This blog post is part of a series that brings together reflections from the research study Navigating the Waters of Leadership Education in Indigenous Contexts, supported by the BCcampus Research Fellows Program. Across these posts, I explore three paths: River Journey Mapping, as an arts-based research approach; the Pedagogical Approaches Model; and the tensions that emerge when working within institutional structures. Whether we work with Indigenous communities or not, I hope that we can consider how teaching and learning can be more deeply connected to the land, relationships, and other ways of knowing.

How might creative expression and artistic practices enrich the way we conduct research?

Arts-based approaches invite participants to engage in sentipensar, a concept that represents a process where we think with the heart, feel with the mind, and explore the wholeness of nature (Escobar, 2024). The invitation to explore through our senses often reveals deeply held values, experiences, and ways of knowing that remain hidden otherwise.

The research design for the Navigating the Waters study was strongly influenced by the work of Cree scholar and educator Herman Michell (2012) who describes research through a Northern Cree metaphor. In his words, “doing community-based research is like going on a canoe trip to hunt for knowledge” (p.3). Although my time in Northern Cree communities has been brief, the metaphor resonated strongly. Michell’s Canoe Trip metaphor invited me to see this study as a journey shaped by many elements. At one point, I imagined conducting conversations with research participants by the water; an idea that, while romanticized and ultimately impractical, allowed me to think differently about what I wanted this study to be and to feel. Building on this idea of research as a journey, I began exploring visual metaphors to invite participants to reflect on their journey as educators working with Indigenous communities.

The River Journey is a well known arts-based activity that invites participants to reflect on an experience over time. Through drawing, they identify different moments in their journey—such as beginnings, challenges, milestones, decisions, etc.—and represent them along the journey using the river images.

In research contexts, the River Journey has been used in a variety of ways including exploring teacher identity and professional development (Stevenson, 2013), examining children’s musical experiences (Burnard, 2012), and supporting reflection in fields such as leadership education, or educational psychology (Hill et al., 2025; Stevenson, 2013).

Inspired by these approaches, I started experimenting with the idea of river “tiles”, like those in the Carcassonne board game . I adapted the River Journey activity to highlight the act of mapping and drafted a set of twelve digital visual river elements to serve as prompts during the research conversations. After the one-on-one- interviews, I invited participants to reflect on their journeys and arrange the images (digital tiles) in a way that represented their story. Some participants chose a single image, while others combined several tiles or created their own images. Since most of the interviews took place online, I shared my screen and displayed the images in Mural, a visual workspace, moving the tiles as participants directed me to build their river journey map.

The River Journey Mapping activity offered a visual way for educators to reflect on their professional journeys and pedagogical approaches, by asking–how would you describe/visualize your journey as an educator working with Indigenous communities? The activity surfaced values, beliefs, and moments of transformation that shaped educators’ journeys. Many of the maps created through this activity highlight the importance of nourishment, with water seen as flow of energy, amniotic fluid, and love.

Here are some excerpts of participants’ responses.

The number one thing that transformed me in my work, and it was Dr. John Borrows…he taught me that the Anishinaabe word for love is like the mouth of a river. How he explained it to me was that it’s the source from which all life comes from, and so the mouth of the river is the most ecologically variant, diverse, abundant…When you reframe love as the source from which all life comes from, it’s easy to show up in relationship to it. So that’s the type of river that I see: that huge alluvial fan, and that it just flows from there.

Other educators related the water flow as two separate flows or distinct watersheds, parallel rivers, or the Two Row Wampum.

…two rivers that kind of, like, sometimes they come together, and sometimes they fall apart… there’s a certain kind of, like, swampiness that’s emerging…and then it flows out separate.

There are images of letting go of control; for instance, allowing knowledge to swirl like a whirlpool so that learners have the agency to take what they need for their learning.

What I’ve come to understand is central to Indigenous knowledge transmission, where there’s knowledge flowing and swirling around. But it’s not up to us to try and control or dictate what people take from it…it’s about holding that space for that movement, or clearing and holding that space for that movement…Learners have agency, and ultimately for me the more important thing is not to get them to regurgitate content that I’ve introduced them to. It’s more about, through being put in these spaces of learning with knowledge flowing all around, what have they learned skill-wise to be able to take something away from that.

