New technologies and the health context have contributed to a massive shift from face-to-face to distance learning and to a renewal of practices (Villiot- Leclercq, 2020). Student mobility has also been impacted. The feedback that we wish to present responds to the dual requirement of distance training and international collaboration as part of the internationalisation at home; policy. In this paper, we describe the “Virtual Environmental Challenge” (VEC), placing it in the context of distance learning at the University of Rennes 2. We analyze the historical evolution of the university’s distance learning service in its technological and pedagogical dimensions and then raise questions leading to the implementation of the VEC project. In collaboration with partners in a European project and other institutions, an international team of teacher-researchers, led by the University of Rennes 2, developed the VEC course, basing it on a MOOC and virtual classroom meetings, and an online competition for students from 5 different countries. Does this experience constitute a continuity or a break from previous practices within the university? The transformations at stake, through the organization of the VEC, touch on the roles of the different actors and their mutual contributions within a “community of learning” (Lemaire, Glikman, 2016; Audran, Daele 2009). They lead to social interactions and co-active learning (Romero et Laferrière, 2016) in “participatory online learning environments” (Conley, Lutz, Padgitt, 2017) that allow us to overcome distance-related issues and develop the targeted skills.