Developing Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Projects

This is Terminal to Professor and Associate Dean for Internationalisation. This is John Green, a study abroad and internationalisation officer. This is Dr. Almedell, a labdine senior lecturer in marketing and director of studies, BA Marketing. Dr. Severina Cardride, lecturer in marketing and academic lead for global opportunities. This is Dr. Dayan Anderson, director of MBA programmes at the University of Liverpool Management School. And you are listening to the Academy's Developing Practice Podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Academy's Developing Practice Podcast. In this podcast we chat with Terry, John, Ahmed, Severina and Dane about their team's recent Sir Alistair Pilkington Award for Teaching Excellence. Awarded for their development of online student exchange opportunities through collaborative online international learning or coil projects. We hope you enjoy. Terry, Ahmed, Severina, Dane and John were really pleased to be speaking with all of you today about your recent Sir Alistair Pilkington Award for Teaching Excellence. Awarded for your development of online student exchange opportunities through collaborative online international learning. And that's a little bit of a mouthful. So I'm glad there's an acronym there. The acronym is coil projects. But before we get started, can you each tell us a little bit about your background and how you have arrived at the positions that you're in today please? And Terry, can I start with you? Sure. Yeah, I joined the Management School and University in 2006. I'm a professor of Management and Corporate Governance, having been at Leeds and Warwick. I very quickly became the Schools Director of Research between 2006 and 2014. School was in that early phase of its development. In fact, that was part of the attraction. It was in some ways a formative start-up phase. And then in 2016 when the school was much more mature, I became the Associate Dean International. And in that role, I'm responsible for the International Strategy. Which includes international partnerships for student exchange and mobility. And in that sense, I'm very pleased to be able to talk about coils and have been involved in coils. In the context of that international strategy and the overall vision for the school to be globally connected. And advancing inflation and knowledge leadership through research and teaching to better business and society. So since 2006, it's been a quite a long journey, but a very interesting one through the growth phases of the school. Brilliant. So it wasn't the city that drew you in. It was the opportunity to almost form something from scratch for yourself. Was that right? City is very important to me. I was born and born in the city. And it is very, very important. It wasn't the driving decision for joining the university. It was an aspect. And I did spot that in 2006. The context of Liverpool was much more optimistic and changing for the better. And in fact, I brought the first ever management conference to the city. In 2009, it was the European Academy of Management conference. And we attracted nearly a thousand delegates and held in the conference in the arena. So that was an important development for the school. So the city is very important in my background in the school. But it was really the school's position in its life cycle. And having been at Leeds and Warwick, I had a good sense of what established schools looked like and how they worked. And I wanted to bring some of that to the university of Liverpool. Yeah, brilliant. I can one imagine it. You must have seen a lot of change in the city over the last 16 years. Ahmed, I'm going to come to you next. What about your background? Thanks, Matt. So I started at the University of Liverpool Management School in August 2015. It was. And I've been involved in lots of exciting projects around consumption practices in conflict zones, looking at how individuals are cultureate from one culture to another. I was involved in an impact case, looking at improving service experiences and end of life care. So lots of exciting projects that have been going on. From around 2018, I became the director of studies for BA Marketing. And really my key interest, one of my core reasons for taking part in the Coil is my fascination really with internationalisation, cultural awareness, building a strong international student community. So I would say those were the three drivers for me. Yeah. Brilliant. So I mean, this project really sort of fit in with your with your aims anyway, then in that respect. Absolutely, yeah. Brilliant. Severina, how about yourself? Yes, I joined the University of Liverpool in October 2019 as a lecturer in marketing and also the study abroad champion. Prior to that, I've worked at Covent University as a digital marketing lecturer and I finished my PhD at University of Bath. And yeah, my research interests live within social media marketing, digital marketing, relationships. And hence, I also got involved in one of the Coils, the Coil between Berlin and Liverpool, which focuses on digital aspects. And I was able to bring my research into the Coil, my expertise and also some industry experience as a work as European channel marketing executive, product manager and consultant in social media. So I was able to bring both aspects in there, which was very exciting for me to share both. And yeah, last but not least, I also got to be from January 2022, the Global Opportunities Academically for the Management School, which again involved me to another level with internationalization and with student mobility, which is very important for the school and very exciting for me personally. Because I am an advocate of studying abroad. I studied abroad one year in California and one year in Australia and Melbourne. So from a personal perspective, I also want to share that knowledge and experience and drive internationalization forward in different areas within the school. Brilliant. I mean, from Coventry to Melbourne, that's an interesting journey. Yes, you can. You can call it an interesting journey. Thanks, Marina. Dean, what about yourself? Yes, so I joined the University of Liverpool Management School in April 2021. So I'm probably the the newest member of the team here today. And I joined as the Director of the University of Liverpool Management School MBA programs, having spent the last four years working