And there are some people who will go through that whirlpool or that water space and leave stronger and more curious, wanting to come back in and engage with it more. And then there are some people who are going to get out and be like, “I hate being wet,” and stay out. And that’s fine too. Again, it’s about letting go of that control, offering things, but then letting the context guide people to take away what they need.

The River Journey Mapping offers a way to surface deeper insights and a deeper understanding of how educators navigate their work. To further support this exploration, I developed a facilitator’s guide that can be adapted for use in different contexts. The activity uses river imagery and metaphor as a starting point; however, there are a variety of methods (drawing, mapping, storytelling, music, poetry, drama, or other creative forms) that can open space for reflection that is often difficult to access through words alone.

References

Burnard, P. (2012). Rethinking Creative Teaching and Teaching as Research: Mapping the Critical Phases That Mark Times of Change and Choosing as Learners and Teachers of Music. Theory Into Practice, 51(3), 167–178. 

Escobar, A. (2024). Feeling-Thinking with the Land. Transitions: Transatlantic bridges for designing networks between Souths and Norths. Re-visiones, 10. 

Hill, T., Wright, L. & Etmanski, C. (2025). Cultivating Relationality and an Ethics of Care through Arts-Based and Play-Based Research. The Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education / La revue canadienne pour l’étude de l’éducation des adultes, 37(1), 75–91. 

Lee, L., Currie, V., Saied, N., & Wright, L. H. V. (2020). Journey to hope, self-expression and community engagement: Youth-led arts-based participatory action research (PAR) for social change. Children and Youth Services Review, 109, 1–10.

Michell, H. (2012). The Canoe Trip: A Northern Cree Metaphor for Conducting Research. In Education, 18(1). 

Stevenson, K. (2013). The river in a landscape of creative practice: Creative River Journeys. Landscapes: The Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language, 5(2).

1. Web Accessibility
2. Supporting Post-Secondary Students with ADHD
3. Learning Disabilities
4. Dyslexia
5. Access Friction
6. UDL 3.0 in Practice
7. An Indigenous Lens on Disability Rights

Each 30-minute session was designed to offer busy educators bite-sized learning they could immediately apply. The hope is that these resources are used as a starting point, prompting participants to dive deeper and have conversations with their colleagues about creating more accessible learning experiences.  

We were thrilled to see viewing parties organized on some campuses, where participants gathered in-person to join the virtual session, and continued the discussion afterwards, sometimes with an accessibility advisor present.  

All session slides are openly licensed, making it easy to adapt and share the series with new audiences. You can find the recordings and resources of all three seasons in this one book.

If you are interested in presenting a session for the Accessibility Bites 4.0 series, please reach out to Helena Prins (hprins@bccampus.ca).

The video was produced as part of UFV’s Open Education In-Action Initiative, supported by an Open Education Institutional Grant from BCcampus. With this yearlong grant spanning 2025–2026, UFV expanded institutional capacity for open educational practices in several ways, such as by formalizing an open education strategy for the university. Another aspect of UFV’s grant activities was launching their ZTC program.

In fall 2025, UFV added ZTC indicators to their course registration system. ZTC courses remove the requirement for students to purchase traditional textbooks by instead using open educational resources, library materials, and other no-cost learning resources. These approaches help reduce financial barriers while ensuring students have access to course materials from the first day of class.

ZTC indicators help students to better manage their finances by letting them know ahead of time which course sections will not ask them to pay for textbooks. Instead of the shock of learning on day one of a course that the required reading is a $200 textbook, students can be confident that they know what they are financially signing up for when they register.

Gurpreet Singh, UFV Student Union Society VP External, was featured in UFV’s video on ZTC indicators. In the video, he says, “I definitely feel I’m more inclined towards taking a course which is ZTC and doesn’t come with the textbook costs associated with it.”

The video also features Arianna Cheveldave, BCcampus Open Education Coordinator, who highlights the role of students in putting pressure on their institutions to provide more ZTC options.

