COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) is one well-established model of virtual exchange, originating from the SUNY system (State University of New York). At its core, COIL means:

• At least two faculty, from two different countries/cultures, co-designing a course collaboration.
• Courses do not need to match in discipline, level, or class size — in fact, interdisciplinary pairings often produce greater student growth.
• The partnership begins with the professors, before students are ever brought together

✎ Try This — Spot the Difference
Think of a course you currently teach. Write one sentence describing how you would run it as a standard online unit, and one sentence describing how you would redesign the same topic as a genuine COIL collaboration with a partner abroad. What changes between the two versions — the activities, the assessment, or something else?