in Manchester, developing executive education programs and degree apprenticeship programs. But my area of interest is around strategy, it's around an interesting, how we create a vantage, but how we can do that more responsibly. So as a Director of MBA, here at the University of Liverpool Management School, it's an absolute pleasure to learn from and work with potential future leaders who are going to go into industry and create new jobs, create new employment. And one of my key interests for getting involved in this is that I wanted to make sure we can have our students working with people in different contexts, different parts of the world on issues that matter to us all, like sustainability, like responsible management. Thanks, Dean. So as you started in just last year, what was it that drew you to the University of Liverpool, can I ask? Also, that's a good question. I did my PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2014, so I've been a complete kind of 360, having an ID on the M62. So started at Liverpool, went to Manchester, boom around back really. But it was the opportunity, the opportunity to work with the school that's making really strong strides internationally in the research and teaching as well. So that's what really drew me back. And to really shape a programme to shape a portfolio of programmes across the MBA, MBAs being, you know, management school, what's a good MBA in the system, and I wanted to sing my teeth into pedicontically and also in terms of research as well, to make sure we get best people teaching on the MBA and shaping it for the future as well. Yeah, brilliant. It sounds like a fantastic opportunity in that case, then. John, last but no means least. Hi Matt, thanks for having us along. So I actually completed my undergrad degree at Manchester. the map and the study abroad like Sabrina did actually as part of my degree in the state university of New York at Courtland and also did an internship with the New York State Assembly as well which is kind of where my internationalization journey started and that really led to me then going back into support, like Trus and then you going back in and talking to students about studying abroad about mobility and that's kind of how I got started and then doing an internship as an international strategist and then becoming an international project coordinator before moving towards in August 2017 as the study abroad internationalisation officer which is what I do now as opposed I take Terry strategy and operationalise it so looking at student mobility both inbound and outbound looking at partnerships as well and then obviously dealing with our coil projects. Well I'm glad you've mentioned coil projects because I very quickly went over the name for coil earlier on and people have probably already forgotten what that is so I'm going to ask a really obvious question what is a coil project? Well coil stands for collaborative online international learning project and in fact it was John who introduced me to the idea of coil so he's just said he works with Terry strategy and but certainly we were certainly influenced by ideas from all colleagues and John John certainly brought that idea to the table and we've built it as an important part of the strategy. There's a body of literature about coils and there's quite a lot of writing about coils generally and in fact talking to some potential partners just last summer it emerged that there's quite a lot of practice internationally around coils so in that sense we're not the creators of coils but what we are here in the management school are the group that has used the idea of coils to be an approach to education that we've developed with international partners that works online as opposed to through traditional mobility which is clearly impeded by the pandemic and we can talk about that in more detail if you wish so that students with very different geographical educational backgrounds have this opportunity to develop the competence, their awareness, their skills, in cross-cultural matters really and it's that international appreciation it's that so some coil as a project really serves the whole ethos of internationalisation and globe and being a global citizen etc. I think a nice easy way to kind of sum up coils for us certainly the management school is just that it's an opportunity for us to bring staff and students together from different countries, cultures and academic backgrounds and kind of work towards that common goal and we've used our projects to provide students with a platform to kind of learn more about themselves learn about what those in their cultures and the challenges facing business and playing as a really most succinct way to put it. So I think with regards to coil projects they really do contribute to a stronger course school and study exchange community you know if we look at our partners that we have collaborated on coil projects with students from our university from the partners university they've been able to work collaboratively with each other they've been able to develop a whole plethora you know of skills and not least cultural awareness time management teamwork and communication working with each other in different time zones because that's really important when they go into the world of work and you know less we not forget we are now living in a global village which bears no borders and this is reflected in the coil project in that the collaborations and the projects are conducted online so also from a sustainability perspective it's a win-win situation but also from an EDI and equality diversity and inclusion perspective there's also that as well. Fantastic these projects have obviously had a massive impact in terms the student experience but also the impact for staff as well and you were awarded a university Sir Alistair Pilkington Award for teaching excellence for your development of these projects recently and we all attended the staff awards and I have to say you've got one of the loudest cheers across the home awards ceremony so congratulations for that but yeah many congratulations for your awards as I say that's recognition from the university in terms of the impact that the projects are having so can you tell us and you've started to allude to this a little bit but can you tell us a bit about the motivation for why you chose to set up the projects in the first place? Sure I think it's important to put it in the context of the