Virtual Exchange/COIL Transformation Lab

Investing more resources into innovative digital collaboration methods within the higher education sector will provide flexibility and resilience to shifting in-country and global conditions. Higher education institutions play a critical role in preparing students to understand, proactively engage in, and work to collaboratively solve global issues of importance at local, national, and international levels after graduation.

Picture of students talking and laughing together while engaging in virtual learning.

Photo courtesy of Rockland Community College (NY).

A growing number of universities and colleges are seeking new ways to provide students with global competencies that complement traditional forms of physical mobility and academic exchange. This has led to a dramatic increase in interest in virtual exchange (VE), including one of its most comprehensive forms, collaborative online international learning (COIL).

ACE is guiding efforts to advance the digital transformation of U.S. higher education teaching and learning through its VE/COIL Transformation Lab. Each VE/COIL Transformation Lab:

Provides support and resources on VE/COIL for U.S. and global higher education partnerships
Infuses professional development for senior leadership through institutional self-assessment, virtual campus visits, peer networking, and support
Creates a foundation for online dialogue and collaboration with international partner institutions and peer institutions
Ensures high-quality professional training by world-renowned ACE VE/COIL experts through intensive online courses, customized mentored guidance, and online campus visits to institutions leading up to their pilot VE/COIL implementation

Training and Support

Each VE/COIL Transformation Lab incorporates two parallel online intensive training programs for U.S. and global partner institutions—one custom-designed for faculty instructors and the other for senior academic and international education administrators.

Working closely with multilingual and multicultural ACE experts, participating institutions will:

Assemble VE/COIL leadership and faculty teams on campus
Innovate online pedagogical practices to be more inclusive and equitable for students
Ensure development and delivery of high-quality online learning experiences to foster competencies and skills for today's workforce
Align VE/COIL program goals and objectives with learner success, workforce development, and internationalization strategies within the institution
Invest more in sustainable and inclusive global partnerships that build upon shared principles, values, vision, and goals

VE/COIL Transformation Lab Experts

Kris Acheson-Clair, Director, Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research, Purdue University (IN-USA)

Gian Mario Besana, Associate Provost for Global Engagement and Online Learning, DePaul University (IL-USA)

Don Bysouth, Associate Professor, Division of International Affairs, Kansai University (Japan)

Harvey Charles, Dean for International Education and Vice Provost for Global Strategy, State University of New York at Albany (USA)

Francesca A. Cichello, Executive Director of International Education, State University of New York at Empire State College (USA)

Darla Deardorff, Executive Director, Association of International Education Administrators (USA)

John Dirx, Mildred B. Erickson Distinguished Chair (Emeritus) in Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University (USA)

Mary Lou Forward, Executive Director, State University of New York COIL Center (USA)

Stephanie Doscher, Director, Office of Collaborative Online International Learning, Florida International University (USA)

John E. Fowler, Senior Program Specialist, American Council on Education (USA)

Megan Gibbons, Director, Center for Global Connections, Regis College (MA-USA)

Miriam Hauck, Senior Lecturer, Department of Languages, The Open University (UK)

Keiko Ikeda, Vice Director, Institute for Innovative Global Education, Kansai University (Japan)

Hajime Nishitani, Professor of Law, Vice Executive, Top Global University Project, Hiroshima University (Japan)

Veronica Onorevole, Associate Director, Programs and Global Initiatives, Learning and Engagement, American Council on Education (USA)

Jon Rubin, Director, COIL Consulting (USA)

Craig N. Shealy, Executive Director, International Beliefs and Values Institute, Western Washington University (USA)

Andrea E. Thomas, University Advisor for Virtual Exchange/COIL and Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategist (USA)

Impact

COIL is a research-based virtual exchange modality. Faculty in two or more countries collaborate to develop a joint syllabus for students to work together online to complete assignments that meet shared learning objectives. For over a decade, ACE has recognized the COIL model as a cost-effective, accessible method for delivering global learning and intercultural experiences to underrepresented student groups.