“We hope that students will notice these symbols in course registration systems, then wonder why they don’t have more courses in their program that are zero or low-textbook cost and become more involved in OER advocacy.”–Arianna Cheveldave

Through funding programs and partnerships with post-secondary institutions, BCcampus supports projects that expand the use of open educational resources and help reduce costs for students across British Columbia. The BCcampus Cost Indicators project will soon release a call for proposals from institutions looking to start or expand a cost indicators initiative such as the one at UFV. For more information, keep an eye on the project page.

Watch the video

The Roadshow celebrates teaching and learning throughout the province, and creates opportunities to connect, explore, and engage with current themes in education.

BCcampus is Back on the Road

This year, from June 1–10, 2026, we are visiting four locations:

• Vancouver Island University – Nanaimo Campus, June 1, 2026
• North Island College – Comox Valley Campus, June 3–4, 2026
• Coast Mountain College – Prince Rupert Campus, June 8, 2026
• Coast Mountain College – Terrace Campus, June 9–10, 2026

All sessions are free and open to all educators and learners. Join us at one or more of our stops and become part of our growing community!

Check out the Roadshow website for the schedule at each location, and registration details.

Connecting Communities

A key goal of the Roadshow is to ensure educators in regional areas have an opportunity to connect with colleagues in fun and engaging ways.

“With gratitude and the excitement to meet many of you in person, I hope that you will make this an annual event, as colleagues who did not sign up are excited to attend in the future, after I bragged about this Roadshow. What an apt name for the event!”–2025 Roadshow Participant

Each stop on the Roadshow is developed in close collaboration with the host institution. We work with local teams to design a program drawing from a wide range of offerings to create an experience tailored to each community. These include workshops, sessions, facilitated discussions, and a catered off-site social event – all designed to foster connection and the exchange of ideas.

“The sessions I attend were informative and well taught. Sometimes you go to workshops or sessions and leave wanting more, like they didn’t give practical tools or tips. But I found the Roadshow well-focused and you actually walked away with ways to implement. I really appreciated that.”–2025 Roadshow Participant

If you’re interested in learning more or bringing the Roadshow to your institution, please get in touch to start the conversation.

On March 11, 2026, as part of the BCcampus EdTech Sandbox series, I introduced participants to the generative artificial intelligence tools Research Rabbit and Consensus. In particular, we looked at how these tools can bolster academic literature searching for post-secondary students and researchers. Workshop participants explored how AI can support literature reviews in practical ways, while also examining the ethical issues related to GenAI tools, such as plagiarism, privacy, and research integrity. Participants gained a foundational understanding of key AI-powered literature searching tools and learned how to evaluate their outputs for accuracy, relevance, and bias through hands-on activities.

The session was bookended with a mix of introductory and contextual slides about the artificial intelligence landscape, and ethical considerations for academic researchers. In the middle section of the workshop, I presented an overview of each of the tools, placing them within a larger context of other GenAI tools, followed by substantial, experiential, hands-on time for learners to work through directed activities designed to enable the familiarity, utility, and use cases of both tools.

Outline of the Tools and Their Main Features

Both tools were presented as providing support to expand the literature searching process, within the context of the challenges of both finding enough key sources on our research topics, as well as identifying the most relevant sources among a sea of results.

Research Rabbit works semantically to search the metadata of existing literature, providing visual connections between related papers based on citation connections. When searching by topic, researchers can ‘seed’ a map with one or more references to find connections to other articles.

Research Rabbit is citation-based, linking source metadata, including abstracts and references, to other sources that cite or are cited by the others. Given that this tool is not searching the full text of sources, no summary or chat feature common to some other tools is available.

Consensus also surfaces papers for literature searches, and provides a key takeaway for each paper, which is essentially a generated summary. Also, Consensus has a chatbot feature enabling the user to query one or more papers more deeply for additional commonalities, differences, themes, etc.

