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Introduction

The rapid digital transformation of higher education, coupled with growing global interconnectedness, demands pedagogical frameworks that empower learners to navigate, evaluate and co-create knowledge within intricate information landscapes. The provision of complementary theoretical and practical approaches for fostering critical digital literacy, intercultural competence, and ethical participation in global academic contexts is offered by Metaliteracy and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). This article examines the conceptual intersections between these frameworks, their relevance for internationalised curricula, and strategies for implementing metaliteracy-informed COIL designs in higher education.

What is Metaliteracy?

Metaliteracy is a learning framework that expands traditional notions of information literacy by emphasizing not only how learners consume information, but how they produce, share, and reflect upon information within networked, participatory environments. This model promotes a holistic understanding of literacy that integrates multiple related literacies (e.g., digital, media, visual) and recognizes learners as active, responsible participants in the creation of knowledge. Metaliteracy foregrounds metacognitive awareness, critical thinking, collaborative engagement, and ethical participation in digital communities (Mackey & Jacobson, 2022).

Core Components of Metaliteracy

Figure 1: The Metaliteracy Model (Mackey & Jacobson, 2022; Figure design by Kelsey O’Brien using Genially).

Learning domains

These domains, cognitive, behavioural, affective and metacognitive capture not only what learners know and can do, but also how they feel about learning and how consciously they reflect on their own learning processes.

Metaliterate learner roles

Learners engage as producers, researchers, collaborators, communicators, and translators of information.

Metaliterate learner characteristics

 Attributes such as openness, adaptability, collaboration, and civic mindedness that support ethical participation in digital spaces.

Metaliteracy Goals 2025

The updated 2025 Metaliteracy Goals address contemporary challenges, including artificial intelligence, algorithmic misinformation, and increased global connectivity. They emphasise reflective, ethical, and collaborative engagement across behavioural, cognitive, affective, and metacognitive dimensions (Jacobson & Mackey, 2025).

The goals encourage learners to:

  1. Understand and reflect on their identities, biases, and behaviors as participants in evolving information environments.
  2. Critically evaluate information and ethically create content across platforms.
  3. Contribute informed, ethical, and respectful perspectives in collaborative and global contexts.
  4. Engage in continuous reflective learning and development.

What does COIL mean?

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a pedagogical model that enables internationalised learning through virtual collaboration between students and instructors from different cultural and institutional contexts. COIL replaces traditional mobility-based internationalisation with digitally mediated co-teaching, joint assignments, and collaborative knowledge production (Rubin, 2017; O’Dowd, 2019). It emphasises intercultural dialogue, mutual learning, and shared responsibility across geographically distributed teams (Hackett et al., 2024).

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Pedagogical Goals and Challenges

COIL initiatives typically involve co-designed curriculums, cross-cultural group work, and structured reflections that foster intercultural awareness and communication skills (Anderson & Or, 2023). Empirical research demonstrates that COIL enhances global competence, collaboration, and digital communication. However, challenges—such as asynchronous academic calendars, differing linguistic proficiency, digital inequities, and mismatched pedagogical expectations—require intentional design and facilitation to ensure equitable participation (O’Dowd, 2019).

The Intersection of Metaliteracy and COIL: A Transformational Synergy

Metaliteracy and COIL share mutual commitments to collaboration, reflection, and active knowledge creation within digitally mediated learning environments. While COIL centres on intercultural engagement and global collaboration, metaliteracy provides a structured framework for supporting digital ethics, critical evaluation, and reflective learner roles (Jacobson & Mackey, 2025). Together, they promote

  • Critical digital literacy and evaluation of information across cultural contexts.
  • Participatory knowledge co‑creation using digital platforms.
  • Metacognitive reflection on learner roles, biases, and responsibilities.
  • Intercultural communication and adaptation to diverse perspectives.
Case Illustration: Digital Storytelling COIL Course

Mackey and Aird (2021) analysed the redesign of a Digital Storytelling course at SUNY-Empire State College into a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) model that integrates metaliteracy to enhance metacognition, collaboration, and ethical digital content creation. By connecting students from the United States, Prague, Canada, and Albania in a fully online, co-taught course, the program combines creative digital storytelling practices with a metaliteracy framework that emphasises participatory learner roles, reflective self-assessment, and affective, behavioural, cognitive, and metacognitive learning domains. Course assignments are scaffolded from individual digital narratives to collaborative projects advocating for social causes, supported by Open Educational Resources and structured peer review to reinforce ethical and collaborative engagement.

Findings indicate that students strongly identified with metaliteracy concepts, while co-teaching improved instructional alignment and assessment, though modifications were needed in early group engagement and assignment scaffolding. The course redesign highlighted the need for earlier engagement with group projects, clearer teamwork milestones, enhanced guidance on scripting and storyboarding, and stronger scaffolding for individual assignments.

Overall, the study presents a practical and transferable model demonstrating how metaliteracy-infused digital storytelling within a COIL environment prepares learners to become reflective, culturally aware, and responsible global digital content creators.

Designing Metaliteracy-Informed COIL Courses

To fully harness the synergy between metaliteracy and COIL, course design must intentionally integrate both sets of goals. Below are practical strategies for designing COIL activities and structures that explicitly foster metaliterate competences, illustrated with real or typical COIL-style.

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Conclusion

The integration of metaliteracy and COIL provides a robust pedagogical framework for cultivating globally competent, digitally fluent, and critically reflective learners. By recognizing students as both creators and collaborators in international digital environments, this combined approach advances beyond traditional models of information literacy and internationalization. As higher education continues to develop innovative digital learning pathways, metaliteracy-informed COIL represents a transferable and future‑oriented blueprint for global digital education.

References