GCTA | Birmingham City University (UK) & DePaul University (US)

The Global Challenge

Misinformation poses a growing threat to civic life, public trust, and informed decision-making. Often described as a “wicked problem,” it is complex, fast-moving, and deeply intertwined with political polarization, declining institutional confidence, and rapidly shifting media ecosystems. Misinformation is also highly contextual: it takes different forms across local media environments, sociopolitical settings, platform dynamics, and cultural norms. Addressing it effectively requires both analytical rigor and cross-cultural understanding.

The Partnership Response

The DePaul University–Birmingham City University partnership brings US and UK students together to treat cross-cultural exchange as a practical resource for understanding and responding to misinformation. The collaboration connects communication studies and social psychology with journalistic practice, helping students move between theory and real-world verification work. In doing so, the partnership models the iterative, collaborative approach required to address complex global challenges.

Module Design

Verifying Across Contexts: A US–UK Misinformation Lab is grounded in experiential learning, guiding students through cycles of investigation, reflection, analysis, and application. The module is designed to make a daunting challenge more actionable by breaking misinformation into concrete, analyzable components and positioning students as active investigators rather than passive recipients of information.

The core experience is a six-week Verification Lab organized in three phases. Working in mixed US–UK teams with built-in peer mentoring, students collaborate across time zones both synchronously and asynchronously. Teams begin by mapping misinformation across cultural contexts, comparing how narratives circulate and gain credibility in different communities. They then move into applied verification: developing shared protocols, building stories, and documenting their reasoning so others can follow the verification process. Throughout, structured reflection—including bias audits, process journals, and group debriefs—supports students in examining how values, identities, and local context shape credibility judgments.

Institutional Alignment

Both institutions are using the partnership to strengthen sustainable VE/COIL integration. DePaul provides comprehensive support for faculty participation, including partner matching, training, instructional design collaboration, funding, and assessment, with plans to expand leadership engagement and connections to Career Services. Birmingham City University is working to embed VE/COIL more widely through curriculum, leveraging learning technology infrastructure and aligning this work with its 2030 Teaching and Learning Strategy.

Long-term Vision

The partnership development process itself reflects the module’s learning philosophy: the teams shifted from “How do we make it the same?” to “How do we make it authentically collaborative?” Co-designing across institutions meant negotiating difference rather than eliminating it—an approach that supports student agency and strengthens the design. Looking ahead, DePaul and BCU hope to recruit additional faculty participants, expand matching opportunities, and explore additional forms of collaboration. The teams also anticipate mutual on-site visits in 2026 to deepen planning and sustain momentum.