challenge to be faced as a school and an institution with regard to student mobility in conditions of the pandemic we had a very healthy flow of outbound and inbound exchange students traditionally but that was clearly impeded by the pandemic so what I think what happened was that certainly prior to the pandemic there was an interest in developing this online exchange opportunity and I think John's work with Ahmed was and a University of Georgia was very important in terms of developing that idea within the team so we had this idea of an online exchange opportunity as something to add to our internationalisation strategy by which we could potentially reach students for whom international mobility was problematic might be the students from disadvantaged underrepresented backgrounds in a black age in minority ethnic backgrounds, widening participation backgrounds so there was this interest in in coils generally but the pandemic brought sharp and our focus in terms of the importance of and the possibilities and potential of online student exchange and in that sense the the coil was a way to address a problem of actual mobility and we also had as part of our international we do have as part of our international strategy here what we call an internationalisation at whole magenda and the whole point of that is to ensure that the experience on the Liverpool campus is an international experience so that students from the UK and from overseas that integrated work together and that feels like an international experience so again coils gave us an opportunity to integrate students with the habit involvement of partner organisations internationally so coils also fitted with the internationalisation at whole magenda so as Covid-19 stole traditional modes of mobility we as a team and I think that's one of the things I keep emphasising here that we are a team we saw coils as having real potential to complement everything we wanted to achieve through our international strategy in really using online and virtuality in really difficult conditions and I think that's what we've achieved so far is a reflection of that ambition coming to fruition. Yeah I mean like like Toby says there as a team like we like to trend about new things like each year we do our own kind of marketing operations kind of kind of the projects that we're going to run each year and I think as a team we will quite come up with those new initiatives and projects it can infuse students about international mobility about the global opportunities that we've got and normally obviously pre-pandemic we're kept quite busy with our kind of other traditional modes so as the pandemic hit it gave us a little bit of time to be a bit more creative and kind of put these coil projects that we'd kind of thought about and discussed briefly but it kind of gave us a bit more room to play with those and kind of develop those ideas a little bit more basically trying to keep our students interested in internationalisation and study abroad and we're hoping that I could potentially lead to future actual mobility to keep in their interest. So John are you now moving back towards a traditional method or are you are you all in on coils now is this is this the mode or are you doing a bit are you going to be doing a bit of both? I mean we're very lucky in a month you know we've got kind of strategic buy-in from from Terry as well and I think initially we saw coils as being kind of almost a substitute towards the traditional forms of mobility because of the pandemic. But I think and we'll come on to this later when we talk about impact, but because of their impact, you know, we very much see it as something that we want to push forward with, you know, it's an opportunity to try and strike that balance between traditional forms of mobility, like the Smash for Broad, Gear for Broad, Year in China and the Summer Broad programs. And then this is well, this is very much seen as a, you know, an addition to that call, Sir, and it's not an actor for if that makes sense. Yeah, no, it doesn't, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So let's just get into the detail on a little bit of it then. So can you tell us a little bit about the model that you use for the coil projects, you know, what, what happening under this under this surface there? Well, we don't agree to too much detail, we'll give away all our traits. We've run for project in total across three different partnerships and we've used a slightly different model for each one, basically to try and experiment and see what works and kind of what opportunities are available for us. So I'm Ed and I and the team working on the UGA coil. We ran this over a 10 week period and I'm Ed and my other academic colleagues that were involved, created five business related problems that we would then put into a project brief for students to work on and it was very much kind of a more directed approach. I think we set out to students that we want these three outputs and they're deliverable by these times and like I said, those projects that I'm Ed and my and the other academic colleagues came up with very much kind of fit the cohort of who we were working with. The students would then deliver those outputs and then the top five teams would go through into almost a competition style finale where they would present their pitch their ideas to a panel of academic churches and industry experts and with one team eventually coming out on top as the coil winners. So that was very much the UGA coil and in the second year though we found that well in after that first year we found that the projects were really flexible and we could do a lot more with them and obviously Terry's been working really out of the last couple years on a new partnership with the Indian Institute of Management at Indoor and so Dane and I then started to work on a new coil project with Dane and Dane I don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about the approach we took with Indoor. Yeah absolutely so our coil always being Indian Institute for Management in Indoor you know taking a similar approach to what happened at UGA a lot of good learning was taken from that first project but we focused here NPA level we focused more on self-managed learning so along the students to direct where they wanted to go so the MBA students over a one week intensive period here would choose the depth the level the direction of everything they wanted to do in and around the