Whose interests do automation, algorithms and datafication serve? Manifesto authors Dr Jen Ross, Dr Jeremy Knox and Dr Pete Evans are joined by Professor Neil Selwyn from Monash University in the first of three events marking the launch of 'The Manifesto for Teaching Online'.  The book can be purchased via MIT Press.

Online courses are prone to cultures of surveillance. Visibility is a pedagogical and ethical issue. The creeping normalisation of surveillance often accompanies technology decisions, even when addressing apparently neutral educational goals like access, enhancement or efficiency. Jen Ross talks about surveillance cultures in higher education, and how we resist, respond to and participate in them.

Algorithms and analytics recode education: pay attention! Data-driven technologies often promise disruption, objectivity and new kinds of precision to how we teach. Jeremy Knox looks beyond the hyperbole to discuss the political, social and economic interests that shape such promises.

Online teaching need not be complicit with the instrumentalization of education. Digital education is often championed by those who see the health of the knowledge economy and employability as the driving purposes of education. Pete Evans argues that we should push back on these instrumental logics.

Neil Selwyn responds to the talks before opening up to audience input chaired by Clara O'Shea.