The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange

This is the authoritative guide to implementing COIL Virtual Exchange, conceived, and co-edited by one of the originators of this innovative approach to internationalization, Jon Rubin. COIL, the acronym for Collaborative Online International Learning, is a central modality of what has come to be known as virtual exchange. Since its first iteration in 2002, it has gradually established itself as a mature pedagogy that is being increasingly implemented across the world and is validated by a growing body of research.

COIL Virtual Exchange at its most essential is a bi-lateral online exchange involving the integration of existing courses across two, or sometimes more, institutions that are geographically and/or culturally distinct. To launch a COIL VE course, the instructor of a class at a higher education institution in one location links online with a professor and his or her class in another region or country. Together, their students engage and develop joint projects, usually over a continuous five to eight-week period.

Compared to the limited number of students worldwide who can engage in study abroad, COIL VE potentially opens up more equitable and inclusive participation in international education and intercultural experiences to all students, involves them in rigorous disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies, and promotes close and constructive engagement with students with different cultural perspectives.

While many COIL courses are launched by individual instructors, based on their research connections and online outreach, they are being increasingly supported and led by dedicated COIL Coordinators who facilitate virtual exchanges and provide professional development.

This comprehensive guide covers COIL VE pedagogy, provides examples of what takes place in the COIL classroom, and explores what instructors and staff need to know to facilitate and support a variety of COIL courses across the curriculum. It addresses how institutional stakeholders, especially those in leadership positions, can develop and embed a successful COIL initiative at their institution. It offers varied perspectives of COIL viewed from different institutional and cultural vantage points -- from research universities, community and technical colleges, and university systems -- and describes how COIL VE is developing in five different world regions, presenting eleven case studies.

The book concludes with a guide to thirteen global organizations that support COIL and other forms of VE. Additionally, the book provides links to the COIL Connect for Virtual Exchange website (https://coilconnect.org) which includes an updated directory of organizations, an expanding database of faculty and institutions participating in COIL and looking for partners, course templates, survey data, and case studies.

This book offers faculty and administrators across the world -- whether formally involved in international education, in service-learning and community engagement, or wanting to incorporate a cross-cultural perspective in their disciplinary courses -- theoretical foundations, guidance on effective collaboration, and the strategic and pedagogical considerations to develop robust COIL VE courses and programs.

Jon Rubin, founder and former director of SUNY’s COIL Center, is director of both COIL Consulting and COIL Connect for Virtual Exchange (https://coilconnect.org) a web initiative that supports institutions committed to COIL Virtual Exchange. He co-facilitated four iterations of the COIL Leadership Institute between 2017-2021, with the American Council on Education and later with Florida International University.

Sarah Guth is the President of UNICollaboration, a cross-disciplinary professional organization for telecollaboration and virtual exchange in Higher Education, and teaches English as a Foreign Language at the University of Padova, Italy where she has implemented virtual exchange (VE) for two decades. She was the Program Coordinator at the SUNY COIL Center from 2013 to 2014. She currently focuses on the role of professional development in VE and the integration of VE into internationalization-at-home strategies.

Stephanie Doscher is Director of Florida International University’s Office of Collaborative Online International Learning (FIU COIL). She also serves as Program Evaluator for the university’s Title VI-funded Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean National Resource Center.

Stephanie’s work focuses primarily on organizational leadership and strategic planning, professional development, and integrative curricular and co-curricular design to enable global learning for all. Her research interests concern global learning instruction and assessment and the relationship between global learning, social innovation, and inclusive excellence. Stephanie advises a wide range of colleges and universities and presents engaging workshops for faculty and staff on methods for realizing their unique visions for transformative global learning.

In addition to her co-authored article with Hilary Landorf, “Defining Global Learning at Florida International University,” recent publications include “Global Learning for Global Citizenship” in Human Development and Capabilities: Reimagining the University of the 21st Century, “Promoting Engagement in Curriculum Internationalization” in IIE Networker, and “Education for Sustainable Human Development: Towards a Definition” in Theory and Research in Education.

Dr. Carrie Prior is associate dean of the School for Graduate Studies at Excelsior University, and is a former senior international officer with expertise in globally focused academics, experiential education abroad, and COIL/virtual exchange. As a practitioner-scholar, her areas of expertise include internationalization, globally focused academics, distinguished international scholarships, experiential education abroad, and COIL/virtual exchange. Dr. Prior holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, a M.A. in International Education from the SIT Graduate Institute, and an Ed.D. in the Design of Learning Environments from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Hans de Wit is distinguished fellow and professor emeritus of the practice in international higher education at the Center for International Higher Education (CIHE) at Boston College, USA. During 2015–2020, he was full-time director of CIHE. He is senior fellow of the International Association of Universities (IAU), based at UNESCO.

Hans de Wit is founding member (1989) and past president (1993–1994) of the European Association forInternational Education (EAIE). He is the founding editor of the Journal of Studies in International Education (Association for Studies in International Education/SAGE), and consulting editor of the journal Policy Reviews in Higher Education (SRHE). He is associate chief editor of International Higher Education, and coeditor of the book series Global Perspectives in Higher Education (Brill/Sense).

He has (co)written many books and articles on international(ization of) higher education and is actively involved in assessment and consultancy in international education, for organizations such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, UNESCO, the World Bank, and IAU.

He has been director of the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (CHEI) at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) in Milan, Italy, and professor of internationalization of higher education at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. In 2005–2006, he was selected as a scholar of the Fulbright New Century Scholars Program.

During 1996–2005, he was vice-president for international affairs at the University of Amsterdam. He holds a bachelor degree, a master degree, and a PhD from the University of Amsterdam.

In 2022, CIHE established the Hans de Wit Fellowship for Early Career Researchers in Higher Education with seed funding from World Education Services. In December 2021, De Wit received the North Star Medal of Lifetime Achievement under the A. Noam Chomsky Global Connections Awards of StarScholars (Society of Transnational Academic Scholars). In 2019, he was the recipient of the Charles Klasek Award of the Association for International Education Administrators (AIEA) for long-term and outstanding service to the field of international education. He has received several other awards from the following organizations: EAIE (2008), NAFSA (2002), CIEE (2006), University of Amsterdam (2006), AMPEI (2014), and UCSC (2015).