Strengths of the Tools for Researching

The corpuses of both tools consist solely of existing scholarly articles and outputs so researchers can be safe in the knowledge that all references surfaced in these tools are authentic. While both tools are free to use, both also have a paid tier to access additional features and/or number of searches. These tools are safe and reliable ones to introduce to students for use, along with library databases, in their literature review needs.

Research Rabbit’s main feature is its intuitive visual mapping of citation relationships. As such, the researcher can easily see clusters of authors or papers citing one another, providing leads for further references, as well as identifying sources by currency and/or higher citation counts. Additionally, Research Rabbit can find similar articles to ones you’ve identified by using its semantic search to infer related topics and sources.

Consensus searches semantically as well as across the full-text of articles, using your search terms to retrieve references. The platform provides a textual overview of results, identifying the key themes within the results and linking to the related sources of information. In the free tier, Consensus generates summaries (called snapshots in the platform) for up to 10 articles a month, which provide additional attributes of the top article results, such methods, population, and results.

Weaknesses and/or Considerations Before Implementing the Tool

While both tools rely on Semantic Scholar (which has agreements with many academic publishers) as part of their corpuses, users should understand that both rely heavily on open access content. While it is encouraging that open sources are, as such, likely finding a larger audience in these tools, users should be mindful that a typical B.C. university library provides access to a far greater number of sources, including ones behind subscription paywalls that are not available to these platforms. Consensus does, however, provide for institutional linking to facilitate access to your library’s available online subscriptions from within their (more limited) set of results. Hence, these tools are best thought of as supplements to our library database searching rather than replacements.

Research Rabbit defaults to mapping only 20 sources at a time (in the free tier), requiring the user to move forward to the following page of results to get a map of the next 20 sources. This feature prevents the user from enjoying the overall map of related sources at a glance, and somewhat undercuts the main feature of the platform. Consensus does suggest more features available in their paid Pro tier, but being made aware of these features may cause some frustration for the researcher. As such, users may find the free tiers somewhat limiting as they potentially prevent us from accessing the full potential of the tools.

Recommended Activities

Directed activities for learning about these two tools, as well as two additional tools Elicit and Undermind, are available on the workshop LibGuide.

Reflections on the Webinar

Overall, workshop attendees definitely preferred the much broader tool of Consensus to the more focused Research Rabbit. Learners valued the additional contextual information Consensus provided about the overall search topic, as well as the individual attributes available in the study snapshots of articles. The learners had many great questions and comments, and I would like to thank them for their engaged and supportive participation.

Webinar Resources and Transcript

If you missed the webinar, or want a quick refresher, you can access the webinar recordings and transcript here:
EdTech Sandbox Series: Literature Searching with Artificial Intelligence

Background

Alyssa: Since 2021, British Columbia’s annual death rate has exceeded that of the birth rate, so it may surprise you to learn that many nurses receive very little education regarding death, dying, and grief.¹ ² ³ As someone who has recently gone through a nursing program, I received almost no death education, with the exception of what I asked my instructors to cover. Recognizing this gap in education, one of my professors decided that we could make a positive change within our institution. Dr. DiFrancesco designed a study to explore whether graphic memoirs, autobiographical comics told through image and text, could be used as educational tools for learning about the socio-cultural dimensions of death, dying, and terminal illness.

Darryn: In 2025, my father was hospitalized with complications from stage four cancer. He spent almost a month in the in-patient unit before passing away in April. I was fortunate to be able to spend many days with him during his final weeks. During this time, I witnessed examples of end-of-life care that ranged from spectacular to poor. It was my sense that some of the junior nurses were uncomfortable with the dying process and lacked skills to connect with my dad and our family.

Reflecting on the concerns raised by Alyssa and my other students, I wondered how we could support nursing students in gaining more confidence around end-of-life care. Research supports this concern: although Canadian nursing schools report incorporating death into the curriculum, students consistently report feeling unprepared to deal with death in clinical environments, suggesting that more ought to be done.² ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ The current literature suggests that even the slightest attention to the topic of death in a safe setting, such as class discussion, has tremendous results on nursing students’ perception of death.⁷ Studies show that when students have the opportunity to reflect upon death and examine the impacts and complications experienced by families, their attitude towards dying patients and their families improves.⁸

As an avid reader, it struck me that graphic memoirs could generate exactly the kind of reflection and discussion nursing students need. In conversation with my class, I raised the idea of using comics as a non-intimidating way to learn about death and dying. They were supportive of the idea, so I pitched it in my application to the 2025–2027 BCcampus Research Fellows program.

