reinventing the wheel or only relying on best practices or anecdotal evidence of what works and what doesn’t, especially when designing Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) environments, educators might find it useful to make use of existing collaborative learning instructional design elements. These elements have been scientifically proven to be effective and can be applied in both the physical and online international classroom.
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In this study we measured the effect of COIL on intercultural competence development using a quasi-experimental design. Our sample consisted of 108 undergraduate students from two universities, one located in the Netherlands (NL) and one in the United States (US). Students’ self-reported intercultural competence was measured using a pre-post survey which included the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) and Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Qualitative data were collected to complement our quantitative findings and to give a deeper insight into the student experience. The data showed a significantly bigger increase in intercultural competence for the US experimental group compared to the US control group, supporting our hypothesis that COIL develops intercultural competence. This difference was not observed for the NL students, possibly due to the NL control group being exposed to other international input during the course.
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At THUAS we focus on Collaborative Online lnternational Learning for virtual collaboration. This Is a shared syllabus approach, connecting groups of students and academics from THUAS to a group of students and academics at an international partner. Virtual Collaboration is seen as one of the approaches to integrate the concept of lnternationalization at home In the whole curriculum. With the wider aim focused on reaching all students and offering purposeful integration for the domestic learning environments. (Beelen, Jones, 2015 Redefining lnternationalization at Home.)
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In November 2019, scholars and practitioners from ten higher education institutions celebrated the launch of the iKudu project. This project, co-funded by Erasmus [1], focuses on capacity development for curriculum transformation through internationalisation and development of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) virtual exchange. Detailed plans for 2020 were discussed including a series of site visits and face-to-face training. However, the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the plans in ways that could not have been foreseen and new ways of thinking and doing came to the fore. Writing from an insider perspective as project partners, in this paper we draw from appreciative inquiry, using a metaphor of a mosaic as our identity, to first provide the background on the iKudu project before sharing the impact of the pandemic on the project’s adapted approach. We then discuss how alongside the focus of iKudu in the delivery of an internationalised and transformed curriculum using COIL, we have, by our very approach as project partners, adopted the principles of COIL exchange. A positive impact of the pandemic was that COIL offered a consciousness raising activity, which we suggest could be used more broadly in order to help academics think about international research practice partnerships, and, as in our situation, how internationalised and decolonised curriculum practices might be approached. 1. KA2 Erasmus+ Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices (capacity building in the field of Higher Education)
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We examined intercultural conversations in English between South African and Dutch pre-service teachers during a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project. Unlike traditional COIL research, which emphasizes good practices and professional development, our approach explored the significance of everyday conversations in finding common ground. Through video analysis, we explored instances when common ground fostered a third space—a hybrid, in-between space—with the potential to promote equity and inclusivity. Results highlight how intercultural, professional, and personal conversations created temporary moments of third space. The role of “connection” in a COIL project shows how specific snapshots of intercultural communication and personal and normative conversations give alternative insights into pre-service teacher professional development. These dynamics suggest the importance of a more humanistic approach through descriptions of small, everyday conversational snapshots. Results in this study confirm that a North-South COIL project using English as a lingua franca is an effective way to promote inclusion and mutual understanding.
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This chapter revisits the concept of internationalisation at home in light of the COVID pandemic and also of experiences and ongoing discourses on internationalisation. These include how internationalisation at home relates to diversity, inclusion and decolonisation of curricula. It discusses how the COVID pandemic has led to increased attention to internationalisation at home but also that confusion about terminology and the desire for physical mobility to be available to students may lead us to return to pre-COVID practices, in which internationalisation is mainly understood as mobility for a small minority of students and internationalisation of the home curriculum is a poor second best. A component of this chapter is how Virtual Exchange and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) have moved into the spotlight during the pandemic but were already in focus areas well before. This will be illustrated by some recent developments in internationalisation at home, mainly from non-Anglophone, European and particularly Dutch perspectives.
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Long before the COVID pandemic, we had already realised that traditional forms of internationalisation had their limitations. Mobility of students had remained limited to a small minority of students, a ‘cultural elite’. We had also become aware that student mobility was mostly from the global north to the south and that some of its effects were unwanted, and could lead to ‘white saviourism’. Finally, before the COVID pandemic we were already discussing the CO2 imprint of mobility and considering ‘greener’ forms of mobility of students and staff. More than twenty years ago, around 2000, attempts had already emerged to bring the benefits of internationalisation to all students through internationalisation at home. At the time, this was defined as “Any internationally related activity with the exception of outbound student and staff mobility”. This definition did not mention explicitly that all students were targeted and also omitted the purpose of these activities.
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Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is considered an inclusive form of internationalisation because it would be accessible to all students. The authors challenge this assumption by exploring three exclusion mechanisms and make a plea for research into inclusion mechanisms that make COIL truly collaborative.
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