Explore, design, connect
COIL Resources
Explore resources from Cal State LA and the wider COIL and virtual exchange community to help you understand the approach, design stronger collaborations, support students, and continue learning.
Start here
Three useful places to begin
What is COIL?
SUNY COIL provides a clear introduction to the COIL model, including how faculty partnerships, collaborative activities, intercultural learning, and course integration fit together.
Virtual Exchange Resources
The Stevens Initiative maintains a substantial public collection of virtual exchange research, practitioner resources, evaluation materials, field reports, webinars, and training opportunities.
COIL Foundations at Cal State LA
Cal State LA faculty who plan to develop a COIL collaboration should begin with COIL Foundations, our guided faculty development pathway for designing a meaningful project.
Design & facilitation
Resources for building the collaboration
Strong COIL projects require more than putting two classes on Zoom. These resources focus on project design, communication, facilitation, intercultural learning, and the faculty partnership behind the exchange.
SUNY COIL: Developing a COIL Module
SUNY's public COIL materials address learning goals, collaborative activities, technology, intercultural learning, scheduling, course integration, and other core design decisions.
Stevens Initiative Training & Professional Development
Explore virtual exchange training from organizations across the field, including opportunities focused on getting started, facilitation, intercultural learning, project design, and evaluation.
Mentoring Handbook for Virtual Exchange Teachers
This Stevens Initiative resource focuses on a challenge that is easy to underestimate: students do not automatically know how to communicate and collaborate effectively in synchronous and asynchronous international environments.
UNICollaboration Professional Development
UNICollaboration offers professional development focused on virtual exchange design, implementation, intercultural learning, and internationalization at home.
Supporting students
Design the experience students will actually have
The quality of virtual exchange depends on how students are prepared, grouped, supported, and asked to work together.
Prepare students to collaborate
Help students understand the purpose of the partnership, how communication will work, what participation looks like, and how to navigate differences in schedules, language, expectations, and working styles.
Build intercultural learning into the project
Meaningful intercultural learning usually requires intentional activities, reflection, and opportunities for students to make sense of what they encounter together.
Hear the student perspective
Our student page explains what COIL can look like from the learner's point of view and how students participate when COIL is part of their course.
Assessment & evaluation
Look beyond whether students enjoyed the experience
Evaluating Virtual Exchange
The Stevens Initiative provides public evaluation resources for examining virtual exchange outcomes and improving program and project design. Its resource collection includes evaluation tools, impact reports, field surveys, research, and practitioner guidance.
These materials can help faculty think more carefully about what they want students to learn and what evidence might show whether that learning occurred.
Connect with the field
COIL is part of a much larger international community
Faculty and staff can learn from educators, researchers, and practitioners around the world who are developing virtual exchange in different disciplines and institutional settings.
International Virtual Exchange Conference
IVEC brings together researchers, educators, practitioners, and institutional leaders to share new work and strengthen the field of virtual exchange.
UNICollaboration
Join an international professional community focused on virtual exchange research and practice, including Special Interest Groups, professional development, networking, and scholarship.
SUNY COIL Global Community
SUNY COIL connects practitioners around the world for professional support, partner networking, webinars, resource sharing, and continued development of COIL practice.
Research & Scholarship
Interested in studying COIL more systematically? Explore research questions, scholarly communities, conferences, and publication pathways in virtual exchange.
At Cal State LA
Use these resources alongside our COIL pathways
Public resources can help you explore ideas and learn from the wider field. Cal State LA faculty who are ready to develop a project should use our local pathways for faculty preparation, partner development, project examples, and community.
Keep exploring
Good COIL practice keeps developing
There is no single template for a strong COIL collaboration. Different disciplines, students, partners, and learning goals call for different approaches. The most useful resources are the ones that help faculty make thoughtful choices about the experience they are creating.