Research Methods

Our study attempts to measure the impacts of an educational module (incorporating a graphic memoir and reflective discussion) on nursing students’ self-perceived confidence around death and dying. Students first complete a survey incorporating questions about demographic information, prior experiences with death, and questions from the Self-Competency in Death Work Scale (SC-DWS), a validated scale that explores professional self-competency in dealing with death.⁹ Next, they read a graphic memoir from a pre-selected list and participate in a structured, reflective class discussion about the story and takeaways for nursing practice. After this, they complete a second survey in which they complete the SC-DWS again and answer open-ended (qualitative) questions about their experience participating in the educational module. The research will measure changes in students’ self-perceived confidence in handling death in clinical settings while also exploring their comments about the learning experience.

In addition to the student component, we are also soliciting feedback from instructors about the feasibility and value of integrating the graphic memoir module into their classes. Once the study is complete, we hope to develop an open educational resource (OER) to support other instructors wishing to incorporate graphic memoirs and comics into their courses.

What We Hope to Accomplish

Through this study we hope to understand whether and how comics can be used to help nursing students (and other students in caring professions and programs) learn about death, dying, and empathetic care. Death is a difficult topic for many people, often exacerbated by a culture that frequently denies or is fearful of death.¹⁰ As accessible, interesting, and unique media, comics present an excellent opportunity for students to learn about death, dying, and patient and family experiences in a low-stakes, non-intimidating way. Discussing death openly in a structured classroom setting can help nursing students think about how they can better support dying patients and their families, ultimately enhancing those difficult final moments while also improving their own abilities to cope with this challenging experience.

Who Benefits From This Research

This research has the potential to benefit multiple groups. Nursing students stand to gain confidence and a greater sense of preparedness around end-of-life care,¹¹ and better-prepared nurses mean better experiences for dying patients and their families during one of life’s most difficult moments. Creative, low-stakes death education may also reduce the risk of nurse stress and burnout, supporting both individual well-being and high-quality care.¹² Finally, instructors in nursing and other caring professions will be able to draw on our findings and our OER guide, should they wish to bring a similar approach into their own courses.

Ultimately, death is something that affects us all. The end-of-life is a period worthy of our time, attention, and ongoing reflection.

References

1. Government of British Columbia. Fertility Trends in British Columbia: 1991–2023. 2025.
2. Parry ME. Student nurses’ experience of their first death in clinical practice. Int J Palliat Nurs. 2011;17(9):446–51.
3. Vogel L. Nursing schools to teach new ways to cope with death. CMAJ. 2011;183(4):418.
4. Edo-Gual M, Tomás-Sábado J, Bardallo-Porras D, Monforte-Royo C. The impact of death and dying on nursing students: an explanatory model. J Clin Nurs. 2014;23(23–24):3501–12.
5. Wilson DM, Goodwin BL, Hewitt JA. An examination of palliative or end-of-life care education in introductory nursing programs across Canada. Nurs Res Pract. 2011;2011:907172.
6. Murnane S, Purcell G, Reidy M. Death, dying and caring: Exploring the student nurse experience of palliative and end-of-life education. Br J Nurs. 2023;32(11):526–531.
7. Alt-Gehrman P. Education provided to undergraduate nursing students about end-of-life care. J Hosp Palliat Nurs. 2017;19(6):571–579.
8. Chu E, Jang S. The effects of a death preparation education program on death anxiety, death attitudes, and attitudes toward end-of-life care among nurses in convalescent hospitals. J Hosp Palliat Care. 2021;24:154–164.
9. Chan WCH, Tin AF, Wong KLY. Coping with existential and emotional challenges: Development and validation of the self-competence in death work scale. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2015;50(1):99–107.
10. Frommelt KHM. The effects of death education on nurses’ attitudes toward caring for terminally ill persons and their families. Am J Hosp Palliat Med. 1991;8(5):37–43.
11. Testoni I, Ronconi L, Orkibi H, et al. Death education for palliative care: a European project for university students. BMC Palliat Care. 2023;22:47.
12. Pfaff K, Markaki A. Compassionate collaborative care: an integrative review of quality indicators in end-of-life care. BMC Palliat Care. 2017;16:65.

