The literature on OIE, also called ‘telecollaboration’ or ‘virtual exchange,’ has grown constantly over the last decade. Most of these publications have focussed on the actual online exchanges, analysing how they work, the kinds of tasks used, what students learn, what has failed (e.g., Guth & Helm, 2010; Müller-Hartmann, 2007; O’Dowd & Ritter, 2006; O’Dowd & Ware, 2009) and so on. However, most OIE projects are devised as components of blended learning (BL) courses, where BL is defined as a combination of faceto-face, ‘classroom education’ (Bersin, 2004, p. 85) or ‘brick-and-mortar setting’ (Staker & Horn, 2012, p. 3) sessions and online learning (e.g., Charlier, Deschryver, & Peraya, 2006; Neumeier, 2005). As a result, OIE also can be examined from another perspective, that is, in terms of complete courses rather than in terms of the OIE project and the roles of the different partners. From this perspective, OIE is viewed as a component of a BL course and as a specific online learning mode that differs from other forms of online learning, such as individual online work and online interactions between students and their local teacher and/or their local peers, in that it involves online exchanges with geographically distant partners.