About COIL

The COIL Center’s mission

is to develop and implement online collaborative international courses at SUNY as a format for experiential cross-cultural learning, thereby sensitizing participating students to the larger world by deepening their understanding of themselves, their culture, how they are perceived and how they perceive others. These globally networked courses also intensify disciplinary learning in fields where engaging other cultural perspectives is key. COIL builds bridges between study abroad, instructional design and teaching faculty through team-taught courses, thereby promoting, integrating and enhancing international education experiences across the curriculum. The COIL Center also works with international programs offices, helping them to integrate technology into their workflow.

COIL: From the Latin Colligere and the Medieval French Coillir: "To Gather Together".

COIL this year

In September 2010, COIL moved from Purchase College where it was founded in 2006, to become a unit of the new SUNY Global Center located in midtown Manhattan, NY. Networked through the SUNY Office of Global Affairs and the Office of International Programs, COIL can now better support SUNY campuses and their international partners as they develop and implement globally networked courses and programs. COIL is also working to become an international aggregator of information about initiatives in the emerging field of Globally Networked Learning.

Projects taking place during COIL's first year (2010-2011) at the SUNY Global Center included:

Continuation of Open Society Institute (OSI) funded support for European Humanities University, a university-in-exile, located in Vilnius, Lithuania, in collaboration with which 14 online modules and courses have been mounted between EHU and SUNY faculty;
The official launch of the Nodal Network, a seven campus consortium that provides mentorship for campuses and faculty new to COIL course implementation.
The awarding of sixteen faculty course development grants to faculty at the seven nodal campuses.
The 3rd COIL Conference which took place at the SUNY Global Center March 31 - April 1, 2011.
Launch of the NEH Institute for Globally Networked Learning in the Humanities, to which COIL invited scholars and university teams from across the nation to participate in a three year initiative to implement COIL-type courses at their institutions.

COIL is excited about the future, as these projects continue to reinforce SUNY's place as a leader in the field of globally networked learning. By broadening our reach from across the State of New York to the rest of the country and beyond, by opening dialogue between faculty, international programs offices and Instructional Design staff across traditional institutional and cross-cultural boundaries, COIL embraces the new globally networked landscape of academia by supporting collaborative online international learning as a means to internationalize curricula, build global partnerships and help prepare our students for global work and civil engagement.

A Brief Early History of COIL

In 2004, The Office of International Programs (OIP) and the Office of Learning Environments (OLE) at SUNY System Administration began the Cross National Project (CNP), in an effort to help to develop more online courses with an international dimension throughout SUNY. The idea was to work with faculty on all campuses to develop courses that would be team taught with a partner abroad and would enroll students both from SUNY campuses and from institutions abroad. The CNP goals were drafted in 2004, and later served as a basis for the mission of the COIL Center. They were as follows: Goals

To extend the enriching benefits of international education to a broader spectrum of SUNY students, faculty and staff than presently are able to study abroad.
To encourage and support the development of courses incorporating international collaborations which have a significant online component.
To develop a network of faculty, administrators, staff and students from SUNY and campuses abroad who are committed to online international education and to provide venues, including an annual conference, where their ideas and experiences can be shared.
To meet the international market demand for educational opportunities at SUNY by locating, contacting and developing foreign partners who are interested in collaborating on online international projects.
To educate ourselves and our colleagues about practices and technologies that can enhance our ability to create inspiring cross-national courses and to create a repository of online resources to facilitate this work.
To enhance the development of hybrid teaching models by sharing faculty between SUNY campuses - both virtually and in the classroom.
To demonstrate and promote model online international courses through online meeting spaces, dedicated web pages and in-person presentations throughout the SUNY system.
To develop funding sources that can support the incubation and development of innovative international online course work, degree programs, training and professional development, and life-long learning.
To foster the sustainability of online international scholarship, by promoting the "bottom-up" culture of individuality, entrepreneurship and creativity inherent in the academic community.

In the fall of 2006, The SUNY Office of International Programs (OIP) joined with Purchase College to create the SUNY Center for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). The mission of this center was to develop more online courses with an international dimension throughout SUNY. By presenting workshops across many campuses, hosting two conferences (2007 and 2008), and by receiving funding from various agencies such as the National Endowment of the Humanities and Open Society Institute, COIL engaged faculty and staff at over 20 SUNY campuses and in over 10 countries, helping to develop courses that were team taught with an international partner. Students enrolled in these courses at their own institution and met online with their peers abroad, working together within a course module or over a full semester.