Abstract:

Student and staff mobility has played a long-term pivotal role for the internationalisation of curriculum and research. In recent years we have experienced periods of social distancing, travel complications and political turmoil – all adding a legacy and contributing to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of current international environment. Physical crossing of borders and re-location may therefore not always be feasible or desirable. Consequently, alongside increasing digitalisation, a concept of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) has emerged. The concept of COIL has been conceived as an educational approach that provides students and staff from different geographical and linguacultural backgrounds opportunities to attain cross-cultural competence and intercultural awareness without leaving their home campus. COIL projects enable many students to have international encounters virtually on a given, course-related ‘project’. This form of pedagogy supports students with the acquisition and improvement of their digital literacy – it enables students to develop their digital technology skills through working in group collaboration activities while using different applications to engage in learning with their global peers. In addition, COIL allows for a virtual exchange of pedagogic practices and a development of a more inclusive curriculum, assessment and feedback practices. This paper therefore discusses the development of a Collaborative Online International Learning project — from its inception to its completion — using the example of a partnership between the University of Hertfordshire (UK) and the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (Peru).

Keywords:

Digital skills, Internationalisation, Collaborative learning, Intercultural awareness.