The Ohio State University Colleges of Nursing and Arts and Sciences were recently awarded a U.S.- Norway Virtual Exchange/Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Transformational Lab by the American Council on Education (ACE).
ACE and the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education with support from the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research partnered to provide rapid response, intensive virtual exchange/COIL online training to U.S. and Norwegian higher education institutions.
The partnership between the Ohio State College of Nursing and Loviesenberg Diaconal University College dates back to 2017 when the universities signed a memorandum of agreement to expand opportunities for global learning that would incorporate both traditional study abroad with local virtual study abroad. These experiences were designed to augment learning for students traveling abroad as well as provide international learning for those students who could not travel.
Participation in this College of Nursing COIL course will expand the partnership to broader groups, inform future collaborative endeavors to benefit students and faculty and enable students and faculty to continue their journey toward cultural competency and global engagement.
The College of Arts and Sciences partnership with the Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology began with the TRONDBUSS education abroad program as a way to assist STEM students to find an easier path toward multivariate benefits of international exchange. With this award, Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences and the Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology will transform the TRONDBUSS program to a virtual exchange.
COIL will provide another opportunity for the TRONDBUSS program: virtual spaces instead of physical space, which has previously hindered program expansion and limited student participation to only 10 Ohio State undergraduate students per year. This award will expand the offering to more students from both universities. The exchange will take place in the autumn semester 2021 and will include Introduction to Biomedical Laboratory Sciences and Bioethics in the Era of Genomics classes.
These awards will also include up to five hours of additional time with experienced senior leadership, faculty and instructional design mentors; webinars covering topics like managing communications breakdowns, talking about COIL with colleagues and repeating COIL courses in future semesters; and premium access to technology tools to assist in developmental training and connect, create and manage online courses.
For more information about international partnerships, visit oia.osu.edu/international-partnerships.