Collaborative Online International Learning, The SUNY COIL Center and Kansai University
The SUNY (State University of New York) COIL Center has led the way in developing programs that connect SUNY faculty and students with their international partners through co-taught online learning environments. In the COIL model, students from different countries enroll in shared courses with faculty from each institution co-teaching and managing coursework. The result is a co-equal team-taught learning environment that emphasizes experiential and collaborative student learning.
In 2014, Kansai University became the first Japanese COIL partner, introducing three types of COIL courses with SUNY campuses and other COIL partners worldwide. Both Kansai and the COIL Center see such courses as a key element in enhancing student mobility, facilitating language practice and creating connections that spur students to travel in the first place and that endure long after such travel occurs.
View a videoon the SUNY-Kansai COIL collaboration .
View a Utrecht University student video on their COIL connection to SUNY New Paltz
The information that follows includes:
- Brief description of the SUNY COIL Center
- Brief description of the COIL model
- Brief description of the collaboration between Kansai University and the COIL Center
- Description of the Kansai University-COIL initiative in Japanese
- Resources on the COIL Center website
- Publications about or by COIL
- Program from December 6, 2014 program at Kansai University
About the SUNY COIL Center
The SUNY Center for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a leading international organization in this emerging field. COIL is a teaching and learning methodology which provides innovative cost-effective internationalization strategies. COIL programs foster faculty and student interaction with peers abroad through co-taught multicultural online and blended learning environments emphasizing experiential student collaboration.
The COIL Center was founded in 2006 by Prof. Jon Rubin as a faculty-led initiative at SUNY’s Purchase College with support from the SUNY System Administration’s Office of International Programs and the SUNY Learning Network. The COIL Center has been a unit of SUNY Global and based in New York City since 2010.
By opening dialogues between faculty, international programs offices and instructional designers/technologists which cross traditional institutional, cultural and disciplinary boundaries, the COIL Center’s mission embraces the new globally networked landscape of academia. COIL promotes collaborative online international learning as a means to internationalize curricula, build global partnerships, and to help prepare students for work and civil engagement in a global context.
About the COIL model
In the COIL model, students from different countries enroll in shared courses with faculty from each institution co-teaching and managing coursework. The model does not merely promote courses where students from different countries share an online classroom. Rather, we create co-equal team-taught learning environments where faculty from two cultures work together to develop a shared syllabus, emphasizing experiential and collaborative student learning.
Courses utilizing COIL’s model provide an opportunity to reinvigorate curricula at campuses through the integration of globally networked learning environments. The courses give new contextual meaning to the ideas and texts they explore, while providing students new venues in which to develop their cross-cultural awareness. Classes may be fully online or, more often, offered in blended formats with traditional face-to- face sessions taking place at both schools, while collaborative student work takes place online.
Cooperating instructors work closely with all students, but in most cases these students are enrolled, charged tuition, and awarded grades only at their home institution. This revenue-neutral model reduces the administrative complexity of these bilateral institutional agreements, while linking and enhancing international classrooms through collaborative coursework. These courses do not require high-end technology, and they work effectively as portals to increase student interest in study abroad.
About Kansai University and COIL
Kansai University is the first institution in Japan to formally join COIL’s Global Partner Network. As a member KU has access to COIL’s networks, including the 25 Nodal Network SUNY campuses as well as the COIL Global Partner Network universities in Germany, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, Australia, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Belgium and Brazil.
Kansai University offers three formats of COIL courses:
- Pre-KUCOIL: Short-term online exchange activity lasting 1-3 weeks. Serves to introduce both students and faculty to the COIL model. Often non-credited activity.
- KUCOIL-Enhanced: Standard COIL class. Offered 4-6 weeks incorporating COIL in the classroom.
- KUCOIL Course. COIL is incorporated in the classroom for the entire semester (15 weeks).
