From telecollaboration to virtual exchange: state-of-the-art and the role of UNICollaboration in moving forward1 Robert O’Dowd2 Abstract elecollaboration, or ‘virtual exchange’, are terms used to refer to the engagement of groups of learners in online intercultural interactions and collaboration projects with partners from other cultural contexts or geographical locations as an integrated Tpart of their educational programmes. In recent years, approaches to virtual exchange have evolved in different contexts and different areas of education, and these approaches have had, at times, very diverse organisational structures and pedagogical objectives. This article provides an overview of the different models and approaches to virtual exchange which are currently being used in higher education contexts. It also provides a short historical review of the major developments and trends in virtual exchange to date and describes the origins of the UNICollaboration organisation and the rationale behind this journal. Keywords: virtual exchange; telecollaboration; online intercultural exchange; computer mediated communication; intercultural communication; internationalisation. 1. Parts of this article were previously published in an article by the same author (O’Dowd, 2017) which appeared in the TLC Journal - Training Language & Culture, 4(2). They have been reproduced with permission. 2. University of León, León, Spain;
[email protected] Robert O’Dowd has published widely on the application of collaborative online learning in university education. His most recent publication is the co-edited volume Online Intercultural Exchange Policy, Pedagogy, Practice, for Routledge. He is currently the lead researcher on the Erasmus+ KA3 project, Evaluating and Upscaling Telecollaborative Teacher Education (EVALUATE) (http://www.evaluateproject.eu/).