Virtual Internationalization at SCMS Pune through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)

Pune (Maharashtra) [India], December 1 (ANI/SRV Media): Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies (SCMS), Pune, is among the very few in India to do Collaborative Online International Learning, popularly known as COIL. To elaborate, COIL is used to refer to any pedagogical activities that use technology to link classrooms and students in geographically distant locations through coursework.
Among the other terms used to describe such activity are virtual exchange, virtual mobility, globally networked learning, tele collaboration, and online intercultural exchange COIL links faculty across borders to co-create learning environments in which students gain valuable digital and cross-cultural competencies through collaboration with international peers by leveraging Information and Communication technology (ICT).
With COIL 3.0 concluding in November, 2020; SCMS Pune has completed 3 successful collaborations with the partner university. The first COIL was conducted in 2019. Both the faculty and the students have appreciated and enjoyed this over the semesters.
The teams were led by Dr Peter Soscia, Vice President (Academic Affairs), Bridge Valley Community and Technical College and Dr Adya Sharma ( Director, SCMS) and Vijay P Misra ( Faculty, SCMS)
This initiative allows the students to develop intercultural competencies and digital skills while working together on subject-specific learning tasks or activities while reducing the geographical distance and time difference through the use of (ICT). The students at SCMS Pune were able to understand and appreciate their differences while studying together. This initiative is gaining importance as a new mechanism of Internationalization.
"With every COIL we hope to improve ourselves to ensure that the interaction among students is good and we therefore achieve the objective of them learning from one another and understanding and appreciating each other's culture and traditions. With the COVID - 19 imposing strict restrictions especially on international travel, COIL seems to be the best opportunity for Internationalization to help make our students Global Citizens. In addition, since physical Internationalization has a lot of cost involved, COIL is a much more viable option for Universities to provide the requisite exposure to their students," said Dr Adya Sharma, Director, SCMS Pune, commenting on the COIL initiative.
As an outcome of the third edition of COIL, the students were able to understand and appreciate cultural and traditional differences while studying together. The students were taught by a foreign faculty and worked with students from the other university to complete a project for submission. Faculty at SCMS Pune had the opportunity to teach foreign students.
The students were marked for their COIL Collaboration efforts and the same was considered as a part of their internal evaluation for the subject. The students were rewarded for their efforts through a Certificate/ Digital Badge for COIL participation. Students from other divisions who are not a part of COIL Collaboration semester have also shown interest in the upcoming COIL Collaboration, which speaks of its success.
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