COIL in engineering Educational Activities: Challenges and Opportunities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61007/QdC.2026.1.405Keywords:
COIL, SDGs, Engineering education, Online learning, Collaborative learning.Abstract
Today’s educational environments offer a diverse range of innovative tools and approaches to enhance higher education across various aspects. One of the most noteworthy approaches is COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) activities. The primary advantage of COIL lies in its design, which facilitates the interna-tionalisation of the curriculum through virtual and collaborative activities without requiring travel. In engineering education and professional practice, internationalisation is becoming increasingly crucial. Modern companies operate in global environments, and engineering management requires specialised training to navigate multicultural and interdisciplinary settings. COIL activities enable students to engage in international collaborative efforts without relocating. Collaboration is fundamentally about understanding, designing, and applying knowledge to our ever-evolving reality. Therefore, incorporating collaborative work methodologies is highly beneficial. Such dynamics allow students to gain insights into other realities that may be familiar or quite different from their own. This is particularly significant when considering the application of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which serve as central themes for international and interdisciplinary work. Active learning catalyses social change, with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) as a central focus of this collaboration. In this article, we present the COIL activity conducted between Simón Bolívar University of Barranquilla, Colombia (USB), and the University of Cádiz, Spain (UCA).
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