What is COIL?

COIL has been described to fall under the umbrella term of Virtual Exchange, but given that Virtual Exchange takes many different forms and designs, Hackett et al. 2024, identified the key characteristics of COIL and defined it as:

“An inclusive, environmentally friendly teaching and learning method used to internationalise the curriculum, in which educators from different educational institutions in different countries connect to co-design and co-facilitate collaborative online learning assignments that are embedded within the curriculum, with the goal of facilitating the development of students’ collaborative skills, intercultural competence, and curriculum content learning through collaboration.”