Photo courtesy of Chiba University (Japan) and University of Alabama.

In addition to providing training support, ACE conducts program-level research to evaluate the impact of COIL on student learning, faculty development, and institutional transformation. ACE utilizes its Model for Comprehensive Internationalization and Model for Comprehensive Learner Success to collect both time series and cross-sectional data on COIL from different institution types.

Both models embrace an organizational growth mindset with guiding principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion; data-informed decision-making; and agility and transformation as essential to achieving comprehensive internationalization and learner success.

As a community and indigenous serving institution, Kapi’olani Community College has always had the desire send more of our students abroad, but has struggled with the barriers created by cost. Now the with groundbreaking work that has been done with the COIL method, it gives us a new way to bring the world to our classrooms with the possibility of sending our students abroad.

Louise Pagotto

Chancellor, Kapi’olani Community College

As we had no official organized VE/COIL in place, the training provided foundational knowledge we needed to begin planning a strategy and roadmap for adding VE/COIL to our internationalization plans.

Administrator at the University of Montana

Rapid Response VE/COIL Transformation Lab: U.S.-Japan, 2020

As an HBCU where many of our student’s experience racism daily from the wider culture, COIL will allow our students a fresh way to engage the meaning of global citizenship through deep and meaningful engagements with their Japanese peers. I also believe that this will provide students at Meiji University with a unique opportunity to study their own culturally constructed understandings of identity in comparison with Americans who do not share majority privilege.

Loye Sekihata Ashton

Chief Academic Officer, Class2Class, and Former Director, Center for International Studies and Global Change, Tougaloo College

We have advanced connections across campus and with our partner in a way that truly would not have occurred without ACE’s Lab award and support for connecting and working together.

Administrator at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Rapid Response VE/COIL Transformation Lab: U.S.-Japan, 2020

Certainly, we support and promote physical travel abroad for our students as part of our efforts to internationalize their experience. Realistically, however, only a small fraction of DePaul students can take advantage of study abroad opportunities. That is why we look at collaborative online international learning as an integral part of our strategy for internationalization of the curriculum, as it has the potential to impact larger number of students than physical travel.

Marten denBoer

Former Provost, DePaul University

I participated hoping I would learn new things and I did! I was happy to find evidence-based articles and other best practice resources embedded within the learning modules. They were exciting to read. The supporting videos were well made and engaging.

Faculty at the Ohio State University

Rapid Response VE/COIL Transformation Lab: U.S.-Norway, 2021

We have witnessed a major potential of the COIL framework to transform our students into active agents who can critically construe a global culture rather than merely consume it.

Paul Arcario

Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, LaGuardia Community College of The City University of New York

Partners and Sponsors

In collaboration with government leaders, the private sector (nonprofit and for profit), and institutions worldwide, ACE provides specialized VE/COIL Transformation Labs that consider beyond the boundaries of institution, geography, and time to maximize learning outcomes and growth opportunities to reach all students, both now and in the future.

Individual Programs

Program

This lab helps higher education institutions strategize effective ways to equip institutions with the skills and resources to adapt their physical education to virtual exchange. This lab specifically partners with Japan.

Program

Rapid Response Virtual Exchange/COIL Transformation Lab: U.S.–Japan

Program

The U.S.-Japan COIL Initiative expands U.S.-Japan higher education ties through collaborative online international learning (COIL).

Program

U.S.-Japan COIL Initiative

Program

Rapid Response Virtual Exchange/COIL Transformation Lab: U.S.–Norway

Global Challenges Teaching Awards

ACE will be providing a VE/COIL Transformation Lab as a benefit of the US-UK Fulbright Commission's new Global Challenges Teaching Awards. These awards will support undergraduate level, virtual exchange/COIL courses on racial justice, pandemics, and climate change.

This year's application cycle is now closed. However, ahead of the next application cycle, you can find out more about these awards by visiting the awards website or by emailing the U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission.