Collaborative online international learning (COIL) and equity

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Education mobility to impact community engagement: Comparative studies on design and impact for student and local actors’ learning

Proposal

Introduction
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is an approach to virtual exchange that is rapidly gaining in popularity among administrators seeking to widen their portfolio of global programs. During and after the pandemic, COIL grew in popularity and continues to find adopters and skeptics even as physical mobility returns to pre-pandemic levels. Despite the efforts of a handful of institutions and organizations attempting to establish norms and best practices for COIL, the approach continues to diverge and shift. Given COIL’s relative youth, this is unsurprising. This study aims to explore that divergence across contexts, explicitly focusing on the perceptions and values of COIL practitioners.
Relevance to conference theme
A popular approach to virtual exchange aligns well with the CIES conference’s theme, “Envisioning Education in a Digital Society”. Not only is the focus on digital internationalization well suited to the conference overall - the exploratory nature of the study mirrors the future-forward aspects of the theme.
Literature Review
This research utilizes literature across virtual exchange research and practice. There is a six-pillared framework for understanding virtual internationalization that provides a useful structure for conceptualizing the multi-faceted nature of virtuatlization (Bruhn-Zass, 2022). There are also important contexts to virtual exchanges that differ in the pre- and post-COVID context (Ikeda, 2022). A central discussion point in regard to virtual exchange is that of equity in terms of participant and collaborator experiences. An EU-funded iKudu program demonstrates good practice in a Global North-Global South collaboration that centers on equity (DeWinter & Klamer, 2021). Finally, inequities in COIL structure itself remain and includes participant preparedness to engage in a virtual exchange (King Ramírez. 2020).
Theory
This study takes an abductive, social constructionist approach to explore how global conceptualizations are formed around COIL and how consensus may or may not be reached. Constructionism focuses on how individuals constructs meaning within their particular context and through their own experiences (Young & Colin, 2004). Social constructionism claims meaning is derived from lived experience in communities or societies - how individuals and groups influence how we think, form ideas, and make meaning (Burr, 2015). This study combines constructionism and social constructionism.
Methods
This study uses Q methodology, a set of connected practices used to study subjectivity and perception in COIL practitioners from across the globe. These methods will be used to collect practitioners’ perspectives regarding COIL and explore similarities and differences across contexts and across networks of COIL professionals.
Relevance to SAIS SIG
Since the Covid pandemic, study abroad professionals have been exposed to the excitement and contentiousness of virtual exchange and its many approaches, such as COIL. This is a timely and ongoing area of debate in the field, and so is relevant.
Conclusion
This research seeks to reveal insights into how practitioners’ diverse values broadly contribute to the global discussion and implementation of COIL and other virtual exchange initiatives. The field may discover new directions for virtual exchange research, implementation, and evaluation through a refined, contextualized understanding of these perspectives.

Author

• Adam Freed, University of Michigan Ann Arbor