COIL - Institutional Commitment

Before starting to plan a new COIL program, it is important to make sure to receive institutional approval/commitment at local level.

• Depending on the institution and on the COIL model, different kinds and/or levels of approval may be needed; it is strongly suggested to contact the Unite! contact for collaborative courses at your university in order to verify the necessary steps and get administrative support.
• For COIL based on existing courses, changes to the course structure may be subject to approval from the relevant academic authority. This type of COIL is usually easier to implement, as each university administers the exam and gives credits to their own students, teachers are already under contract, etc.
• COIL based on existing courses generally do not require additional teaching hours; COIL created as new courses may require authorization from HR Department/relevant authorities at local level for the extra hours. For both models, the designing stage of the programs requires additional workload. It may be necessary to check if extra funding is available to support the developing of new courses.
  
• COIL offered as new courses need more work at both the academic and administrative levels: it is necessary to get approval for establishing a new course, contract/appoint the teachers, codify the course to include it in the official academic catalogue, etc. This should usually be done at both universities; each partner would then be able to give credits to their own students. 
• As an alternative, the COIL may be established at a single institution, but this will have then to be in charge of registering the participants, engage the teachers from the partner university, administer the exam and award credits to all students (credits must then be recognized by/transferred to the partner institution).




Please note that each university may have its own policy towards online education and established specific limitations (in terms of academic level, field, n. of hours offered in virtual mode, etc.).