Dr Sathees Kunjuthamby, Senior Lecturer & International Partnerships Link Tutor, University of Greenwich, UK, shares how structured Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) initiatives can transform learning and foster meaningful global student engagement.
The COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) model brings students from geographically dispersed locations together, to jointly work (both synchronously and asynchronously) on a co-designed curriculum relevant to their own programme of study. The learning environment includes a series of different digital and online technologies to facilitate the COIL but also help students to grow digital literacy expertise, especially as new technologies emerge. Also, when thoughtfully designed and crafted, COILs can effectively offer a strong learning environment to build intercultural competencies and employability skills (Guth & Rubin 2015).
The capacity to implement COIL varies significantly across institutions, with some universities benefiting from established infrastructure and dedicated resources, while others face challenges due to limited capabilities. The expertise of the academic is crucial, particularly in designing for cross-institution collaboration, understanding digital technologies and managing time-zone differences (Lindsay 2024).
Institutionalising COIL: building internal capacity and leadership
When I was employed at Coventry University as a Lecturer, I additionally served as the COIL lead within my previous school, drawing on my extensive experience as a COIL practitioner to help design an internal infrastructure that supports and expands COIL delivery, with targets set by the Associate Head of School (International) for embedding at least one COIL project at each level of study across all programmes. It was essential to move development and delivery of COILs forward and this led to the establishment of a COIL model that, while not formally institutionalised, provided a practical structure for implementation.
As the COIL lead, I engaged over 100 academic staff, across 17 courses, fostering internationalisation. I introduced a structured approach involving a series of initiatives designed to establish an ecosystem for COIL delivery, bringing together strategic leadership, academic mentorship and programme-level integration.
The model I introduced and sustained had a significant impact on COIL delivery – resulting in 70 projects and providing international experiences to over 3,000 students. It consistently exceeded institutional targets for four consecutive years, ultimately leading to my recognition as the faculty-level COIL Champion, an achievement that would not have been possible without the dedication and support of my former conscientious colleagues, who led the COILs successfully.
School initiatives to advance COIL delivery
- Appointing a dedicated COIL Lead role
To drive collaborative delivery and COIL projects, the school needs to engage with the international strategy directly and create space for appointing a COIL Lead, who is dedicated, highly experienced and a strategic leader. The academic should have the potential to drive COIL at scale, without compromising on quality while able to inject enthusiasm, provide strategic direction and offer continued support for academic engagement in COIL delivery.
My initiatives to advance COIL delivery
- Embedding COIL responsibilities into the year tutor role
The Associate Head of School (International) made the case for integrating the role of a ‘’COIL Representative’’ into the existing responsibilities of the Programme Lead/Deputy Lead or Year Lead. It is their responsibility to identify academics teaching on their programme to lead a COIL, ensuring consistent coverage across all years. For example, on an undergraduate programme we expected a COIL in year one, two and three.
- Identify COIL leaders as catalysts for internationalisation
The academic leading the COIL must be identified and be prepared to undertake training and development to fully understand the learning approach, process and requirements.
- Driving cross-departmental collaboration for COIL training, VLE setup and monitoring
At Coventry University, we hugely benefited from the Centre for Global Engagement (CGE), a department that amongst other internationalisation activities, supported faculties with COIL training and administrative support such as VLE setup, certifications and monitoring. Working alongside CGE’s experienced staff allowed for valuable knowledge exchange helping academics to complete the mandatory COIL training. Where such a department or support structure does not exist, I recommend, where possible, a faculty commitment to the development of such a support structure or integrate the responsibilities into existing roles.
- Guiding academic staff in COIL development
As a COIL Lead, I provided mentorship to COIL leaders in navigating challenges associated with curriculum co-design, the development of meaningful interaction models and outputs.
- Leading COIL workshops to inspire, inform Practice and build global collaboration
I demonstrated this through a series of COIL workshops to academics from South Africa, Malaysia, South Korea, Germany and Italy. This was a great opportunity to network and establish new COIL collaborations with interested academics abroad.
- Establishing workload recognition for COIL activities
I recommend the need to establish and clarify workload recognition for COIL activities undertaken by your staff. At SSL we categorised the COIL delivery in new and existing, whereby the former received a higher workload allocation and the latter a lower. When a COIL had previously been delivered by an academic and they decide with a continuation in future, we expected significantly less time to be spent on identifying a partner, co-designing the curriculum and setting up the learning space compared to launching a new COIL.
- Developing an archive to record and share practice
To capture, preserve and avoid duplication and support with continuity (especially when staff leave), I created an archive for internal purposes to record key details (eg COIL Leader, collaborating institution, topic, student numbers).
Next steps and future directions
To ensure a sustainable COIL journey faculties need to recognise key blockers and institutional obstacles that may prevent schools/departments from developing meaningful COILs for students. I hope these initiatives serve as a foundation for senior leadership, senior management and the wider community to integrate their own ideas and expand student access to COIL experiences.
Dr Sathees Kunjuthamby works at University of Greenwich as Senior Lecturer and International Partnerships Link Tutor. Find out more about Sathees’ work
References
Guth, S., & Rubin, J. (2015). How to get started with COIL. In A. Moore & S. Simon (Eds.), Globally networked teaching in the humanities: Theories and practices (pp. 15–27). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Lindsay, J. (2024) ‘Beyond borders: how to make online global collaborative learning work’, Times Higher Education Campus, 16 October. Available at: Times Higher Education Campus website: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/beyond-borders-how-make-online-global-collaborative-learning-work?utm_source=chatgpt.com
