Virtual Exchange as a sustainable, scalable, and affordable strategy for internationalization at home

Abstract

Technology facilitated collaborative work at a distance, between students on our campuses and students at international partner institutions, can significantly enrich the curriculum of an institution, and at the same time amplify access to multicultural experiences for students who may not participate in mobility programs. An effective implementation of such experiences requires tight integration and coordination across university offices that usually tend to work in isolation. Successful virtual exchange (often referred to as Collaborative Online Learning or COIL) usually involves four very distinct areas of higher education institutions: the international office (including the Education/Study Abroad unit), the online learning division, the faculty development unit (teaching and learning center), and the faculty driven bodies charged with internationalizing the curriculum. The presentation will focus on the experience of DePaul University, where a university wide virtual exchange initiative was launched in 2013 and has involved to date approximately 70 courses and over 1200 students. The presentation will include: an introduction to the basic tenets of the virtual exchange pedagogy; a detailed description of a few concrete examples; a description of the structures and processes in place at DePaul to support virtual exchange; a first glance at assessment data, aimed at measuring the impact of virtual exchange experiences on students.