Sustaining and Scaling Up Virtual Exchange at an R1 University (International Virtual Exchange Conference)

The International Virtual Exchange Conference (IVEC) is the largest and most prominent international event on virtual exchange, providing a forum for an audience of deans, directors, faculty, instructional designers, administrators, and professionals from institutions around the world interested in technology, international education, and new pedagogies.  The 2020 virtual Conference, hosted by Newcastle University, featured 76 presentations, 10 posters, 16 workshops, 11 symposia, 2 keynote speakers, and a panel discussion, and hosted nearly 500 delegates representing 30 different countries and 20 different time zones.

In the presentation, former PTF chair Stephanie Holmsten co-presented about UT Austin's Global Virtual Exchange Program, including  the structure and impact of the faculty learning community developed as part of Holmsten's PTF Initiative. 

Review the entire conference program here, or read Holmsten's session description below.

The University of Texas at Austin has supported a virtual exchange program since 2017. Through course development funds, the international office, called Texas Global, incentivizes instructors to initiate virtual exchange courses with their international partners. At a large R1 institution, Texas Global can rely on a significant population of faculty who have pre-existing international contacts and often, autonomy to propose innovative and creative courses. This faculty-based approach has yielded an enthusiastic and multi-disciplinary cohort of faculty that spans the humanities, sciences, engineering, and more. However, faculty at a large R1 university also face institutional barriers, including lack of administrative recognition for their teaching achievements, decentralized or absent support for classroom technology, and curricular requirements that do not include internationalization or virtual exchange. In addition, there is competition for faculty participation from multiple programs that support international activities on campus. Based on several years of qualitative interviews with participating instructors, this presentation will present the advantages and barriers to sustaining a virtual exchange program based on faculty-led initiatives in an R1 context. It will also brainstorm solutions for how to market, sustain, and scale up virtual exchange while still adhering to a program based on the faculty-led model.