March marks National Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) month in Canada, a time to recognize the role of experiential learning in connecting students, employers, and post-secondary institutions. At this time, institutions and organizations use the opportunity to highlight how WIL prepares students for meaningful careers and strengthens partnerships between education and industry.

Across British Columbia and the Yukon, WIL continues to grow as a vital part of students’ post-secondary experience. From co-operative education and internships to practicums and applied research, these opportunities place students in real-world environments where they can apply their learning and develop career-ready skills. Behind every successful WIL experience is a network of professionals who design programs, build employer relationships, support students, and collaborate across institutions.

Moving into work-integrated learning rarely follows a single path. Some arrive through career education, experiential learning, industry partnerships, or student services. WIL is not just a role – it is a community of practice. At a time when the post-secondary sector is navigating financial pressures and shifting priorities, professional learning and collaboration across institutions are more important than ever.

Finding Your WIL Community

One of the most valuable steps for someone new to the field is connecting with colleagues doing similar work.

ACE-WIL B.C./Yukon brings together practitioners from universities, colleges, and institutes across the region to share ideas, collaborate on challenges, and advance the quality of work-integrated learning. Through professional development opportunities, networking events, and communities of practice, the organization helps professionals strengthen their skills while building connections across institutions.

For those new to WIL, this community offers a space to explore questions many practitioners share:

• How do we design meaningful WIL experiences for students?
• How do we support employer partners effectively?
• How do we create inclusive and accessible learning environments in the workplace?

Learning from colleagues across the province can make entering the field feel far less daunting.

Supporting the WIL Student Journey

Professional development can also help practitioners build confidence and shared approaches to supporting students. The ACE-WIL Practitioner’s Professional Development: Supporting the WIL Student Journey course, offered through BCcampus in partnership with ACE-WIL B.C./Yukon, is designed for practitioners who work with students before, during, and after their WIL experiences.

The course explores practical topics such as preparing students for workplace learning, guiding reflection and skill development, and navigating challenges that may arise during placements. It also helps practitioners better understand how institutions, employers, and students work together to create meaningful WIL opportunities.

For many practitioners entering the field, the course provides a helpful starting point and a shared foundation for supporting student success.

Learning Together

Another valuable way to build knowledge and connections is through our annual conference, which brings together WIL practitioners from across the province and the Yukon. This year, we have joined forces with CACEE to host a joint conference at Thompson Rivers University on May 24-26, 2026.

The conference creates space to share innovative practices, explore emerging trends in experiential education, and learn from colleagues working across different institutions and WIL models. For new practitioners, these gatherings can be especially valuable for building networks and discovering new approaches to supporting students and employers.

Building the Future of WIL

Even during challenging times in the post-secondary sector, the importance of work-integrated learning continues to grow. WIL practitioners play an important role in helping students link their education to real-world experience. For those entering the field, professional learning opportunities and strong practitioner networks can make a meaningful difference.

By learning together – through initiatives like the ACE-WIL Course and gatherings like the ACE-WIL BC x CACEE Conference – we continue to strengthen the WIL community and support the success of students across our institutions.

Since the Sunflower was established in the UK in 2016, it has been adopted around the globe and is recognized across a broad range of sectors including universities, schools and colleges. 

Hidden disabilities – such as neurodivergence, chronic illness, health conditions, learning disabilities, and sensory processing differences – are not always immediately apparent, yet they shape how many people experience learning, work, and public spaces. By joining the Sunflower program, BCcampus is taking another step toward making our work, events, and digital spaces more welcoming and responsive to diverse needs. 

