Collaborative Online International Learning, or COIL, is an education system where university students that are from more than 2 countries connect online under the supervision of their professors. This system is now being used more as the new style of international exchange, or new way to make existing classes or exchange programs better. At Ibaraki University, the following classes and short-term study abroad programs are using the COIL system.

In this class, students were in groups of 5 which had 3 students from Ibaraki University and 2 students from Wisconsin University that were studying Japanese. Each group researched about the relationship between COVID-19 and consumption of pop culture, and alteration of people’s lifestyle. On May 9th 2021, there was a platform for showing the result from the research. Students’ reactions were positive. For instance, “There are not many opportunities to work with students from outside Japan, so this was a really great chance to try with them” or “There were many participants from various countries, so I could learn the difference of how to communicate, how to cooperate, how to assign the tasks and how to put some tasks together. I could understand those differences by experiencing them.”

In Summer of 2021, Ibaraki University and Hai Phong University (Vietnam) provided global cooperative education using the method of COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) as part of exchange activities between 2 universities. The actual practice was called “Japan-Vietnam Online international exchange learning project”, and 11 students from Ibaraki University and 14 students from Hai Phong University joined.

In the project, students were divided into groups to make web articles about restaurants in the Ibaraki prefecture and Hai Phong city. Students from each school discussed and decided interviewees together. In Vietnam, students visited the restaurant with a computer and a camera, so that Japanese students could see it online.

Here are the web articles that the students have made.