coil. So they were asked to read around in particular subject area you know in a much shorter time frame and the reason for that was you know try to replicate some kind of crisis scenarios maybe that they might get in the real world and it goes back to kind of what you were saying about this blended approach of are we keeping some exchange of going abroad versus keeping this online the real world now weighs about that blend of both isn't it we will do some calls virtually we will do some calls in person so we want to kind of replicate that MBA you go in and to see your level you direct you're giving a problem you decide how you're going to dissect that problem and look at it. So we're instead of creating business related problems though again linking back to my own interests and kind of some interesting research that Terry had brought forward in a module previously as well we thought let's do something a bit more responsible sustainable so we took the UN sustainability goals 17 goals in total self-directed learning self-managed learning that 17 areas which can go in many different avenues in many different ways and that for us then reached the process because we were learning just as much as they were learning as well so we had a team working with and there was around 14 groups in total I think it was quite quite a number of groups working with I am in door and ourselves and they came up with some very interesting things across those UN sustainability goals whether it's from what research has been done what solutions are kind of emerging to tackle these particular particular problems or whether it's just their swing on what they think should happen in this particular area so a very interesting moment in a very interesting time to put something that affects us not of where we are in the world you're going to have to look at these real wicked problems so we focus again on that wickedness of a problem there's no silver bullet if you like it's about a systems thinking approach so multiple skills multiple behaviors multiple parts of knowledge having to really come together to look at these these interesting issues. I really like that I mean I could imagine that you know maybe students in India would have a very different approach to solving some of the same same things that we're talking about in England and in different parts of the world as well so yeah I can really see the benefit of that type of collaboration. Yes I took part as a tutor in that choir working with some of the groups and that was a great experience actually for me and I'm actually just witnessed students in in in in door and Liverpool genuinely coming together and quite intense conditions really time was quite tight so they had to they had to find out how to work together effectively very quickly but I remember one session where they were each reflecting on each other's backgrounds prior to their MBA programs and how they were using backgrounds in in finance engineering for example to address some of the problems that Dane has mentioned so it was um so for me that was a really good coil to be involved in because we can't it's it talked about international strategy etc but in the end it has to translate into very meaningful experiences and dialogue for students and so there was plenty of evidence that that happened and I'm very pleased that we were looking to continue this coil and with a very prestigious partner for the for the school and the institution. Thanks Terry I've got it. Severina you were involved in the Berlin coil and can you tell us what that was? Yes so the Berlin coil was slightly different compared to the other coils um it was an intense one-week project like the indoor project but instead of focusing on competition-based activities like the others um this project consisted of different pedagogical styles and also a competition-based activity so on the one hand in the mornings we had lectures being delivered by myself from Liverpool but also lectures from Berlin um university and we also had a guest lecture from Cardiff University and very exciting keynote speaker from industry um CEO of multiple companies who spoke about fast fashion and sustainability and the students really enjoyed that keynote speaker and he said he never seen that many LinkedIn requests us as a session which was great to see the engagements between the students and the speakers. In the afternoon then we there were seminar sessions where students were able to collaborate and engage with each other and work on a cask and in the afternoon session the students were able to apply the knowledge that they gained in the morning sessions from the lectures in their afternoon activities. The activities consisted of various different digital tasks such as developing a website about the product or service that they developed they had to write a blog, throw the leadership blog to showcase the strengths of and key features of the product to service and the results were absolutely outstanding for me. All of the groups were winners but we did have to choose one winner at the end unfortunately but I think all the presentations were absolutely outstanding but just to summarize and to to say why this coil was so important for me personally is because after the pandemic we are not going to be going to normal working hours nine till five going to the office businesses are changing environments are changing zoom is here to stay the pandemic has changed the dynamics of industry and this coil provided students the ability to develop different digital skills, social media skills, web site development skills that they will be needing later on but also to communicate using digital tools which again they need these skills when they graduate university and go into industry so hence this was very close to my heart coil where I was able to drive these skills and students to develop these skills. So were the students in their seminars, were they from Berlin and from Liverpool, were they mixed together or did you then separate them into the two distinct university settings? Yes, absolutely. Great question. So they were mixed because we didn't want them to be feeling okay this is only Liverpool and this is only Germany. So we mixed them into different groups so that they would also explore different nationalities, different cultures, see how students from different countries, different universities also are communicating with each other. The great thing about the three