How it Works

You’ll begin to see the Sunflower program reflected across BCcampus activities and platforms. If you wish to signal to others that you have a hidden disability, please take a Sunflower lanyard at in-person events, or use a Sunflower virtual background online.  

Staff wearing the Sunflower have been trained to respond respectfully and appropriately when support is requested. 

Participation in the Sunflower program is always optional. Wearing or displaying the Sunflower does not require disclosure of a diagnosis – it simply signals a preference for understanding and consideration. 

Why This Matters

As an organization committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion in post-secondary education, we recognize that accessibility is more than physical infrastructure.  

The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower offers a simple, voluntary way for individuals to signal they may benefit from additional time, patience, or support. Just as importantly, it provides a shared framework for organizations and communities to learn, listen, and respond with empathy. 

A Step Toward More Inclusive Spaces

We see our membership in the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower program as one part of a broader commitment to inclusive practices across the post-secondary sector. By modelling awareness and accessibility, we hope to encourage conversations and actions that make learning and collaboration more equitable for everyone. 

To learn more about the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower program, visit the official Sunflower website. Download the virtual backgrounds from the BCcampus Sunflower Program page. Any questions? Please reach out to sunflower@bccampus.ca

We are excited to present the February 2026 BCcampus Award for Excellence in Open Education to Dani Collins, Open Press Publication Manager at Thompson Rivers University. 

In 2012, Dani started work as a Course Editor in the TRU Curriculum Services Department under Naomi Cloutier. Her introduction to open education came through copyediting BCcampus-funded open textbooks, where she worked with TRU and Open Learning faculty, including John Douglas Belshaw on Pre-Confederation and Post-Confederation and Christine Miller on Human Biology. These projects shaped Dani’s understanding of OER’s impact on access, affordability, and student learning. 

In 2015 Dani became supervisor of editing and copyright at TRU Open Learning, managing teams responsible for editing courses and for supporting the use of third-party materials across Open Learning and the wider campus. At the same time, she continued work on open education projects, such as copyediting the International Journal of E-Learning and Distance Education. This work eventually led to Dani playing a key role in the TRU Open Press.

The TRU Open Press was founded in 2023, thanks to a three-year TRU Integrated Strategic Planning grant. The TRU Open Education Working Group (OEWG) chair and vice-chair, Brenna Clarke Gray and Marie Bartlett, secured this grant to develop open educational resources and support open educational practices at the institution. The idea for the Open Press and its publishing model was built on TRU’s long history of OER development dating back to 2007, as well as best practices and guidelines cultivated across the open education community in British Columbia and elsewhere. 

At Open Press, Dani supports open education projects through practical publishing workflows, including project intake, editorial coordination, copyright and permissions review, accessibility considerations, and final publication. Dani’s small but dedicated production team — including a copyeditor, a production expert, and three co-op students — works collaboratively with inspiring faculty authors, instructional designers, editors, librarians, and students to publish OER projects according to best practices and in ways that best meet their needs and goals. 

Intentionally structured to support the OER development process from conception to publication to promotion, TRU Open Press operates as a people-centred hub for OER publishing that meets OER developers where they are. By offering dedicated publishing expertise and hands-on guidance, Open Press staff free up OER developers to focus on their pedagogy and content.

“I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work alongside such thoughtful, inspiring, and committed people,” says Dani, “and I see this work — and any recognition of it — as belonging to the community and team that make it possible!”

TRU Open Press is slated to conclude its operations on March 31, 2026. By this date, the press is expected to have completed nearly 80 OER projects, including open textbooks, multimedia learning resources, student-authored works, and open journals. Options for continuing the Open Press are currently being explored.

Relevant Links 

• Browse TRU Open Press projects 
• TRU Open Press nominated for 2025 Open Education Global Award for Excellence 
• TRU | Open Learning on LinkedIn 

The views shared are those of the author and contribute to ongoing conversations at BCcampus about AI, teaching, and learning.

Is it possible to still resist AI in higher education when the train has already left the station?

