What is COIL?
COIL stands for Collaborative Online International Learning. It is a learning and teaching approach that uses internet-based tools and innovative online pedagogies to connect students and staff from universities in different countries. Academics work together to create and deliver shared programmes, and students work on shared collaborative projects, which are often comparative in nature, with shared learning outcomes. COIL projects can be either credit bearing or purely experiential, and the number of credits assigned by each University does not have to match the other. The students can be from the same or different academic disciplines.
Here is a link to a presentation for academic staff about COIL projects: COIL_Presentation
What are the benefits of COIL for students?
- A key part to the “Internationalisation at Home” agenda by bringing internationalisation into the classroom
- A worthy alternative to physical and traditional types of outward mobility
- A new way to develop students’ cultural awareness and communication skills
- General transferable skills for employability, eg teamwork, leadership, collaboration
- Cuts across all the usual barriers to student mobility
- Can increase physical student mobility
- Improves digital literacy
- An opportunity to offer students an alternative to cancelled physical mobility
What are the benefits of COIL for academic staff?
- Can gain intercultural awareness skills and understanding
- May develop new institutional partnerships
- May attract international students to study at their campuses
- Learn how to develop and introduce international components into their courses.
- Become knowledgeable about internationalising the curriculum and become internationalisation champions and experts
- Engage in professional and international development
Can I get started with a smaller project?
Yes! We have described COIL projects in the traditional sense here. But there are lots of options if you want to start small and give your students an international experience in the classroom.
- Find a partner with the same or a similar course to you in a different institution and agree to deliver one lecture to both classes, synchronously and virtually
- Similarly to above, hold a one-off synchronous discussion seminar which students have prepared for somehow beforehand – via a reading, watching a video or preparing discussion questions
- Set a task for your students which will be peer-reviewed by students in another institution
- Get your students to enter an international competition e.g. a hackathon, a photography or business competition
Planning resources for COIL at Lincoln
Email us at GO@lincoln.ac.uk to talk through these resources.
COIL Course Planning Sheet-First Contact
A one-page information form to be used on first contact with a COIL partner
A multi-page form to be used in collaboration with a COIL partner when planning a programme
- Intercultural Communication survey which can be carried out at the beginning and end of the COIL project
- Intermediate Feedback form for students to fill in halfway through the COIL project
Suggestions for icebreaker activities to use during the first meeting of the students
Examples of COIL projects at the University of Lincoln
In 2016, a successful collaborative project was run between the Master’s Architecture Program at the University of Lincoln and the Undergraduate, Professional Interior Design Degree at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). The UOL-NYIT Cross-Disciplinary Design Workshop, an exchange between two international schools of design, through the exploration and development of the design brief sought to create two full scale corresponding pavilions/installations, one in New York and one in Lincoln. Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln and Grand Central Station in New York were the chosen spaces.
An overview of the project and the work produced can be seen here: https://universitygrouppro.wixsite.com/lostintranslation
Examples of COIL projects from other institutions
Australia – USA: History and Anthropology
Russia – USA: Women and Gender Studies & Linguistics
Cardenal Herrera University, Spain
Areas of interest:
- Architecture: Projects of Architecture Reference Analysis
- Architecture: Construction of foundations and structures Soil and earthworks. Concepts and drawings.
- Architecture: Research on the influence of the masters of the Modern Movement on collective residential architecture throughout the twentieth century. The Coil program includes four phases: 1 Theoretical class taught by the teacher. 2 Group research with students from another university. 3 Presentation of results. 4 Evaluation of acquired knowledge.
- Architecture: Technical Development of Projects Structural audit of a project. The COIL consists of conducting an audit of an architectural project at the structural level that other students are carrying out, to check the adequacy between structure-project.
- Nursing: Public health and Community Nursing
- Audiovisual communication: Advanced photography techniques
Auburn University at Montgomery, USA
Areas of interest:
- American studies
- English
- History
Email us at GO@lincoln.ac.uk.