Collaborative Online International Learning
About COIL
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is the term that we use at Coventry University to refer to ‘virtual mobility’ experiences that are embedded into the formal curriculum and provide students with an opportunity to interact with peers at international universities and professionals, so they can develop intercultural competences and digital skills while working together on subject-specific learning tasks or activities.
There are four key elements that define any COIL project:
- It involves a cross-border collaboration or interaction with people from different backgrounds and cultures.
- Students must engage in some sort of online interaction, whether it is asynchronous or synchronous.
- It must be driven by a set of internationalised learning outcomes aimed at developing global perspectives and/or fostering students’ intercultural competences.
- There must be a reflective component that helps students think critically about such interactions.
WHy will it benefit you?
Participating in a COIL project is one of the key actions that may help students become Global Graduates. Most notably, it will provide them with an invaluable opportunity to:
- Interact, engage and collaborate with peers they would have not otherwise have the chance to work with.
- Share understanding of one another’s societies, ways of living, and perspectives to develop valuable intercultural skills and mutual understanding.
- Observe, listen and learn about differences in communication style, non-verbal cues and body language; increasing your Intercultural Communication capacity for understanding and managing interactions in diverse, complex and novel scenarios.
- Experience, interact and gain insight into cultural differences in human relationships, behaviour and communication that are relevant to their discipline; enhancing their ability to effectively manage and appropriately respond to diverse opinions, beliefs and values that might be different to their own.
- Develop digital skills that are key to life in the 21st Century, especially those that will enable them to participate in teamwork involving networks of geographically-dispersed professionals.
Current COIL projects
If you completed a COIL this or last academic year and did not claim CPD points for it as it was part of another module then you can still claim CPD points for this now. You must however complete the COIL reflection template below; if you have taken part in more than one COIL then you can put all into the one reflection template.
