Norway’s Latest Partnership With Ace and U.S. Institutions to Maintain Global Learning Through Virtual Exchange

“ACE is excited to expand our VE/COIL Transformation Lab program and grateful to Diku for joining us in this endeavour.”

Ted Mitchell ( President of ACE )

American Council on Education (ACE) has created a partnership in Norway with the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation (Diku). The project aims to provide virtual exchange and collaborative online international learning (VE/COIL) training. The training between selected U.S. and Norwegian institutions is to keep the U.S.-Norwegian higher education partnerships alive during COVID-19.

The virtual exchange (VE/COIL) was created in summer 2020 between the US and Japan as a response to suspended student mobility which has seen success due to its accessibility and affordability.

Ted Mitchell, the president of ACE said: “ACE is excited to expand our VE/COIL Transformation Lab program and grateful to Diku for joining us in this endeavour.”

The virtual exchange is based on sustained, technology-enabled education programs and activities to enable individuals or groups in different countries to communicate constructively, allowing a high level of interaction. The research-based method of COIL itself is based on an online exchange of collaboration between faculties in two or more countries. It allows them to develop a syllabus for students and work together online to complete tasks, activities and assignments and share the results of learning.

The director of Diku, Harald Nybolet said the intention of this initiative is not to remove the physical mobility but to supplement it, as digital collaboration is needed now more due to the social, environmental and time concerns. Diku’s work on collaboration with North America for more than 10 years resulted in the creation of the partnership programme and new learning experience.

Five institutions from the US and Norway paired to be part of the programme:

• The Ohio State University and Lovisenberg Diaconal University College,
• Gallaudet University and Oslo Metropolitan University
• The Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
• Stony Brook University and Norwegian University of Life Sciences
• The Ohio State University and Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The collaboration will include at the first stage, adapting the education and exchange programmes online to establish and continue high-quality professional training and exchange. The process is supported by ed-tech all in one online exchange platform called ImmerseU that has been developed by Class2Class consulting the requirements with ACE and the Institute for Innovative Global Education (Japan). The participants will have access to an online learning platform connecting the peers of both institutions.

Additionally, ACE will offer additional mentoring and support by creating webinars covering various aspect of the project. The students will be helped in order to develop their cultural understanding. They will be reflecting on the progress of work, as an evaluation of the project will be important for them at the present but also for future programmes.

The COIL virtual exchange experiences proved to be successful allowing international cooperation between institutions and students without the need for physical mobility.