Creating a faculty-led study abroad course can be a wonderful addition to the existing curriculum in a department. Be sure to consult with your Chair or Director about your plans to discuss how the course would complement existing departmental offerings.

If you’d like to run a summer program, the program can be administered by Education Abroad, the College International Office, or your department. Please inform College International (colloia@indiana.edu) so that we can add you to our marketing efforts and support your course.

If you would like to run a study tour connected to an on-campus course during the school year (embedded or companion course), contact us to begin the process. [Embedded: The overseas program is integral to the course and all enrolled students will travel abroad. Companion: The overseas program is available as an optional add-on to an on-campus course.]

On occasion, College International runs a workshop for faculty who want to lead study tours. In this workshop, we cover topics such as budgeting, health and safety, itinerary planning, and marketing. Please let us know if you're interested in such a workshop. We may have funds available to help the faculty workshop participants conduct a site visit or to subsidize their program during its first year.

Plan for it to take much longer than you anticipate, but it greatly depends on your program and the course. All programs that take students abroad must obtain approval from the Overseas Study Advisory Council (OSAC). This council approves proposals on a rolling basis, but it can take up to a month for full approval. If you are using an existing course code with no changes but the location, then this will be the only official approval you need.

If you are developing a new course, or if the addition of the study abroad component changes the learning outcomes or credit hours of an existing course, then you will need to move through the Course Approvals process. This process begins with creating an eDoc on CARMIn through one.iu.edu. Once you submit the eDoc, it must receive two approvals in your department before moving to the College for curriculum approval. Once it has received this approval, it will be placed on remonstrance for 30 days, beginning on the first business day of the month. If there are no objections raised during the remonstrance process, then your course clears the final approval hurdles before being considered officially approved and placed in the online course catalog. In total, this process can take anywhere from 40 days to several months, depending on the speed at which your department approves new courses.

The Office of Overseas Study recommends that all summer programs have both their course approvals and their OSAC approvals done by October of the previous year to facilitate recruiting. For study abroad programs tied to Spring semester courses, we recommend that you have approvals completed by June of the previous year. For Fall courses, we recommend that you have approvals completed by November of the previous year. The remonstrance process and the OSAC approval process can be carried out simultaneously.

You are not permitted to recruit or promote your course in any way until it receives OSAC approval.

We will help you create a budget that works both to cover costs and remain attractive to students. Student fees pay for their own expenses and for embedded courses, tuition revenue covers instructional costs such as faculty lodging and flights, classroom expenses, and guest lecturers.

A summer program arranged through the Office of Overseas Study will include negotiated pay for the faculty leader.

Because embedded and companion study tours are part of the regular semester courses, they are part of your normal teaching load, making you ineligible for additional course pay. But if by leading an embedded program you go over your expected semester load, you will receive $500 per overload credit hour from the College. Faculty travel expenses for study tours are paid by College International.