COIL, as a method of virtual exchange, already has its history (see Chapter 1). The COVID-19 pandemic witnessed a growing mass of teachers and students engaging in COILs, and correspondingly, an increase in the number of reports, guides, and books on COIL and its impact on students’ learning. More frequently, there are also training courses for COIL instructors and practitioners at higher institutions, for example, by EAIE Academy (European Association for International Education; https://www.eaie.org/about-us.html). In fact, as I am writing this introduction, EAIE has opened a call for registering for their upcoming Academy Online course, 'Launching virtual exchange (VE) at your institution,' where one of the trainers is Robert O'Dowd, the author of a comprehensive study of virtual exchanges (O’Dowd, R., 2018), a co-editor of Online Intercultural Exchange: Policy, Pedagogy, Practice (O’Dowd and Lewis, 2018), and an author of other sources consulted by this e-CG.

Considering the profusion of handbooks and guides to COIL, will this e-CG not just reinvent the wheel? I believe it will not. Firstly, the e-CG is open access and comes with no pricing. At the same time, it does not aspire to offer a top-notch online course. If you seek such training, I recommend you consulting the EAIE website (https://www.eaie.org/training.html). Secondly, the e-CG relies on the most up-to-date and relevant literature to present you with a concise, easy-to-navigate, and self-paced e-guide for designing COILs from start to finish. Thirdly, imagine you are invited by a university partner to launch a COIL within months, or you want to quickly revise some of the existing parameters and activities in your COIL and do not have time to read through hundreds of pages of books and documents. The e-CG has done the job for you.

The e-CG primarily draws on the expertise and experience of John Rubin, the founder and director of SUNY’s COIL Center and the director of a web initiative ‘COIL Connect for Virtual Exchange’ (https://coilconnect.org/) that supports institutions committed to COIL. John Rubin, in collaboration with Sarah Guth, co-edited The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange: Implementing, Growing, and Sustaining Collaborative Online International Learning (Rubin and Guth, 2023).

The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange is a comprehensive, 497-page guide and the fundamental source of learning, practices, and recommendations for this e-CG. In the first place, The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange inspired me to develop an online-based, rather than offline, training for COIL instructors (see Doscher, 2023, pp. 216-243, and pp. 244-273). Chapters 1 and 2 of the e-CG employ Rubin’s idea of virtual exchange defined in the context of social media and the need for global learning, and explain the complementary, rather than supplementary, role COIL supplies to physical mobility (Rubin, 2023, pp. 3-18). Chapter 3 outlines the situational variables in COIL (Doscher, Rubin, 2023, p. 193) and emphasizes the factors the readers should consider when initiating work on COIL. Chapter 4 extends the ideas for the development of student learning outcomes (Doscher, 2023, pp. 216-243, and pp. 244-273), and chapter 7 draws on Simon and Fierro’s recommendations for what technology tools to use and how (2023, pp. 312-321). Chapter 8 of the e-CG builds on the five phases of COIL by Doscher and Rubin (2023, pp. 189-190) to introduce a modified and shortened four-phased version of COIL. The content of the same chapter is further inspired by Darla K. Deardorff’s tips on how to tackle language challenges in online communication (2023, pp. 274-286) and on how to facilitate students’ reflection on their intercultural learning experience in COILs (2023a, pp. 287-297). The concluding chapter 9 briefly comments on ways to sustain COIL, following Dosher’s ideas for professional development (2023, pp. 216-243, and pp. 244-273). The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange also includes examples of best practices (Rubin et al., 2023, p. 152-184), some of them coming from Masaryk University partners, such as Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and authored by Eva Haug, one of the guest lecturers at Masaryk University in the field of student virtual exchange.

Not all theories, ideas, and practices introduced in The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange are instrumental for the e-CG. The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange addresses the needs of stakeholders and staff in service sectors in the US context of higher education institutions. Specifically, Jon Rubin’s ‘Developing international and institutional partnerships for COIL’ (2023a, pp. 111-133) and Sally Mudiamu’s ‘Strategies for engaging faculty with COIL virtual exchange’ (ibid, pp. 200-215) are informative and useful for decision-makers and stakeholders whose job is to support academics in internationalizing curriculum and creating COILs.The e-CG does not have such ambitions - it is not tailored to a specific context, nor does it offer a one-and-only approach for all stakeholders, academics, and instructors active in internationalization. Institutional settings vary, and the needs and motivations for designing COILs can range from a single individual’s enthusiasm  to all-institutional commitment driven by long-term internationalization strategies. At the same time, the e-CG recommends some of Mudiamu’s strategies (ibid.) for teachers and instructors in the preparatory phase of COIL: institutional sample profile for looking for potential COIL partners, alignment of academic calendars, and considering time zone differences.

To briefly comment on other sources used in the e-CG, the well-organized and most recently published Making Connections: A Practical Guide to Online Intercultural Exchanges (Corbett et al, 2024) contributed extensively to recommendations, guidelines, and practices pertaining to choice of digital platform, students’ learning objectives and autonomous learning, netiquette and culturally sensitive online collaboration, ice breaking activities, the intercultural dimension of tasks, and the instructor’s roles and more, as specified and developed in chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 of the e-CG.

O’Dowd and Lewis’ Online Intercultural Exchange: Policy, Pedagogy, Practice (2018) enabled to convey in chapters 4 and 8 of the e-CG the essentials of students’ intercultural learning and how to self-assess students’ intercultural growth in online intercultural collaboration (Dooly, 2018, pp. 192-208). I recommend this volume particularly to those teachers and researchers who intend to focus principally on students’ development of intercultural communication competences and their (self)- assessment, and on students' negotiation of identities in intercultural online communication.

The e-CG further relies on Robert O’Dowd’s studies of virtual exchange (2016, 2021) for a comprehensive outline of the modes of virtual exchange vis-a-vis COIL and for defining the purpose of COIL and virtual exchange.

SUNY COIL Stevens Initiative Assessment Final Report (Guth and Helm, 2017) is for the e-CG an invaluable source of information on the research methods for students’ reflection on and assessment of their work in COIL. The e-CG follows the report’s definition of the 21st century skills and endorses the report’s research tool of students evaluation of work before, during, and after the COIL. Equally inspiring for the e-CG are research methods applied by Evaluate Group (2019) in Evaluating the Impact of Virtual Exchange on Initial Teacher Education and recommendations for evaluation of COIL and other modes of virtual exchange stipulated in Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange Impact Report 2020 (Helm and Velden, 2021).

The e-CG further consults Jane Jackson’s Online Intercultural Education and Study Abroad: Theory into Practice (2019), Paul Nixon et al.’s Reshaping International Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Universities in the Information Age (2021), and Francesca Helm and Sarah Guth’s ‘Internationalization at Home Through Virtual Exchange’ (2022), as well as several sources outside the scope of virtual exchange but inside the milieu of internationalization of higher education.