different project, three different styles of projects is that all of the students have worked into institutional teams and so and we'll come on to it in terms of impact and how that's fit into that. But the three methods have really kind of give us an opportunity for discussing how we can take coils forward in the school. You know, Severina's project shows the potential of how we can operate a coin on, you know, with a more thematic specific thematic focus and our other projects kind of show how coins can be used as an extra curricular activity that supports the development of employability skills which some of this isn't in really key for the students, for the students. But it's also a key, you know, performance indicator for the school and the university as well. And I think like I said, there are three different types of projects have given us options going forward. Yeah, absolutely. I love that flexibility that you've built in. It's really clear to me why you weren't such a prestigious award for these projects because it seems that there's really clear benefits for our students at the University of Liverpool. But also as you were saying, Severina, for the students at the partnering institutions as well at the moment in the USA, you're an India. So you've alluded to this little bit of a job. But can you tell us now about the impact of this approach for maybe student outcomes or the student experience? And what did the students themselves say about these projects? Yeah, I mean, I think actually it would be useful if Terry will kind of set the scene for that impact because it's through that kind of strategic backing that we're able to deliver that impact. So I don't know if Terry, you want to mention something there? Yeah, sure. I think the impact of the coils is clearly multi-dimensional. And I'm a believer that the most important impact is upon the students. So colleagues and John will talk about that shortly. But it's certainly both for the presence in the future. Some of the significance of coils is lies in the relationships with partners and how these have been developed and enriched really. We already had the partnership with the University of Georgia as a university. So I think that coil has enriched that partnership with indoor, within India was happening and is happening in and involves several lines of activity. But the coil has really enriched that partnership and provides a future way of continuing to work together. And similarly the coil with Berlin where that's a developing partnership. So I think impact for me has taken place at the partner level and is very important. I think it's taken place at the staff level. Real fun of an impression that sometimes inertia can take hold and systems are hard to change quickly and ideas are hard to implement quickly. When I think back on my career and it's really thanks to colleagues on this call and partner colleagues, this is an example of colleagues reacting quickly. Really to pull together three or four projects of this nature with international colleagues and partners in a pandemic is an incredible achievement by my colleagues here. And it showed flexibility, adaptability, creativity. These are both words that they're real achievements. And that's in many ways what I'm most proud of regarding the coil to see that colleagues were able to to create this change and create this momentum for the benefit of the students. And with that, it gives staff confidence. It gives staff an ownership of internationalisation. It gives them a confidence to think I can work with partners. And that helps me get buying of staff to our international strategy. Because the international strategy is only as good as the staff who work with it. So that's a very, very significant impact. But on top of all of those two dimensions, there's the impact on the students. And I'll leave it to John and colleagues to talk about those impacts. I think the big impact, obviously like Terry said, there's been on staff as well. I mean, the fact that we've been able to develop those partnerships and kind of work a lot closer with those partners as well and develop those relationships has been great. But like we've got the coils have also led to other things. So for example, we've got a staff member who's now joined the international advisory board at one of our partners. And you know, we've severed her and I are actually going to Berlin to visit so we can discuss the coil further. And also then we've got other opportunities to talk to students about inbound mobility to the university, and then for as a whole, and to the management school. So I think from the standpoint of your obviously the impact has been huge. And then from the student point of view, we've managed to work with a 195 students, you know, 110 of which are from alms. That's quite a large student cohort to work with. And their feedback kind of stress, they've enjoyed the major topics, networking internally and externally. The amount of comments that we've got from our feedback saying, oh, I really enjoyed meeting people that even though I shared the same course with I wouldn't normally have met, it's quite interesting to see that kind of dynamic. And then also kind of expanding their critical evaluation skills as well. You look at impact and, you know, we've asked students to feedback on a range different employee of ability and employee ability skills. And across the vast majority of those metrics, most of our students have self-described the high rate of improvement to kind of eight out of ten. So you look at those specific skills that we've asked them to evaluate at the start of the project we ask them, you know, how do you think your confidence is, confidence communicating your ideas, you know, and it'll be, you know, say, a five or a six. And then you come to the end of the project, we ask them to re-value it, how they think they've improved. And they're all saved between eight and ten on a scale and you're looking at anything, that will, that will, we know, we're obviously doing something really good here. But I just think it's that those employee ability skills are okay. You know, students have now got that experience of working multicultural teams, digital skills, just by working online on the outporks that we've asked them to provide, you know, at the video and set we've done those presentation skills as well. And the development work in skills, both with our alumni and the industry experts, like David