COIL4COIL : building expertise and capacity in faculty at Durban University of Technology, South Africa

Abstract

Durban University of Technology (DUT) has, as two of its strategic objectives, internationalisation of the curriculum and e learning. In pursuit of these two strategic objectives, DUT became the first African university to join the State University of New York (SUNY) Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) global network in 2016. At DUT, the graduate attributes include critical and creative thinkers who work independently and collaboratively, knowledgeable practitioners, effective communicators, culturally, environmentally and socially aware within a local and global context and active and reflective learners. COIL/Virtual Engagement (VE) offers opportunities to develop these attributes in students and enhances their soft skills, which are so necessary in the workplace. COIL/VE has allowed students and academic staff from DUT to engage in collaborative learning experiences using technology and to date we have had approximately 20 projects across different departments and collaborating with programmes in New York State, Mexico, Brazil and the Netherlands. DUT is currently, expanding their international partnering network beyond the SUNY COIL network. When new ideas and ways of doing things, changes are introduced it is suggested that the innovators, those who jump on board first, are approximately 2.5% of the staff, then the early adopters are approximately 13.5% of the staff and the early majority 34%. This is an indication of work that needs to be done, in the University to get academic staff to embrace the concept of COIL/VE and introduce projects into their programmes and modules. In an effort to roll out COIL/VE to the academic fraternity at DUT, we have adopted a number of initiatives with mixed success. A COIL Clinic is held every week which is a “drop in” opportunity where academic staff can drop in to have a chat about COIL/VE – partnering, instructional design, ideas they may have or just an opportunity to explore the concept a little more. Varieties of workshops are held where the concept of COIL/VE is explained, some ideas of the use of technology are shared and participants have time to discuss and conceptualise a project for themselves. In some workshops, academic staff who have had successful projects are invited to share their experience with participants. There are occasions where the COIL/VE project has resulted in inbound mobility of an international partner and their expertise and/or experience is shared with DUT academic staff. In order to develop academic staff capacity a blended short course was developed to run over 5 weeks but was not a great success and this needs to be reconsidered and redesigned. A face-to-face session was held which was well attended but the online component was not well “attended.” Following this and in discussion with a European colleague an activity was offered once off between a European university, one in the United States and DUT. Academic staff were invited to a virtual meeting on Zoom and they had a short introduction to COIL/VE and then went into “breakout rooms” to discuss with international colleagues ideas for possible projects. Following which they all came back together and shared some of the discussions. From this exercise academic staff were encouraging the formation of a community of practice which would meet regularly. One of the constraints with the North South partnerships is the semester differences. In the Northern Hemisphere the 1st semester is from September through to about March/April. In the Southern Hemisphere the 1st semester is from February to June. This means that the first half of the year is a better time to collaborate North South with project development happening in the second half of the year for Implementation in the next year. This is true for the collaboration on staff development too where from June to September staff are away on vacation at various times during those 3 months. The last activity, which we have suggested as a strategy, to develop academic staff capacity is a journal club. This activity would help engage academic staff in the pedagogy and scholarship of COIL/VE and would go some way to developing the scholarship opportunities emanating out of COIL/VE projects. DUT COIL/VE is supported by an Educational Technologist who is able to assist academic staff with technology that assists with academic development in the use of technology in teaching. Durban University of Technology is in the initial stages of its COIL/VE trajectory and has so far, tapped into the 2.5% of teaching innovators and now needs to move the initiative into developing the next level of academic staff who, could be considered, early adopters. The opportunities to develop a community of practice and a community of enquiry, to progress the use of models and frameworks to teach with technology and to develop the scholarship of teaching and learning in COIL/VE are exciting.