Initiative
Virtual Exchange/ Collaborative Online International Learning
AAC&U supports the development and implementation of virtual exchange and collaborative online international learning programs, expanding access to meaningful global learning experiences that enhance students’ intercultural and professional competencies.
Empowering Students Through Global Education
Higher education—and liberal education, in particular—plays a critical role in preparing students to understand, proactively engage in, and work collaboratively to solve global issues and problems of importance at local, national, and international levels after graduation. This includes preparing students to be globally minded citizens and for careers by ensuring they have the opportunities, through in-person or virtual learning experiences, to cooperate with peers of different nationalities and cultures.
What Is VE/COIL?
Virtual exchange (VE), including one of its most comprehensive forms, collaborative online international learning (COIL), provides students with affordable opportunities to gain global competencies within their coursework wherever they are. It links together students and classrooms around the world through co-taught multicultural and blended online course work, bridging the physical distance between students through technological means.
🎥 Featured Video: Virtual Exchange and COIL – Global Collaboration. Local Impact. Lifelong Skills.
Discover how Virtual Exchange (VE) and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) connect classrooms across borders—helping students and educators build collaboration, adaptability, digital fluency, and intercultural understanding. This 4-minute video showcases real student and faculty voices from institutions around the world and demonstrates how VE/COIL supports institutional innovation, workforce readiness, and global engagement.
Why VE/COIL?
VE/COIL experiences, co-designed by educators and supported by committed institutions, offer students transformative learning experiences designed to:
- Enhance critical thinking and creative problem-solving abilities.
- Build effective oral and written communication skills.
- Foster teamwork and cultural awareness in diverse settings.
- Develop interdisciplinary innovation and digital teaching expertise.
For educators and institutions, VE/COIL also provides increased opportunities for interdisciplinary innovation and global collaboration between faculty and staff on digital teaching, research, and service-learning strategies for modern learners.
AAC&U’s VE/COIL Institute: Driving Institutional Change
Integrated into collaborative projects with global experts and partners, AAC&U’s VE/COIL Institute empowers higher education institutions to scale VE/COIL programs through:
- Innovative Implementation: Delivering VE/COIL at scale with forward-thinking capabilities.
- Strategic Investment: Supporting advanced global education initiatives.
- Stronger Networks: Building resilient global partnerships.
- Expanding Access: Ensuring digital global learning opportunities for all students.
Who Should Participate?
Institutions applying for AAC&U VE/COIL initiatives (see below for current opportunities) should assemble diverse teams that include key stakeholders critical for scaling and sustaining VE/COIL programs. These teams should comprise:
- Teaching Faculty/Professor/Instructor: Responsible for co-designing, co-implementing, and evaluating the VE/COIL curriculum in collaboration with an international faculty partner.
- Instructional Designer, COIL Coordinator, or Similar Role: Provides essential pedagogical and technological support to instructors. This individual helps determine and implement appropriate technologies to meet the partnership’s instructional needs and envisioned student tasks.
- International Education Administrator or Similar Role: Supports the proposed faculty partnership and develops a framework for scaling VE/COIL at the institutional level. This includes seeking opportunities, building global partnerships, advising students, and fostering the integration of VE/COIL into curricula and educational structures.
- Optional Additional Administrator: An international education administrator or other administrator who can further champion and support the proposed partnership and/or institutional VE/COIL efforts.
Join the Global Movement
Collaboration is at the core of VE/COIL. AAC&U partners with global institutions, educators, and sponsors to co-develop innovative VE/COIL programs that expand access to global education. Together, we are shaping the future of higher education through impactful and sustainable digital collaboration.
AAC&U VE/COIL Clinics
Practical, Flexible Training for Global Learning
AAC&U’s VE/COIL Clinics are short, theme-based professional learning experiences designed to help educators and administrators strengthen and scale Virtual Exchange/Collaborative Online International Learning (VE/COIL) across their institutions.
Each three-week online Clinic blends asynchronous learning with one to two live sessions, providing structure and flexibility for busy professionals. Participants work in small cohorts with AAC&U facilitators and international peers to design, enhance, and assess VE/COIL projects that expand access to global learning.
These Clinics form a cohesive professional learning series covering topics such as career readiness, institutional strategy, technology and pedagogy, and assessment of learning outcomes—but each Clinic also stands alone, allowing participants to start where their institutional needs are greatest.
Supported Projects
Norwegian Panorama VE/COIL Partnerships InitiativeAn initiative in partnership with the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education & Skills (HK-dir), equipping higher education institutions in Norway, the U.S., and Japan with essential skills for establishing sustainable bi- and multi-lateral VE/COIL partnerships.
Fulbright US-UK Global Challenges Teaching AwardsEmpowering faculty from the US and UK, this joint initiative with the US-UK Fulbright Commission develops VE/COIL programs that foster transatlantic partnerships and innovative solutions to global challenges such as racial justice, inequality, climate change, and societal division.
Creating US-MENA Centers of Excellence in VE/COILThis initiative fosters transformative partnerships to enhance curricula and establish centers of excellence across the U.S. and MENA region, supported by the J. Christopher Stevens Virtual Exchange Initiative (JCSVEI), a U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs program administered by the Aspen Institute.
Questions?
Email Veronica Onorevole, Director of Innovative Global Education Initiatives, and Megan Allen, Associate Director of VE/COIL Initiatives, at global@aacu.org.