Connor from 2030, Hoping Liverpool, which is dedicated to the UN Sustainable Development Coles, we're providing them with the opportunity to develop skills and also network with key people. And I think it's just that's the impact for us. Yeah, absolutely. And addition to that, we also were able to secure three two-eation-free summer abroad places at the University of Liverpool and also at the partners institutions for their summer programs. And the students who were able to take advantage of these free spaces were the top performing team that was determined at the end of the Berlin Coil, for instance. We carried out Dragon's Den Style's presentation. And we had a panel of members who then discussed who the winning team is and the winning team was able to take advantage or to go to a free summer school in either of the institutions, which is a great price, I think. It's a wonderful price. How did that competitive element go down with the students? They're really enjoyed it, to be honest. And I don't think they became too competitive, but a friendly competition, let's put it that way. Feedback at the end was outstanding from all of the teams. Even the winning team, they said a really thing that would be winning because all of the results were outstanding. And yeah, they have a lot of great digital skills that maybe they should teach me something about. I think there's some things that add just to that. And I think Amel can probably say, sorry, Amel can say something on this as well, across all of the coils, the standard of work has just been incredibly high. And another talk about universities, students from the Spethan University. other poor students, but I was blown away by some of the things that these students are able to create. I certainly didn't expect the outputs that we were going to be getting to these executive summaries and the quality of the videos from a non-academic, I'm the only non-academic here, and I was blown away by it. I don't know if my academic colleagues were expecting it, but it certainly caught me off guard. So in terms of impacting just on myself, like seeing their skills and getting it, seeing how the students were able to present that to external people really made me quite happy. I'm at, were you blown away? Yeah, I mean absolutely echo completely what John has said, you know, the outcomes were phenomenal and our judges were Julie impressed and also to add with the number of our coiled projects, we've also had alumni members of the university who have come along to act as members of the judging panel, and obviously, you know, they've been at university, they are where the students are now, and they couldn't speak highly enough of the project outcomes as well. And speaking of the alumni community, I think the coiled projects and bringing in alumni and engaging with them, I think it's also a really important part of maintaining relations. Yeah, I get that, that's that. I can absolutely see that. One of the things I really like about this is the employability skills as well, that's come out of it. I think that's, I think that's a really nice sort of added benefit. They've been able to network internationally, must be at a huge scale, you know, a huge string to someone's bow when they're looking at, you know, potential employers going forward. But having said that, I guess there must be some challenges that were that you had when you were setting up these these coils. So one of the things that brings to mind immediate for me was time zones, you must have had issues with time zones. So what were some of the challenges that you had and how did you try and overcome them? Yeah, you're not wrong, I don't like it yet. So first of all, one of the biggest challenges is actually just trying to explain what a coil is to somebody who doesn't know whether that's a partner or a student or like, like Ahmed said, there are alumni and I guess judges trying to explain that concept because it's kind of so flexible, it's so vast in what you can achieve with it. Sometimes it's quite difficult to pin down to somebody what it actually is. So you almost have to kind of have to develop an idea first and then present the idea like this is what it is, know to kind of paint that picture. Starting itself is the kind of the first challenge to help someone understand what that was and we were quite lucky Ahmed and I with our project with the University of Georgia because both sides knew what a coil project was. So kind of the next part of that like I said is the fun part, my favourite bit, it's actually developing the projects and then you can kind of if you go into it with an idea of what you want to see which is tend to what I want which is tend to tends to happen with me is that I have an idea of what I want to say and then I allow my academic colleagues to kind of season that with the flavour of what the projects are going to look like. But that's one of the biggest challenges and might say the next challenge ends timing. It's not even just a case of struggling. So for example our colleagues at the Institute of Management in Indoor, they're on a trimester kind of structure whereas we're on a you know two semester kind of option but even within the two semester options it's still quite difficult because academic calendars are different you know you know at the moment we're looking at when spring break falls in the USA and when Easter falls here and just when semester starts so that's one of the biggest challenges I think the way you overcome that is by both sides having the willing to work on it kind of make little sacrifices here in order to keep that going and again that cool about the Terry point about building those relationships because if you don't have those relationships and you've not worked on that relationship it's quite easy to let these challenges and these barriers get the way of creating the projects. Yeah absolutely another challenge is obviously knowing which platform is best for which coil and what is available. For example John used Teams for it's easier as it was easier to use and the functionality was known but we faced a lot of difficulties with access for guests from other institutions. For my Berlin coil I also faced technological difficulties. I used a new platform platform that was not known to me and I faced various challenges. The platform was called SWOPCORD and the challenge was it took me significant amount of time to get my head around of the functionalities