I have written about the tensions I feel when using GenAI in a previous blog post. And, while I still have so much learning to do, I am not completely anti-AI, but I am anti-inevitability and pro-educational judgment.

One of the reasons I want to continue to support educators in understanding how to use AI appropriately in the classroom is that the resistant-to-AI folks I come across often consider a “No AI” policy announcement in the course outline sufficient, or decide that going back to pen and paper exams will solve all AI-woes. I have difficulty with both these responses as I think our students deserve more. In our BCcampus AI workshops, we often share the AI Assessment Scale (AIAS), encouraging educators to be clear with students about their reasons for allowing AI or for not allowing AI in classrooms and assignments. Transparency and communication about our reasons will not only help students understand but might also build trust instead of resistance. As for the rush back to pen and paper exams, Dr. Ann Gagne articulates the problem with this ableist response much more eloquently than I could in her Accessagogy podcast.

What I deeply hope for is for educator agency in a time of technological overwhelm. As Dr. Neil Fassina, president of Okanagan College, recently stated in a FLO panel, “the speed of AI is evolving much faster than our post-secondary institutions can adapt.” And that’s where we find the tension: while AI has surfaced the need to redefine or clarify the purpose of higher education, educators and students are trying to figure things out in the classroom, without much guidance from administration. Unfortunately, no one seems to know where the pause button is. Refusing to use AI in your classroom often leads to accusations of being resistant to technological change. Surely, there is still a place for pause and careful consideration of the tools that have proliferated in our learning spaces?

I found Duart et al.’s framework to counter the AI-inevitability narrative helpful in formulating a more productive resistance. Rather than positioning resistance as a single stance or a blanket refusal, Duarte et al.’s framework helped me see resistance as plural, contextual, and deeply practical. It offers four interrelated ways educators can respond to AI without surrendering to inevitability: resisting, refusing, reclaiming, and reimagining. This framework can help us move beyond a binary of adopt versus ban and, instead, it invites us to ask: who decides how technology enters education, and in whose interests is it?

Figure:  Four Ways to Counter Narratives of AI Inevitability (from weandai.org)

In this framing, resisting is about pushing back on the narrative that AI must be adopted everywhere and immediately. It asks us to slow down, question urgency, and examine whose interests are being served by rapid adoption. To resist doesn’t mean you are rejecting AI outright, but it means questioning the assumption that adoption is automatic, neutral, or urgent. Resistance shows up when we ask ourselves and those who want us to use AI tools, what problem is this tool actually solving?

Refusing is more targeted and intentional: it is the act of drawing clear boundaries around when, where, and why AI does not belong in a particular course, assignment, or learning context. Here your refusal to use AI in the classroom is not fear-based, but a form of professional judgment (which you, ideally, communicate clearly to your students).

Reclaiming shifts the focus away from tools and back to educational purpose. It invites you, the educator, to reassert what matters in teaching and learning: relationships, process, disciplinary ways of knowing, and human expertise.

Finally, reimagining asks us to consider the question: if we were not constrained by inevitability narratives, what kind of education would we build now? It invites us to imagine learning environments that prepare students to exercise judgment, navigate ethical complexity, and participate critically in a digital world, not necessarily an automated version of education. My colleague, Dr. Gwen Nguyen, created this table to illustrate the questions we can ask ourselves in applying this framework:

So, is it possible to still resist AI in higher education when the train has already left the station? I think it is, but there is a caveat. While Duarte et al. (2025) advocate for the future of AI as a shared decision, I think we might have to let go of the idea that resistance must be collective or absolute. Some educators will choose to board the train; others will not. The more pressing question may be whether we are still allowed to decide. In a landscape shaped by speed, pressure, and inevitability narratives, educator judgment becomes an act of care. Perhaps resistance today is not about stopping the train, but about insisting education remains a relational, contextual practice, and that our students are entitled to more than inevitability.

Reference

Duarte, T., Kherroubi Garcia, I., Anshur, R., Humfress, H., Orchard, D., & Wright, S. (2025) Resisting, Refusing, Reclaiming, Reimagining: Charting Challenges to Narratives of AI Inevitability, We and AI.