In today’s interconnected world, the importance of international and intercultural experiences in higher education cannot be overstated. Internationalisation has long appeared as a central priority for many universities in the UK. However, only a very small number of students are able to, or choose to, take part in physical international mobility as part of their programme of study. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) offers a compelling alternative, providing a cost-effective, inclusive, and sustainable way to bring global experiences to all students, regardless of their capacity for travel.
COIL: A New(ish) Tool for Internationalisation
As a form of ‘Internationalisation at Home’, COIL allows students to engage in collaborative projects with peers from universities around the world within a virtual environment by connecting students studying at two or more universities, each located in a different country. Through collaborative learning, COIL enables students to explore their subjects from different cultural perspectives, fostering a global mindset without the need for physical travel. Particularly in the context of Brexit and the subsequent shift from the Erasmus programme to the less generous Turing Scheme, COIL has emerged as a vital tool for maintaining international engagement in UK Higher Education.
As universities face increasing financial pressures and a growing commitment to reducing their carbon footprints, the availability of funding support for traditional physical mobility will continue to diminish. In this challenging landscape, COIL offers a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative, ensuring that students continue to benefit from internationalisation even as physical travel opportunities become more limited. When resources allow, COIL can supplement traditional exchange programmes, but in harder times, it can serve as a replacement, ensuring that global engagement remains a core part of the student experience.
The success of COIL initiatives in law depends on mutual commitment and respect for cultural differences. When effectively implemented, COIL can enhance learning by exposing students to diverse perspectives, helping them develop a range of transferable skills such as teamwork, communication, language proficiency, intercultural awareness, time management and cross-cultural awareness. Embedding COIL projects within the curriculum and linking it to assessments can maximize student participation and formalise internationalisation as part of their education. However, this approach also carries the risk of excluding students who, for various reasons, are unable to engage in the project and in turn jeopardises their engagement and continuation on their own programme of study.
COIL as Part of a Law School’s Strategic Mission
Intuitively, Law could be seen as unfriendly to internationalisation strategies owing to its inherently jurisdictional anchor. Yet in the field of law, COIL offers opportunities to embed comparative and globalised perspectives on legal issues through collaboration with law schools in different countries operating under different legal systems, thereby broadening students’ understanding of the law beyond the Western-centric provenance and supporting efforts to decolonise the curriculum. COIL can also be used to explore the law in context by partnering with non-law disciplines or industry partners, providing students with a richer, more nuanced understanding of legal issues across a range of contexts.
Aside from enriching and internationalising the student experience, COIL can also be used for a variety of other strategic purposes. It can operate as a low-risk springboard for engaging with new and prospective international partner organisations. At my own institution, we initiated a COIL project with a Spanish university which saw students working collaboratively as part of a commercial law module. Within only two or three years, this virtual collaboration has evolved into an annual in-person International Commercial Law Conference, including papers presented by both staff and students, and has grown to include four HEIs from within Europe and beyond.
Similarly, COIL has been used to deepen existing international partnerships, fostering multi-faceted collaborations that include student exchanges and staff research projects. Again, my own institution has a long-standing partnership with a Chinese university as part of a Sino-UK dual degree programme, which sees students studying for three years in China before progressing to complete their studies in the UK. COIL has been used here to enrich the experience of students on the programme through, among other things, international collaborative mooting and debating competitions, and to help foster a sense of inclusion and belonging for the China-based students before arriving at Coventry.
In conclusion, COIL represents a forward-thinking approach to internationalisation in Higher Education, providing students with invaluable and diverse global experiences in a more inclusive, accessible and sustainable way. As universities continue to navigate the challenges of a post-Brexit, post-pandemic world, COIL offers a tool for ensuring that international engagement remains a cornerstone of the student experience.
Gary Betts
Head of Coventry Law School
Coventry University
Further Resources
- If you are new to COIL, a good place to start is: http://www.coilconsult.com/welcome.html
- Universities UK Report on Internationalisation at Home includes some interesting case studies, and best practice: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/UUKi%20reports/Internationalisation-at-home%20report.pdf
- The European Association of International Education (EAIA) has some useful resources, including a student’s perspective on COIL: https://www.eaie.org/resource/coil-student-perspective.html
- For something more ambitious, Erasmus+ funded a large-scale project on COIL between the global north and south across 10 international partners: https://www.ufs.ac.za/ikudu/iKudu-home