how can I use it how can I develop a weak long coil with a very detailed agenda files attached to each session participants assigned to each session etc so learning how to use this tool took me quite some time however that being said the end looking back and reflecting the platform was very useful and really enjoyed the end product of it because students were able to create a profile for themselves that were able to link as many social media accounts as they wanted to the platform and without functionalities they were able to engage with each other prior to coil started but also during and after and that gave them also access to get in touch connect with all of the guest speakers keynote speaker guest lectures from all the different institutions so there was a high level of engagement using different digital tools other than zoom as we know it so it was very challenging in terms of time and getting your head around it but at the end it was very rewarding for the students for guest speakers and also for myself at the end just to follow up brief on Severina's point so for the Berlin coil for example and we come back to Terry's mentioned earlier on about you know colleagues working collaboratively with each other from an operational perspective as a director studies for BA marketing Severina and I both worked really hard to try and make sure that the Berlin coil didn't clash with any teaching activities and examinations so that meant sending you know requests to our examinations team and also from from Berlin side as well to try and make sure that you know the students just had the Berlin coil to take part in because that's an issue that we've found on particularly the UGA project is that although the pro our coil projects are voluntary students you know they choose to sign up for the projects we have witnessed in a small minority of students some issues with student engagement which have led to them dropping out of the project and there are whole variety of reasons for this you know we it's well documented that the pandemic has had a profound impact on issues such as mental health and well-being and so for some students suspending their participation meant less pressure and essentially one less thing for them to worry about now coupled with that we also have lots of different activities which are run by the school and also employability initiatives so from a student perspective it's weighing up well which one do I go to what do I participate in which one do I which one do I attend and if there's you know if there's too much going on it's a nice problem to have yes but also I think it relies on and this is one of the key learnings that we've found from all the projects is trying to ensure that the coil is in you know in line with the program design where modules are being run to ensure that there are no clashes, timetabling then where possible and that will potentially lead to less students perhaps having to suspend their participation so yeah it's a nice problem to have and I think it's something that we are certainly taking into account going forward. Can I just come in and on an additional challenge which is one we face now and this conversation has reminded me of a conversation we had certainly some of us as team members, maybe as all. Remember saying that, probably this time last year, in 12 months time, if things have gone well, we would have had several coil projects. And it's very nice to sit here and think, well, actually, that's happened. But it's a challenge now in terms of both continuity because we want to keep these particular coil projects going with these partners. But there's a problem of a challenge of changing development because there are issues now about extending coils and building them more and more into our programs. Because what you've heard is a project which actually works on the gradual level it works at master's level. So in that sense, there aren't too many limits on the potential to include coils within our education, offering. Both of course choices have to be made about scale, scope, you bring in new partners. So these, in some ways, it was sitting here a year later thinking, coping with some extent success and thinking, how do we take it forward? In a way that doesn't, which is manageable because we could run many more coils. But we have to act and make some choices as to how we go forward. So that's a challenge we face at the moment and we haven't got ready-made answers to that challenge. But it's a little bit like our master's said, regarding the students, it's a good challenge to face. - I really like the way you've described these projects really shows the work together of our professional services, colleagues from the study abroad and internationalisation team and academics all so clearly working together on these projects. It seems that this approach could easily transfer to other disciplines. So could you tell us about any plans that you have to share your practice? - Sure, I think the awards have been very helpful in accelerating those plans actually. Again, that's another nice surprise. We always wanted to diffuse and share the ideas of coils throughout the faculty and institution more widely because it's very transferable. But the award has given some attention and impetus to our ability to do that. So in that sense, it's challenged us, being nominated challenged us to put down our ideas, communicate them and communicate the potential to diffuse the ideas and the learning for the benefit of others. So that's what we're doing actually. And we've certainly made ourselves available as individuals and as a team for people around the faculty and the institution. And the Nobel Johns probably got some particular examples to talk about that of people who are coming to see us and talk to us about the coils. So very much in our plans to share the practice. - Yeah, I think what's been great is that obviously the awards have kind of set us up and kind of given people an outlet to come and find us for more information. So we've been supporting colleagues internally to the University of Liverpool. So people in the politics department, we're kind of consulting on their project that they're looking to set up, giving our insight to colleagues in the School of Law as well as social justice. Given the Maori insights to the projects and kind of I wish I'd known that before I started this, which is kind of a bit nice to do internally as well to support them. - John, colleagues