COIL is an innovative teaching and learning initiative that promotes the development of intercultural competence across shared multicultural learning environments using Internet-based tools and online pedagogies. While a key element of COIL is the intentional development of intercultural communicative competence, another benefit is the development of digital and critical literacies as well as foreign language skills (where applicable) and interdisciplinary approaches (where applicable). The teaching staff facilitates new knowledge creation competencies and acquisition of various skills to further enhance the development of the students as well as attitudes – to live and work in a multicultural and interconnected world. Some of the iKudu partner universities (DUT, Univen, and UL) have developed COIL capacity through the now completed IMPALA project.

The COIL virtual exchanges take place solely in a virtual space, embedded in individual courses/modules that may be fully online or offered in blended formats with traditional face-to-face sessions taking place at both universities. It involves bi- or multilateral partner universities, university teachers, professional support services and students, and fosters meaningful exchanges with peers in different geographic locations and from a different lingua-cultural background based on mutuality. Courses/modules integrating COIL virtual exchanges create spaces for teaching staff to develop a shared curriculum that emphasises experiential and collaborative student-centred learning. For iKudu, the COIL virtual exchanges take place as short interventions within existing modules. The impact of its implementation will be the threshold which would require recurriculation.