2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Study abroad programs have traditionally offered students the opportunity to immerse themselves in new cultures, often for the first time. While the concept of traditional study abroad has been a cornerstone of international education for decades, recent innovations have expanded the ways students can access these opportunities. Programs like Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), and the shift caused by the global COVID 19 pandemic, further accelerated the potential of virtual exchange programs. While many U.S. universities have returned to in-person study abroad exchanges post-pandemic, virtual exchange has continued to thrive as a valuable complement for non-traditional students who face barriers for participation in traditional study abroad programs.
Virtual exchange programs offer students the ability to engage in intercultural learning without leaving their homes and opens doors for a more diverse range of students to develop global competencies and reap the benefits of study abroad . These programs help address barriers to traditional study abroad, such as cost, distance, cultural differences, and the opportunity cost of missed income.
This paper starts with exploring the benefits of virtual exchange through the use of established assessment tools, such as the Cultural Intelligence Scale, Global Engineering Competency Scale, and Global Perspectives Inventory. We then introduce the VESA (Virtual Exchange and Study Abroad) kit, which is a portable resource that came out of the work of a faculty innovation group at our university. This kit enables faculty members to integrate virtual exchange into their study abroad programs. The goals of this kit are to appeal to faculty, be easy to check out from the university, be simple to use, and provide tools to foster a more inclusive and globally connected academic experience.