and I, we presented a paper recently at the Academy of Marketing Conference around the benefits of study exchanges and building a strong course community. Colleagues and I also have plans to publish in leading pedagogical journals, such as the Academy of Management Learning and studies in higher education. So I guess we'd like to say watch this space. - Well, thanks for your time, everybody. It's been really great to listen to to the development of Coils. This podcast is the developing practice podcast and we like to finish the podcast in the same way in each episode where we get our guests that give us three or four take home tips that the listeners could reflect on in terms of their own personal practice. So if you could give us a few things to reflect on, what would they be? - Sure. The Coils for us are an innovation and in that sense, it is a cliche but need is the mother of innovation and the pandemic conditions did cause us to look at what we were able to do and we found Coils to be a very good mechanism to deal with the need to provide something in the absence of actual mobility and we did have an idea to work with there. So definitely that was a learning but good ideas need a receptive context and I think John and Armer's work with Georgia found a receptive context in the conditions of the pandemic but also the school. We, the school, I'm talking about colleagues, I was taking this idea of Coil to the management team and getting support for it. So all the management school has been a very receptive context for Coils to run and we are committed to developing them. So that's very important without a receptive context, good ideas can often just founder. And I suppose the other thing is be prepared to try and experiment. Again, that's another key part of innovation and it's a phrase I heard a lot during the Coals with pandemic but don't let perfection be the enemy of the good and it's easy to say, well, we can't do this, it's not perfect, it's not this or that or the other. Colleagues didn't have that impediment in their minds. It was a case of let's try it, let's experiment. We have willing partners. So that attitude is very important. - Absolutely, thanks Terry. And at the faculty learning and teaching awards we randomly scribble down on a piece of paper this new phrase and it sounds really bizarre but it's called chill and you might be thinking that that's a call for relaxation but it stands for collaborative hybrid international learning. And the whole idea is that we engage students in a study, a study exchange initiative with one of our partner institutions. So the students would partake in some experiential learning activities be it with employers, be it with guest speakers but also at the same time whilst working in groups, for example, or in collaboration with employers or guest speakers where they might assign them a project brief, they would use online platforms to be able to work together with each other as a team. So it's covering really the best of both worlds but also a number of hallmark skills such as digital literacy, teamwork, communication, cultural awareness and many of the hallmark skills that are covered throughout our coil projects so far. So it's very much an embryonic idea at this stage but it's one that we've had initial discussion about. - Yeah, I'm had a degree with Amor there and I think my biggest thing that should be the take home for anyone is if you think about doing one of these coil projects is have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. And just be prepared, think through your plans, find all the holes that are potentially in your project and make them into a bigger issue than they really are and that'll go a long way to help you and you fix them before presenting your idea. And my final thing is just have a committed team or group of people that you want to work with consisting of academic and professional services staff and the relevant expertise. Like find people like you trust and who trust you and that you can effectively communicate with the open and honesty in the communication between all of us on our different projects is the key things to success. And that goes to our partners as well. We've been very fortunate with who our partners are and the people that make up those teams that we've developed is great relationships and we are just really open and honest with each other. And if there's an issue we meet at head on and that's what you need for success in my idea. - Well, it's been great to have you on the podcast. It's really been really interesting to listen to all the work that you've been doing over the last couple of years during the pandemic and what's been happening with the coil. So thank you all for spending some time with me today. - So pleasure, thanks for having us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I thought that was a fascinating insight into coil projects and you know, we got to hear what a coil was and the success that the team have had. John mentioned how coils are a great opportunity to bring stuff and students together from different countries, cultures and academic backgrounds to work towards a common goal, providing students with a platform to learn more about their area of study from an international perspective. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I really like the way that it brings those different people together on these projects. It seems that the coils really do support one of our key graduate attributes that we're seeking to develop here at the university in terms of global citizenship, as well as contributing to the student experience in a range of other ways as students get to engage with key partners internationally to further their understanding. Well, I hope there's lots there for our listeners to think about and if you'd like to take your thinking further, we've added some resources to the website on a specific podcast reading list, which you can access at Liverpool.ac.uk/thehifinacademy/podcast Also, we'd love to hear what you thought about the episode, so please do tweet us @livuniacademy and you can find us @elernamatt or @Alexandra_oin on Twitter. I'm really grateful for those who have taken the time to either rate or review our show in your podcast providers app. So if you haven't done so already, please do take the time to review our show or even better, simply share the episode with friends and colleagues on social media. Bye for now. [Music]