Ethical Educational Leadership – Pressbooks

Impact Summary

• [To be] Used in course(s): EDUC 5990: Ethical Issues in Higher Ed Leadership
• When: Fall 2024 and Fall 2025
• Estimated number of students using textbook(s): 40 – (20/term)
• Average price of textbook replaced:
  • In Canada, the average price of an ethics or education-related textbook, which includes relevant and up-to-date case studies, generally falls between $30 and $300+, depending on the format (print or ebook) and the publisher. For our purposes, we are using a very modest estimate of $150 for a high-quality textbook, one that emphasizes inclusivity, accessibility and engaging elements, and covers a variety of subtopics related to ethics in education.
• Estimated savings: $100 x 40 students = $6,000
• Promoted: LinkedIn, Ethical Dilemmas Roundtable Symposium (November 2024), TPC, OTESSA

Impact Story

By Divya Chandak

Background

The open educational resource (OER) Ethical Educational Leadership offers an example of how to transform a university course into a collaborative, global asset. This 2025 OEGlobal award-winning initiative was led by Dr. Alana Hoare, Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Education at Thompson Rivers University (TRU).

Alana’s interest in open pedagogy was piqued over a decade ago at a time when TRU was exploring the use of e-portfolios and again, more recently, as TRU re-affirmed its commitment to accessible, flexible learning pathways through the TRUly Flexible initiative.  

When she became a professor, she was determined to authentically embed an open education philosophy in her classroom. To do this, “co-creation, student agency” became her daily mantra. The TRU Open Press grant was the catalyst that brought this mantra into being.

Inspiration and Idea

The OER emerged from a “blank slate” when Alana’s department gave her the go-ahead to design a special topics graduate course in her area of expertise: leadership ethics and critical university studies.

Rather than just focusing on content, Alana intentionally embedded open pedagogical practices into the curriculum design – from course materials and lesson activities to assignments – seeking to make the learning process active rather than passive. This endeavor was possible because of TRU’s culture of open education and the institutional supports available, like the expertise of folks at TRU Open Press and curriculum development grants.

To realize the concept of “co-creation”, Alana recruited two graduate student research assistants and co-authors – Olubukola (“Bukky”) Bosede Osuntade and Rumana Patel – to develop the open textbook and co-design the course. The course truly emerged from the conversations and ideas shared between the three co-creators.

Collaboration and Support

Alana credits the TRU Open Press team with making the entire project possible, stating, “I couldn’t have done it without the expertise and support of TRU Open Press”.

The team, including Dani Collins, Jessica Obando Almache, Marie Bartlett, Brenna Clarke Gray, and Brian Lamb, gave Alana the necessary affirmation to pursue an approach that required her to “give up control and give the control to students,” which, she admitted, felt scary at first.

The support was both theoretical and practical. She received guidance on instructional design, including how to embed renewable (as opposed to disposable) assignments into the course, and ideas for scaffolding students’ agency without overwhelming them – allowing them to show up as leaders within and beyond the classroom and practice leadership ethics in authentic and meaningful ways. The TRU Open Press team also provided essential copy editing support, which was especially crucial for easing students’ anxiety around publishing their case studies – while they are all brilliant thinkers, it can, at times, be intimidating for English Language learners to readily share their content with the world. The TRU Open Press also helped train Alana’s co-authors, Bukky and Rumana, giving them the necessary skills to publish in the open. For instance, by teaching them how to use Pressbooks, finding open images, and building their awareness of Creative Commons licensing. 

Challenges and Breakthroughs

The primary challenge that Alana and the students faced was time. She asked a lot of the busy graduate students to co-author a textbook in a “pretty tremendous” eight months. Another challenge was students’ initial hesitation about taking on so much agency within the course, especially with a culminating project that involved hosting an Ethical Dilemmas Roundtable Symposium, where students were tasked with modeling and facilitating how to engage in polarizing conversations around ethical dilemmas in education.

An important principle for Alana was the commitment to recognize and acknowledge students’ labour by compensating co-authors Bukky and Rumana for their contributions as research assistants and pedagogical partners. This support honoured their contributions to the project. 

The co-creation process itself was a high-impact learning experience. Students grabbed hold of their agency and developed scholarly independence while being part of a supportive community of scholars. Here, open pedagogy was enacted as ethical leadership praxis among students and their instructor. 

Impact on Students and Communities

Working with Bukky and Rumana was “the best part,” providing a crucial student-centered lens for the course design and ensuring the expectations were appropriate.

The impact on Bukky and Rumana was significant. They developed expertise in the eight ethical lenses discussed in the open text and course, demonstrating substantial growth in their scholarly knowledge. These students also took remarkable ownership of the project, and have presented their work at the 2024 Open Education Talks and the 2025 Thompson-Okanagan Teaching and Learning Conference. 

Beyond the classroom, the open textbook has achieved a lasting global reach, garnering over 9,000 unique visitors as of October 2025, which is a clear testament to the students’ contributions and the broader influence of their work. The project’s excellence was further recognized in October 2025, when it received an OE Global Award, highlighting its outstanding contribution to open education worldwide. As one of the peer reviewers noted, “I love the integration of diverse and minority perspectives and women’s voices/lenses on ethics, and renewable assessments not just diverse case studies. I would use this resource in my class! I am so impressed by the diversity of voices and perspectives on ethics from marginalized groups. Thank you for that!!!”

Looking Ahead

Alana sees open education as necessary for the future, especially for developing the scholarly independence and agency students need in a rapidly changing world. She passionately advocates for ending “disposable assignments”- like essays that “go in the garbage”- that lack relevance to the busy, complex lives of students.

“I think if we want to have meaningful education, then students need to be creating valuable content that has community impact while they’re learning” -Alana.

By creating assignments that have meaning and by adopting an open education philosophy, Alana believes educators can make learning environments more relevant and meaningful, and perhaps open pedagogy can be used to address the challenge of students passively engaging or not engaging at all in their studies.

Advice for Future Creators

Her ultimate advice is centered on making education matter. She believes that “educators should find ways to make their learning environments and assignments meaningful to the students and the communities they serv