Adapting a capacity-development-in-higher-education project: Doing, being and becoming virtual collaboration

Abstract

In November 2019, scholars and practitioners from ten higher education institutions celebrated the launch of the iKudu project. This project, co-funded by Erasmus+[1], focuses on capacity development for curriculum transformation through internationalisation and development of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) virtual exchange. Detailed plans for 2020 were discussed including a series of site visits and face-to-face training. However, the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the plans in ways that could not have been foreseen and new ways of thinking and doing came to the fore. Writing from an insider perspective as project partners, in this paper we draw from appreciative inquiry, using a metaphor of a mosaic as our identity, to first provide the background on the iKudu project before sharing the impact of the pandemic on the project’s adapted approach. We then discuss how alongside the focus of iKudu in the delivery of an internationalised and transformed curriculum using COIL, we have, by our very approach as project partners, adopted the principles of COIL exchange. A positive impact of the pandemic was that COIL offered a consciousness raising activity, which we suggest could be used more broadly in order to help academics think about international research practice partnerships, and, as in our situation, how internationalised and decolonised curriculum practices might be approached. [1] KA2 Erasmus+ Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices (capacity building in the field of Higher Education)

Knowing, Being, Relating and Expressing Through Third Space Global South-North COIL: Digital Inclusion and Equity in International Higher Education

“…The Global South-North examples described here have considered COIL as a Third Space within which both academics and students can explore their different intellectual, emotional, and socio-cultural positionings and develop competences "to recognize [themselves] in the narrative of the interconnected world as well as local realities" (Niemczyk, 2019, p. 3). With this we have also highlighted due regard for human capacity and technological requirements necessary for the complexity of equitable networked learning (Jacobs et al, 2021). Leask and Bridge's (2013) conceptual framework for curriculum internationalization recognizes how any transformative learning approach which fundamentally challenges staff and students' ways of thinking and relating must be understood and delivered within a broader framework of scale.…”

“…Whilst focused on the learner experience, iKudu seeks to build capacity and infrastructure to implement COIL at HEIs with diverse histories and contexts. Indeed, staff capacity development is at the heart of iKudu and the ways in which academics can be equipped as proficient teaching staff who themselves have access to an international and local pool of knowledge, skills, and expertise (Jacobs et al, 2021). Further, iKudu aims at improving the management and operational strategies of the partner universities by addressing the process of internationalization and ways of supporting equity and democratization of HE inter alia through teaching and learning practices.…”

“…The spirit of Ubuntu (I am because we are) was infused from the early days of project writing and has carried through the project where the need for critical cultural awareness, the subtleties and etiquette required in effective online intercultural communication, and the need to be respectful of one another's various cultural differences, digital infrastructure and educational contexts, power dynamics, agency, and voice, has been recognized by all. Beyond that, strong trust capital (Algan, 2018) (recognizing interpersonal trust and people's well-being) has developed, where trust among consortium members developed and spread within the group and has served to strengthen the project work (Jacobs et al, 2021). Through the pandemic, consortium partners have continued to progress the project aims in the online space and have been adopting the principles of Third Space COIL in how colleagues have come to learn together, to be challenged and to challenge one another.…”

COVID-19, the global education project and technology: Disrupting priorities towards rethinking education

“…Such inequalities not only exist between regions, but also within regions, countries and institutions. Yet, there is a strong drive within the higher education sector to work together to overcome barriers, and to find innovative ways to create equal opportunities, including inclusive virtual learning across geo-political boundaries (Jacobs et al, 2021).…”

“…Giving group assignments that students can do outside the classroom, to connect with each other, is suggested (Rayner & Webb, 2021). It is also important to build some element of a social event, which could include a regular coffee hour (Jacobs et al, 2021), or games in the form of quizzes (Rayner & Webb, 2021).…”