Kansai University began providing KUCOIL courses in Spring 2014, when three KUCOIL-enhanced courses were offered:
- CrossCultural Competence: in partnership with SUNY Oswego
- Study Skills: in partnership with SUNY Ulster
- International Business: in partnership with Glasgow Caledonian University
In the planning stages are three KUCOIL-enhanced courses and 10 Pre KUCOIL courses in 2015, and the program will expand further in 2016.
The following are ongoing courses for Spring 2015, and courses planned for Fall 2015. There will be a few additional courses (TBA) that are currently in planning in addition to the list below.
Spring 2015
- ASEAN Study: In partnership with International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
- KUGF Independent Study : In partnership with Solbridge International Business School / Woosong University, Korea & Cheng Shieu University, Taiwan
Fall 2015
- Seminar in Japanology : in partnership with Universidad de Mexico
- Study Skills : in partnership with SUNY Ulster
Planning for COIL Institutional Development:
In Fall 2015, a “Global Education Support Unit” will be created to support KUCOIL activities on campus. This will be led by a new faculty member who will dedicate his/her time to promoting COIL initiatives at Kansai University. Kansai University plans to cultivate more overseas partners from around the world to work with its faculty utilizing COIL practices. Since 2014, new international partnerships have emerged based on the COIL collaboration experience. The organizers expect more potential partners to emerge in the future.
Kansai University COIL Goals:
COIL makes possible crosscultural communication/activities with samegeneration peers from global universities without leaving Japan. Through KUCOIL experience on its campus, Kansai University wishes to provide students with an introductory step toward studying abroad and/or undertaking challenging global internships, and to offer practical situations/opportunities for students to improve upon and brush-up on their language proficiency following a study abroad experience.
Descriptions and resources on the COIL Center website
http://coil.suny.edu/page/course-models | Brief description of different COIL-enhanced course models and a free Faculty Guide for COIL Course Development |
http://coil.suny.edu/page/examples-coil-supported-courses | List of recent courses supported by the COIL Center with links to case studies, videos of conference presentations, and other materials, including 3 U.S.-Japan partnerships |
http://coil.suny.edu/case-studies | Info from 24 detailed case studies from the COIL Institute for Globally Networked Learning in the Humanities |
http://coil.suny.edu/page/global-partner-network | Info about the COIL Center’s growing Global Partner Network of international universities |
http://coil.suny.edu/conference | Information and video archives from the COIL Center’s annual conference |
Research articles/analyses of value of COIL-type initiatives
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Global Partners in Education Journal – www.gpejournal.org |
Stress in Japanese learners engaged in online collaborative learning in English, British Journal of Educational Technology – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01271.x/abstract |
Program for COIL Conference at Kansai University, December 6, 2014
I C T を 用 い た 国 際 連 携 学 習
December 6th国 際 シ ン ポ ジ ウ ム
COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning )
2014 — Kansai University — Shobun-Kan Multimedia AV Hall
9:30 Registration
10:00-11:40 Opening Remarks
- COIL Video Presentation (ENG)
- Greetings from the President, Harushige Kusumi
- Talk by Kuniaki Sato (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science&Technology in Japan – MEXT)
11:40-12:40 Keynote Lecture
Dr. Jon Rubin (Director, COIL Center SUNY) Internationalize your University and Engage the World Through Collaborative Online International Learning
12:40-14:00 Lunch Break / Exhibition Booth 14:00-15:15 SUNY-KU COIL Classroom Practices
- Ulster-Kansai
- Oswego-Kansai
- Glasgow Caledonian University, Potsdam University
15:30-16:45
Session 1 [Japanese] : LMS for COIL practices
- Presentations and Discussions by Asahi Net International & Blackboard
Session 2 [English]: Education and Technology
- Presentations Simon C. LIN: “Technology Mindstorm for Online International Learning”
Dr. John Fong: “Education and Technology – Observations from Singapore, Sydney and Dubai”
17:00-17:30 Closing Remarks