VE/COIL Institute

Goals and Outcomes

Goals

For Faculty Instructors and Instructional Designers:

  • Establish a foundational knowledge of virtual exchange and collaborative online international learning (VE/COIL), including terminology and concepts.
  • Codesign project-based online activities based on shared VE/COIL course goals and learning outcomes.
  • Develop and implement a plan for evaluating the impact of VE/COIL on student learning, growth, and development, including intercultural competency.

For Academic and International Education Administrators:

  • Evaluate your campus culture for supporting innovative teaching and learning, including identification of campus stakeholders, structures, and resources for building a campus support system.
  • Plan for VE/COIL program-level assessment of subsequent student participation in other internationalized activities on campus, study abroad, internships, and/or similar opportunities following the VE/COIL course or module completion.
  • Identify complementary institutional strengths within your VE/COIL partnership for scaling other VE/COIL programs and linkages to further collaborative opportunities in the long term (e.g., study abroad, student or faculty exchange, joint research, joint or dual degree programs).
  • Create a plan for evaluating any changes in relation to faculty and staff professional development, curriculum and educational requirements, global partnership engagement, global talent development, and identity of the institution (at the mission and strategy levels).

Outcomes

The Institute on VE/COIL provides practical guidance, mentoring, and resources for campus teams and their global counterparts to advance the following goals:

  • Internationalize the curriculum (e.g., global exposure; cross-cultural interaction and familiarity; intercultural communicative competence; peer-to-peer learning; awareness of one’s own culture, identity, and assumptions; critical thinking; and perspective-taking)
  • Increase equitable access to global learning (e.g., lower-cost models to deliver global learning experiences to a greater number of students than those able to study abroad)
  • Create or strengthen global partnerships (e.g., strengthen or reinvigorate existing individual or institutional partnerships, initiate new partnerships, or broaden the geographic reach of courses and programs)
  • Support faculty and staff development (e.g., using VE/COIL to provide opportunities for instructors and staff to gain cross-cultural experiences as well as to learn pedagogically effective technology skills, reinvigorate teaching, etc.)
  • Generate interest and better prepare students for study abroad (e.g., integrating VE/COIL into short-term study abroad via pre/post-VE/COIL enhancements; encouraging students to undertake VE/COIL before studying abroad; recruiting past VE/COIL participants to serve as peer mentors)
  • Attract international students (e.g., building relationships with students at VE/COIL partner institutions who may then choose your institution for study abroad or graduate studies)
  • Advance internationalization and institutional strategic goals (e.g., attracting international faculty members, generating international research and publication, enhancing language study, and engaging local and global communities)